Gas oven or electric oven: check this first
A Viking range can hide either kind of oven. All-gas ranges bake with a gas burner. Dual fuel ranges pair gas burners up top with an electric oven underneath. The two break in different ways, so our first question is always which kind sits in your kitchen. The rating plate inside the door frame tells us.
This page is about ovens that are part of a range, plus the steam and speed ovens Viking sells. Built-in wall ovens are a different product. Our general oven repair page is the place to start for those.
Gas ovens that take forever to heat
Viking gas ovens bake with one U-shaped burner, and Viking rates it at 30,000 BTU. A glow igniter sits beside it. That igniter does double duty. Its heat lights the gas. Its current also tells the safety valve when to open. An old igniter can glow orange and still pull too few amps. Then the valve opens late or stays closed. You smell a whiff of gas, the preheat drags and the oven never reaches the set point.
A new igniter fixes most of these. If the igniter tests good, we check the safety valve and the oven sensor next.
Broiling is a different system. Viking calls its gas broiler Gourmet-Glo. It is an infrared burner in the roof of the oven. It has its own igniter. So the broiler can be dead while bake works fine.
Electric ovens in dual fuel ranges
Here the bake element is hidden under the oven floor. Viking calls it a concealed 10-pass element. You will not see it glow. When it burns out, the oven heats only from the broil element and the fan. Cookies burn on top while the bottoms stay pale.
Viking also has a TruConvec mode. It uses only the rear element and the fan, with no heat from top or bottom. If that mode is cold but regular bake works, the rear element or its relay has failed. A Rapid Ready preheat that is no longer rapid points to one dead element out of several.
- Oven sensor. A thin probe on the back wall. When it drifts, the oven runs hot or cold by 25 degrees or more.
- Relay board. It switches each element. A stuck relay can leave an element on.
- Thermal cutout. It trips if the cooling fan fails, and the oven goes dead.
Fan noise, door leaks and hot knobs
The convection fan motor sits behind the back panel. Worn bearings squeal or rumble. A bent blade ticks against the baffle. Viking shapes a ProFlow baffle for each oven size, so it must go back in the right way after a repair.
Door trouble is about heat loss. Weak hinges let the door sag open at the top. A flat gasket does the same. Heat pours out past the control panel and the knobs get hot. Both hinges get changed together, and a new gasket goes on during that visit.
Steam and combi-speed ovens
The RVL line includes a steam convection oven and a combi-speed oven. The steam model can start a roast with steam and finish it with dry heat. It has a 15 minute steam clean cycle and a food probe. Steam ovens add water parts that a plain oven lacks. Hard water leaves scale, and scale is what hurts them most. If steam output drops, run the descale routine in your manual. A probe that reads wrong usually has a dirty or damaged jack.
How an oven visit works
A+ charges $79 to diagnose an oven in a home. Go ahead with the job and you do not pay that fee. First we find the failed part and show you. Next comes a fixed oven quote, labor and parts both inside it. You can say no. We offer same-day visits for most oven calls and work from 6 AM until 9 PM on all seven days. Oven techs from A+ are insured, hold a license and have a background check on file. They carry igniters, sensors and common elements. The repair has a 30-day repair warranty. You can also book on our website.
We are family owned and independent of Viking.
Try these before booking
- Clip a cheap thermometer to the center rack and see how far it sits from the dial.
- Watch the igniter through the floor slots. A glow with no flame after 90 seconds means a weak igniter.
- Pull foil off the oven floor. It traps heat and can damage a hidden element.
- Check the clock or timer knob. Some models will not heat in a delayed mode.
Oven repairs on a Viking range are nearly always worth it. The parts are small next to the price of the range. We repair them around Chicago, listed on our Illinois service page, and also in Houston, greater Los Angeles, the Virginia suburbs and D.C. See all Viking repairs or, if the burners on top are the issue, Viking range repair.