# Dispute: Oven malfunction after h/w guys used the circuit



## rational (Nov 27, 2010)

We bought a home last fall and had a fair amount of remodeling done on it. In the kitchen, the only remodel was refinishing the hardwood floors -- nothing else was modified.

The hardwood contractor, subcontracted by the general contractor, accessed the 220v circuit powering the double oven (and in that process disconnected the oven) to power their sander. We didn't know that happened, but when we moved in and noticed that the oven was off. We noticed there was an open panel below the oven and there were three loose wires sticking out of the wall. Suspecting they were live wires, I immediately turned off the oven circuit in the master panel. Later, the electrical contractor came in and pointed out that the h/w guys accessed the circuit (contractor confirmed it) and left it without reconnecting the oven. He put the wires back in order and when the oven turned on, the control panel started beeping with an error (F1 on Dacor).

Contractor called an oven service technician who pointed out that the error is a result of a malfunctioning circuit board in the front of the oven. He said that accessing the oven's circuit in and of itself couldn't have caused that problem, because if there was a short, the main circuit would have been fried. The general contractor has latched on to that and is telling us that the floor subcontractor is not responsible for the oven problem.

Well, the oven was working before the subcontractor accessed the circuit and left the live wires exposed -- they were in that state for two months. Meanwhile, the drawer, behind which the live wires reside, was closed, so it would have pushed the live wires against each other. When the electrical subcontractor fixed what the h/w subcontractor didn't, there is a problem with the oven.

Is there absolutely no way the front circuit board couldn't have been affected with the live wires left exposed for several weeks (and a drawer pushing against them)? I am asking the general contractor to own the problem and fix it - is that an unreasonable request, considering that they accessed the circuit and left it in that state until we discovered the problem?


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## hardwareman (Oct 9, 2010)

thats a tough one, most likely diconnecting the stove and leaving the wires dangle did not do anything to damage your pcb. If the wires had actually touched the drawer it would have blown the circuit breaker. It may very well look unprofessional (as well as dangerous) but I do not think they did anything to damage your oven. I can not think of anything they could have done to cause the damage without seeing some kind of evidence of it. Sorry but i think this is all just coincidence


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## rational (Nov 27, 2010)

Thanks hardwareman. I understand, from the face of it, it is unlikely. However, the oven was functioning before they accessed the circuits and two months after that, with the wires left in that exposed state, when a different electrician tidied up the wires and turned the oven on, there is a malfunction in the pcb. That makes it hard for me to accept that the problem developed in the two months the oven was unconnected. The problem most likely happened during the disconnect or reconnect or in between with the wires left exposed.


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## bhennon (Feb 12, 2011)

I am a little confused about when it was connected vs. not connected. So you didn’t have an oven for two months or did the Floor people "tap" into the line, leaving the oven connected with wires exposed?

I agree with hardwareman, it sounds like a bad coincidence. I often deal with similar problems where people say "It worked fine yesterday" and my answer is usually that things just break sometimes. If your car battery dies 50 miles after you fill your tank with gas, is that a coincidence or did the gas I used somehow cause a battery problem? 

With that said

I guess you could argue that if the floor contractor had not tapped into your oven line then this may have never happened (we will never know). 

It is also possible that when disconnecting the wires, the floor guys shorted the 220 to the stove which popped the breaker and fried the circuit board then reset the breaker and didn’t mention it. 

Have you discussed splitting the difference with the contractor?


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## rational (Nov 27, 2010)

I found more information about the specific error code, and it suggests that the heater relay control board has shorted.

http://www.justanswer.com/appliance/3yvb3-dacor-ovens-cps230-double-electric-single-convection-30-sound.html


To make things clear about the timing, we weren't living in the house during the extensive remodel. We visited the home once in a while before remodeling and during remodeling, and spent long hours some days working with architect etc, and the oven was on and displaying time.

We moved in two months after the hardwood guys worked on the floor (the entire remodel took 4 months and the hardwood guys were in the middle of the schedule) and didn't realize that the oven was not working. The home wasn't a pleasant place to visit for a while after the hardwood work was done (on site swedish finish on hardwood floors, painting in progress etc) so we just didn't have a chance to notice that the oven was off until after we moved in.

Not sure how it is conincidence if the unit was working before and was malfunctioning after they powered it up. What happened in between with the exposed wires is likely the source of the problem (as suggested by the link I found above -- same problem and same model as our oven).


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## rational (Nov 27, 2010)

bhennon said:


> I am a little confused about when it was connected vs. not connected. So you didn’t have an oven for two months or did the Floor people "tap" into the line, leaving the oven connected with wires exposed?
> 
> I agree with hardwareman, it sounds like a bad coincidence. I often deal with similar problems where people say "It worked fine yesterday" and my answer is usually that things just break sometimes. If your car battery dies 50 miles after you fill your tank with gas, is that a coincidence or did the gas I used somehow cause a battery problem?
> 
> ...


The oven was disconnected for two months (we were not living in the house during the remodel. It was a home we purchased last fall and moved in after the remodel, but visited the house several times in between for home inspection, remodel design etc) from the time the hardwood guys accessed it and the time we moved in. We called the contractor to help us connect the oven (I didn't know what to do with those live wires) and when their electrician tidied up the wires, the oven was on again and started displaying the error.

How is this a coincidence? Your analogy about the car's battery problem 50 miles after gas fill up is wrong. The oven wasn't turned on at all and the only thing that happened in between was movement around exposed wires (cabinet pushing against those wires) -- the wires were left exposed by the hardwood guys and they own the problem of what happens as a result of that sloppiness.


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## nap (Dec 4, 2007)

res ipsa loquitur

It worked when it was disconnected. It was malfunctioning when it got reconnected. There is no evidence of any other interaction in between those events. 

The onus is now upon the party that apparently caused the damage to provide some, at least plausible but more likely supported explanation as to how it could have happened other than through their actions.


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## hvac122 (Dec 10, 2007)

I would guess that the circuit board was on the verge of failing and when power was disconnected and reconnected it just went out. Its man made and can just go bad. 
Is there wood floor under the range? If so the stove would have had to been moved anyway. From what you describe they were unprofessional but did not cause the board to fail. 
Chalk it up to stuff happens and get it repaired or replaced on your dime.


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## hardwareman (Oct 9, 2010)

rational said:


> Contractor called an oven service technician who pointed out that the error is a result of a malfunctioning circuit board in the front of the oven. He said that accessing the oven's circuit in and of itself couldn't have caused that problem, because if there was a short, the main circuit would have been fried.


is there some reason you do not trust or have confidence in this mans professional opinion? If you feel he is incorrect then you need to call another tech in and get his evaluation, but I suspect that then you would have the price of a pcb plus another service charge to pay for. 
PCBs go bad all the time, thats just the way it is.


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## nap (Dec 4, 2007)

hardwareman said:


> is there some reason you do not trust or have confidence in this mans professional opinion? If you feel he is incorrect then you need to call another tech in and get his evaluation, but I suspect that then you would have the price of a pcb plus another service charge to pay for.
> PCBs go bad all the time, thats just the way it is.


I believe rational is listening to the service tech. I mean, after all, the tech did say this:



> . He said that accessing the oven's circuit in and of itself couldn't have caused that problem,* because if there was a short, the main circuit would have been fried*.


so, the floor guys use this circuit and leave it HOT. That would tend to suggest they disconnected it hot, used it and then disconnected it hot and foolishly left is exposed. I don't know how much work clearance they had in connecting and disconnecting but from the OP's explanation, it sounds like there was a great possibility there could have easily been a short circuit.

All it would take is an instant of one hot wire tagging the frame of the oven and POP, there goes a board. 

and I think you need to listen to the service tech. Remember where he said this:



> *He said that accessing the oven's circuit in and of itself couldn't have caused that problem*, because if there was a short, the main circuit would have been fried.


so, if all the floor guys did was tap into the circuit, why oh why did the board just happen to self destruct when it was hooked up by the electrician?

Common sense says it happened while the floor guys were in the house. Since they are the only party to touch the thing, I do not see any reason they could avoid culpability.


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## hardwareman (Oct 9, 2010)

nap said:


> so, the floor guys use this circuit and leave it HOT. That would tend to suggest they disconnected it hot, used it and then disconnected it hot and foolishly left is exposed. I don't know how much work clearance they had in connecting and disconnecting but from the OP's explanation, it sounds like there was a great possibility there could have easily been a short circuit.


 
impossible, there is no way they disconnected it hot, they would have been fried themselves.

and I think you are misunderstanding what the tech is telling him, the tech is saying there is no way that disconnecting it caused the board failure. he has an F1 code which means pcb failure. He DOES NOT have any evidence of a fried board.


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## nap (Dec 4, 2007)

> hardwareman;638013]impossible, there is no way they disconnected it hot, they would have been fried themselves.


really? Why is that? I have had very few things I could not work on hot it I had to or chose to.



> and I think you are misunderstanding what the tech is telling him, the tech is saying there is no way that disconnecting it caused the board failure. he has an F1 code which means pcb failure. He DOES NOT have any evidence of a fried board.


no, I am not. I agree he said there could not be a failure simply due to tapping the circuit but a short would fry the main circuit. So, what is the "main circuit"? It surely isn't the power supply circuit from the panel as a short would not fry that circuit but would simply trip the breaker. The main circuit, to me, would be the main power circuit within the appliance, you know, like the one powering the PCB that is now malfunctioning. 

as to the fried board:



> Contractor called an oven service technician who pointed out that the error is a result of a malfunctioning circuit board in the front of the oven.


unless he specifically stated it was not "fried", being fried would definitely fall under "malfunctioning board"


and still, the tech said "simply using that circuit would not cause the board to go bad". Well, since the board is obviously bad and simply using the circuit would not cause a problem to the board, logic says they did something else that caused the problem. 

as I said before: res ipsa loquitur. It worked before the floor guys touched it. It didn't work immediately after they touched it. That does allow one to draw a conclusion that something they did caused the problem.


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## rational (Nov 27, 2010)

hardwareman said:


> is there some reason you do not trust or have confidence in this mans professional opinion? If you feel he is incorrect then you need to call another tech in and get his evaluation, but I suspect that then you would have the price of a pcb plus another service charge to pay for.
> PCBs go bad all the time, thats just the way it is.


I respect his professional opinion, but he only spent all of 5 minutes looking at the oven before concluding that the only problem is a bad circuit board. If he actually replaced that and the oven started functioning properly, I would agree that was the problem. But he didn't replace anything so it is not clear if the problem is entirely contained within one circuit board. IMHO, when you are dealing with a non-trivial electromechanical system, you need to solve the problem to know what it is. A theory isn't sufficient.

As I posted in my message earlier in the thread (#4), there is another expert opinion out there suggesting the F1 error code is a result of a shorted heater relay control board. When I see "short" and given the exposed wires, I have no other cause for this problem.


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## rational (Nov 27, 2010)

hvac122 said:


> I would guess that the circuit board was on the verge of failing and when power was disconnected and reconnected it just went out. Its man made and can just go bad.
> Is there wood floor under the range? If so the stove would have had to been moved anyway. From what you describe they were unprofessional but did not cause the board to fail.
> Chalk it up to stuff happens and get it repaired or replaced on your dime.


There is (probably) wood floor under the double oven, but this is a wall unit and there are cabinets around it. None of them were (re)moved to access the floor beneath them. They only removed the one drawer below the oven to access the circuit powering the oven.

I understand stuff happens, but put yourself in my shoes. If I charged you a pretty penny to provide a service at your home and left behind some serious damage for you to discover at a later time, would you have the same "stuff happens, move on at your own expense" attitude? I bet you would be a tad unhappy and would demand I fix the problem I left behind. I have already ignored some small stuff resulting from the project manager's lack of attention to detail, but this is a bit too expensive to overlook.


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## bhennon (Feb 12, 2011)

rational said:


> How is this a coincidence? Your analogy about the car's battery problem 50 miles after gas fill up is wrong. The oven wasn't turned on at all and the only thing that happened in between was movement around exposed wires (cabinet pushing against those wires) -- the wires were left exposed by the hardwood guys and they own the problem of what happens as a result of that sloppiness.


The only thing that I did to my car was put gas in it, so that MUST be the problem with the battery. Doesn’t seem rational right? Well, what the contractor is saying is “the only thing they did was hook the electricity back up to the stove" if that was the reason for the fried board then a brand new one would suffer from the same issue.

It is a tough situation to be in since there will be no way to prove one way or the other what the actual cause of the failure was but simply hooking it to power (properly) is an unlikely root cause although removing it from power and re-hooking it could have been a catalyst for an issue that was probably going to happen anyway.


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## nap (Dec 4, 2007)

> =bhennon;638214]The only thing that I did to my car was put gas in it, so that MUST be the problem with the battery. Doesn’t seem rational right?


 but there is no logical connection between your battery and putting in gas. There is a logical conslusion between having exposed energized electrical wiring and a PCB that now malfunctions.

If you want to use a properly analogous situation, feel free but so far your scenario is not even close.

Here is something a bit closer.

you drive your car through a parking lot that you see has nails spread across it. When you wake up the next day, you have a flat tire. Now, the logical conclusion is you got a nail in your tire from the parking lot that prior day.

Now, think of the nails and the energized electrical supply and the tires as the circuit board. 




> Well, what the contractor is saying is “the only thing they did was hook the electricity back up to the stove" if that was the reason for the fried board then a brand new one would suffer from the same issue


the problem is: that does not include the possibility the people that had connected and disconnected the power previously had accidentally shorted the power supply to the appliance. You seem to skip the actions of the floor guys in your scenario.





> It is a tough situation to be in since there will be no way to prove one way or the other what the actual cause of the failure was but simply hooking it to power (properly) is an unlikely root cause although removing it from power and re-hooking it could have been a catalyst for an issue that was probably going to happen anyway.


that's actually funny because nobody, including the OP has ever said that simply hooking up to the power and reconnecting it to the appliance was ever the cause of the problem. The possibility the actors had accidentally caused a short circuit is the action that would have caused the damage.


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## creeper (Mar 11, 2011)

Wow what a can of worms. Since I know nothing about circuitry I guess I don't really deserve a say, and I don't mean to stir the pot further, but why did the floor guy have to take the oven apart to get power. How would they have operated their sander had the job been in, say an upstairs faraway bedroom? No one can say for sure whether the appliance was about to fail or not, but since they took it apart, and were unlicensed to do so, and then failed to put it back together ......


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## rational (Nov 27, 2010)

creeper said:


> Wow what a can of worms. Since I know nothing about circuitry I guess I don't really deserve a say, and I don't mean to stir the pot further, but why did the floor guy have to take the oven apart to get power. How would they have operated their sander had the job been in, say an upstairs faraway bedroom? No one can say for sure whether the appliance was about to fail or not, but since they took it apart, and were unlicensed to do so, and then failed to put it back together ......


They didn't take the oven apart. They accessed the 220 V circuit powering the oven -- it was below the oven, hidden behind a drawer, accessible through a panel. Apparently it is common practice. What is uncommon about this incident is they didn't return the circuit/panel and oven to their original state.


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## rational (Nov 27, 2010)

The contractor acknowledged that his flooring subcontractor was unprofessional in the way they left the wires. He had the circuit board replaced and the oven is working again.


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