The casserole comes out cooked but pale, the garlic bread refuses to brown, and the broil setting produces… a faint warmth and regret. A dead broiler with a healthy bake mode is a tidy, self-contained fault — the two systems share almost nothing except the cavity — and it sorts by fuel in minutes.
Electric ovens: look up and watch
Set broil, wait two minutes, look at the top element. A healthy one glows ember-orange across its whole length. No glow at all: the element has failed open (they snap like their bake siblings, just less often per year of use because broil sees fewer hours — yet they fail younger in absolute terms, because broil runs at full-tilt maximum every single time, no gentle cycling). Partial glow or bright spots: a dying element with weak sections — replace before it fails theatrically. Full glow but weak results: check rack position and the door — many modern ovens broil with the door closed, and the old crack-the-door habit actually trips their limit thermostats. If the element checks out visually but never energizes, the meter moves upstream to the selector switch or the board's broil relay.
Gas ovens: the second igniter nobody remembers
Many gas ovens have two burners — bake below, broil above (or in a drawer) — each with its own igniter. The broil igniter is the forgotten twin: set broil and watch it. Glows but no flame: the igniter has weakened below the current the safety valve demands — the classic, inexpensive gas-oven repair, just on the upper burner. No glow: the igniter itself or its feed. Broil-drawer models add a dose of crumb archaeology; a cleaning is sometimes half the repair.
The selector plot twist
When both bake and broil misbehave in complementary ways — broil dead, bake weak, or modes swapping personalities — suspect the selector switch or control board routing power, not two coincidental element failures. It's one diagnosis, not two, and the meter settles it fast.
Worth fixing? Almost always
Broil elements, igniters and switches sit firmly in the affordable ring of oven anatomy, stocked for the common brands across the San Jose metro. One visit, a written fixed price, and we verify the fix the only honest way — a slice of bread browned evenly edge to edge before we pack the van.
