GE Spectra (electric stove)

GE Spectra (electric stove)

I have a slightly used GE Spectra -- 2 years old. I have only toasted toast in this oven -- I use the cooktop occassionally. An entire coil started on fire while I was toasting toast. The entire coil completely burned out. The fire department had to come. This is virtually a NEW stove.

I had to extinguish it with a fire extinguisher -- and the stove is ruined, as far as I'm concerned. I do not trust it for any further use. I would recommend anyone who owns a Spectra be very, very wary of the coils.

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I just bought a house with a GE spectra electric range. I have been in the home for 2 weeks and yesterday while using the oven the heating element began sparking and caught on fire. I immediately turned the oven off and waited a minute hoping it would just burn itself out, but it continued to grow larger in size to the point that I felt I needed to do something. I also ended up using my fire extinguisher to put out the flames. VERY scary! And disturbing reading all these similar stories and seeing that GE has done nothing about it!!

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me too! 10/20/11 Had this oven since '02 have used it regularly (5 or 6 times a week) Can the element be replaced?

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My GE Spectra - less than 6 years old, did the same thing last night. Put in bread to toast. Turned on the Broil Units - worse than 4th of July fireworks. I turned off the unit, the sparks would not subside. I then unplugged the unit to no avail. The element continued to spark and flame, actually got much worse until I was able to grab the fire extinguisher and use it! This fire started almost immediately after turning the Broiler on. Thank heavens I was still in the kitchen. Could have very well burned the house down! I also DO NOT TRUST this appliance any longer.

I just got off the phone with GE Customer service to find out if there in NOW a recall on the stove. I was treated very rudely by the Customer Service Rep. She informed me that the appliance was out of warranty - that it only had a 1 year warranty to begin with.I once again asked about a recall, she informed me there was no recall and her only suggestion was that they could schedule a technician to come out and repair the stove/oven. Told her "No thanks! This unit will NOT stay in my home. And furthermore, I will be filing a complaint with The Better Business Bureau." BUYERS BEWARE!!!

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Have never had an electric over before. My wife turned on over and the element just started sparking. Luckly we caught it soon enough. Fire went out when turned stove off. Can't believe these ovens have not been recalled. I am going to replace the part myself but very upset.

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I have a GE Spectra about 4 years old. The heating coil caught fire while cooking a covered dish of potatoes and squash! It looked like a torch burning at the front left of the oven. The fire slowly moved towards the back of the oven. My husband poured water on it until it went out. After about 20 minutes of cooling, we opened the oven to find the element snapped in half in the front. I have never had this happen before and am terrified of ever turning it on, even if we replace the element.

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Same here... Was pre heating to make some biscuits. Sparks started flying and I had to unplug it. Crazy!

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i had the very thing happen last night 4-5-11. this oven is about 10 years old, wasnt suprised that the coil could quite, but when it went up in flames i was shocked. i got it out, but not till i unplugged the range. water and baking soda would not put it out. If we were not in the room it could of been a major fire.

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WOW this is unbelievable!.I have a Spectra Oven,and it was sparking on left side,then on fire!The fire burnt the element in half. I was preheating the oven at the time,thank goodness!I cut off the oven,and it died down.

My Christmas dinner was ruined.Amazing my house didn't burn down.

I am reading all of these comments,and wondering why there was no recall.

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To those that believe getting a new coil is the solution---STOP!

In Sept. 2002, I bought a GE Spectra from Best Buy.....In 2005, I bought a replacement igniter and coil from GE---and and paid nearly $125! Last week, Oct. 9, 2010, I baked a pot roast. On Oct. 10, 2010, the oven would not light up---gas--ONCE AGAIN, I will have to replace the igniter and the coil....Although I did not see the 'fire'...yesterday, my brother the electrician, showed me the proof!!!!! when he THOUGHT maybe he could fix it!

IF I spend the money on this next repair, I will have paid too much money, for this stove. Trust me, however, GE having gone to the dogs in 'quality', has swayed my decision to buy another brand---

The stove we replaced in 2002, was 25 or so years old....purchased by my parents---that ugly green color--and still working.

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I have the GE Spectra too for 6 yrs w/o problems.1 month ago was baking and It would not heat. Took the food out, turned oven off & the sparks flew....I was horrified, sparks like the 4th of July. Never seen anything like it in an oven before.Threw the breaker is the only way to slow it down.It finally burned out Thank God. I can't believe there wasn't a recall on this.Ihave all GE appliances when we built this house 6 years ago and I already had to replace the washer with a Kenmore after 3yrs.GE isn't the company or quality it use to be.That makes me sad!!!!!

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The same thing happened to us tonight. I was heating the oven up for Pizza and thankfully noticed a bight light in the oven. We thought something must of spilled but then looked and the coil was in half and burning it's way around the element. We had to turn the breaker off to stop it!!! I am contacting GE tonight!

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July 2010

Our GE Spectra Stove oven heating coil decided to go up like a 4th of July Sparkler last night. The interior of the stove was spotless (my wife is a clean freak). It'll be about $50 for the coil and $50 for labor, so fixing it is cheaper than buying a new stove.

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I have the same stove and the element cooked itself in half. I put the fire out by pulling the stove out of it foyer area and unplugging it. Imagine if this was a senoir citizen which does not have the strngth. It would have been listed as a regular fire caused by some unkown problem but not oven related.

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The aame thing happened to our GE Spectra this morning. The bottom element started sparking and a white-hot arc moved around the length of the element until it reached a 4" piece that burned and dropped off. This is unacceptable and dangerous!

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I also have the JBP78 and I was heating the oven yesterday (1/1/10) when I heard a strange sound. I was on the phone and looked over to my range and was like, "how did the light get on??" So I turned the light "off" and realized that it wasn't on so I opened the stove to find the upper heating element glowing orange and sparking like one of those silver stick sparklers. There were sparks flying everywhere and when one jumped out of the stove I closed the door. I ran and got my video camera and tried to record what was going on. My sister-in-law was on the phone while I was tripping out. She told me to pull the plug but for some reason I couldn't find the plug. Not only that, my breakers aren't tagged so I had no idea which one would turn it off. The "fire" continued around just one half of the element and then stopped when it made it's way around to the back. I am going to try to replace it since I really don't feel like replacing the entire unit. Everything else (including the lower element) still work. But this has got to be some kind of safety hazard but unfortunately until it causes serious injury GE probably won't recall the units!!

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My Ge Spectra aprx. 4 yrs old. ruined christmas dinner. The top got regular use with no problems. The oven which was used very few times..another story. After placing the Turkey in the oven @ 325 for two hours I opened the door to baste and the curved potion of the element was glowing bright orange & white then started sparking and flaming..I will be contacting GE. I won't bother replacing the element..using this stoves oven again is not worth burning My House Down. The only way to stop the flames & sparking was to turn off power @ the breaker box.BAH HUMBUG on this model.

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I have a GE spectra 9 years old. Model JPB24. Last night I was preheating a warm oven for caramel corn (200) and about a minute after putting the food in, we heard the strangest noise. It sounded like those star wars sound effects from the light sabers,(at least the kids thought so) I noticed a bright light thru the window and we were freaking out. The light seemed blueish to me. But that part's not important. That went on for a minute and then the breaker to the oven blew, and smoke was pouring out of the top vent. I didn't want to open the oven, so maybe that's why the fire stopped as soon as it did? When everything calmed down my husband threw the breaker back on and the clock worked and the top burners worked. I turned on the oven just to see (stupid, I know) and noticed that one end of the bake element had burned off from the back. It glowed reddish orange for hours even though there was no fire. My question is, do we replace this element and try again or replace the oven? This has been an excellent range for us and we use it all the time. It kept perfect temperatures and baked evenly,unlike others I have used. I called the 800 number that was on the stove unit and they gave me a part number for the new element. 75.00 including shipping. She said it wasn't in any recalls, but gave me the consumer relations dept number. She was very friendly.

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I had the same thing happen to me this evening. Oven is about 8 years old. I turned the oven onto preheat. When I opened the oven to put the food in there was a spark. The fire continued to move around the element, like a welders' arc. About 3 inches fell off but it continued to burn... about 10 - 12 inches burned before it stopped. I question the safety of the stove if I get it fixed. Won't be able to get resolution for a couple days, Saturday evening after Service Center hours... wonder if we will have a oven for Christmas!

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Same issue with my JBP78 model. The element did not stop burning like a sparkler until I flipped the breaker off.

I called the GE consumer line and got a case number as a safety issue. The person scheduled a service call no charge. The service guy showed up today and told me that it was not unusual for the elements to burn out like that. He said they may break off a stop burning or burn until it gets to where it connects in the back of the oven and stop. He did not seem concerned and I paid him for the replacement part.

I checked my manual and it said nothing about the element burning out like that. I would like to see some kind of notice to the consumer so they are prepared if it should happen.

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Same thing happened to my oven: Model GE JBP78 freestanding range, purchased in 2000. It looks fairly common from what I have seen on the web.

When I noticed light coming from the oven I saw that one small area of the baking coil/element (coil was fairly clean) started to spark/arc and there was a very bright small flame. The flame then started travelling along the coil. I got the extinguisher ready and shut off the oven. But the flame didn't stop, it travelled another few inches as I wondered how that was possible. It wasn't just a flame, it was sparking. Next I turned off the breaker and it went out immediately. Interesting. The whole process was only about a minute, but, when I inspected the coil I realized it must of been going on for longer before I noticed: The coil was broken in two places. Didn't call the FD since it seems under control after cutting power.

Found the replacement part for this particular model repairclinic.com. A few other websites have it as well. Make sure you are getting the right heating element for the exact model number. One thing about GE, for my model, there is a zero in the model number which none of the websites (or GE) use anymore. My full model number: JBP78A0B2AA. (By the way, for this model, model & serial numbers can be found on the left inside the botom drawer of the oven.) Part was $50. Couple screws replace it. Pretty simple.

GE said there was no recall on this particular model, and I made a complaint. My two issues were:

1. The element was fairly clean and only 8 years old. (Maybe that's ancient with today's applicances...)

2. The element kept burning even when the oven was off, only turning the breaker off stopped it. It seems dangerous even though the oven has a firewall (and perhaps other safety mechanisms that I don't know of).

There are a lot of posts about this of late on the Internet. Interesting that more posts appear right after Thanksgiving.

Safety: I see a lot of posts with people stating that they put flour on the fire. VERY BAD!!! Let's spread the word now... Flour is flammable, not only that, it can explode if there is a lot of it. Baking soda is the right stuff for small fires (supposedly even electrical ones), but regardless, you really need a decent fire extinguisher in the kitchen. Not the cheap plastic ones. Get a real extinguisher from a fire prevention company and have it checked every year (They tag the extinguisher to show that it passed).

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I have a GE spectra also, about 2 yrs old. Every burner has literally fallen apart, as they are very cheap. The burner INSIDE the oven, on the base of it, caught on fire for no reason and broke! I had to replace that. I have had to replace 2 burners, and the third one when I went to replace it, discovered that the connection WAS MELTED!! I wondered why I had been getting shocks for a while, I thought it was just static/metal, etc, but now I see that it is the burner connection. As a result, I have only had use of 3 burners (instead of the 4 i paid for!) for a while now.. Tonight, I just tried to turn on the only large burner left, and wondered why the food didnt get hot.. well, the burner won't turn on now! THis is the worst oven I have ever had. I won't trust GE again because this is a definite fire hazard.

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Yesterday, we had the same issue- area seemed to be burning brighter than the majority of the coil- then, it started sparking and caught fire. We turned off the oven, and extinguished with a fire extinguisher

Today- went to use my oven and it will not heat- is "lukewarm" at best.

Is GE going to fix this?!

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We have a GE Spectra JBP66 about 9 years old. My wife happened to be up a 1:00 am. She was not cooking and the stove was off. She heard a sparking noice and saw flames coming from back of the stove. All the dials were off. The upper element (broiler) was on. She went to the circuit breaker and turned it off. This stopped the sparking and the fire stopped. Thank the Lord she was up. I tried contacting GE but they are closed today (Sunday). From the string of comments this is a very dangerous product.

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This just happened to me also. I turned on the oven to pre-heat, put cookies in when heated. I had noticed a brighter red area (less than 1 inch area on element) and was concerned. The oven was clean, nothing on the element. Within a couple of mins after preheat, I checked and saw a bright light inside. the element was burning with a white flame, and sparking/arcing. I turned off the unit, and the flame continued to travel through the element. I was worried what would happen when it reached the end. Being electrical, I wasn't sure what to do, but realised I needed to cut the power at the fusebox. That put it out. I will be calling GE because this looks like it happens alot...

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My Spectra JBP26 is just shy of 7 years old and I've never had a problem with it. About a month ago I was broiling salmon and heard a popping noise and saw a small flame, thought it was oil on the coil from the fish cooking ... wrong ... it happened again so I shut off the oven. Luckily that stopped it.

I had to finish my salmon in the microwave ... yuck ... was afraid to use the stove top at that point.

Does anyone know if there is a recall? I haven't been able to find anything.

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same thing happened to me as everyone else is describing. any recalls? GE planning on doing anything about this?

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Last night same thing. I turned on the broiler and while in the kitchen noticed a very bright light emitting from the oven. I looked inside and the broiler coil was on fire. It looked like a sparkler on the 4th of July. The flame burned itself around the coil like a sparkler would and turning it off did not help whatsoever.

The oven is 6 years old but not overly used. I've never heard of such a thing. I've had ovens that were decades old and still worked.

Can it be repaired? I don't even think I want to repair it. Are these coils sold by GE only or is this problem everywhere?

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Just had the same thing (element burnout) happen to us tonight. Fortunately, the breaker tripped before the entire range could catch fire. glass top units still work but the oven heating element is burned in half.

Is there a recall on these? If not, should be.

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I too have a GE Spectra oven and experienced very similiar problems as aforementioned. I was baking at 375 degrees and noticed a very bright white light and intially thought it was food on the coil. After removing the food, turning off the oven, using water and baking soda to distinguish the coil, it did not work. My husband called the fire department and after unplugging the unit, the light faded and cooled. It was very obvious the coil had "burned" due to an electrical problem. Thankfully it did not lead to a kitchen fire!

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The same thing just happened to me tonight. It looked just as you described it and would not go out until I unplugged the unit. This is dangerous and I saw where others have had the same issues. Has anyone reported to GE and with any luck for a possible recall here? Please let me know. Thanks

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My wife turned on our GE Spectra oven to warm up for cooking dinner, and about 1 minute after turning on, she noticed a bright light coming from the window. We opened the door, and the lower element was on fire, like a welders arc. It was popping, snapping and even when I turned OFF the oven it kept sparking and popping. I had to kill the breaker and got a spray bottle to spray water on the point just before the arcing to kill the heat. Very dangerous. If I wasn't here, I don't know what my wife and 2 kids would have done, or how bad this could have gotten. I have never seen an oven do this before.

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I also have a GE Spectra electric freestanding range. It's either a JBP10, JBP26 or JBP30 (not sure) It's about 3 years old. About 1 year ago, the back right coil started popping and snapping, so I stopped using it. This week, the coil inside the oven caught on fire (electrical fire, not a fire due to food on the coil). Even when we shut off the stove, the fire and sparks did not shut off. Had to use fire entinguisher and shut off the breaker to get the fire & sparks to stop.

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I was warming up my Spectra oven to bake cookies last night (375) and looked down and also found the heating coil on fire. The fire looked like a candle at the end. Each part the fire touched broke and crumbled to the ranch floor. I pulled flour on it trying to put it out and that just burned though. This stove was about 3 yrs old and under very light use. I use the over, maybe once a month for short amounts of time. The only way to get the fire out was to unplug the stove. Very Dangerous!