You may seriously injure yourself if you test an oven element while the oven is on. If your oven is fixed into the wall, flip the appropriate fuse on your fuse box to turn the breakers for the room off. While oven elements look different, they are almost always a single loop of metal. A continuity test sends an electrical signal down one end of the coil and assesses how accurately and successfully the signal reaches the other end of the coil.

Heating elements come in different shapes and sizes, but the overall steps are the same regardless of your make or model. The heating element is black or gray when the oven is off. When the oven is on, these elements glow orange.

Most ovens have 2 heating elements—one on top for the broiler and one on the bottom for the oven. You can test either element, but you must remove it from the appliance. Elements may be shaped differently from model to model, but the overall process is the same for every element. Some elements have more than 1 screw on the plate holding the terminals in place.

Every multimeter is different. Some have digital menus, while others us a rotating dial. Consult your multimeter’s instruction manual if you can’t figure out how to set it to test ohms. The other multimeter settings include voltage (V), which basically measures the power of a current, resistance (mAVΩ), which measures how a current is throttled by a material, and current (A), which is the rate, or speed, of an electrical signal.

The higher the number on the multimeter screen, the greater the difference between the input signal and the output signal. If it helps, imagine the multimeter’s probes like 2 ends of a pipe. The number on the screen is how much water leaks out of the pipe when the water is running. If the number on your screen is higher than 1. 0 and you’ve already cleaned your terminals, replace the wires for your multimeter—they aren’t picking up signals correctly. If the number on the screen is 0 or 0. 1, your terminals are in really good shape and you’ll get a very accurate reading. Digital multimeters will usually beep when an electrical signal has continuity.

It doesn’t matter which terminal you put the red and black wires against, so long as they aren’t touching one another.

Standard continuity readings come in the form of a double-digit number with a decimal point. A reading of 1 with no decimal point on the left side of your screen means that there is no signal whatsoever. On some multimeters, it means that the reading is so high, it can’t be displayed on your screen. If the continuity is under 50 ohms and your oven still isn’t heating properly, the problem is not the heating element itself.

Oven elements are pretty big. It is pretty easy to identify them.

If you test for continuity and the coils still don’t glow, the problem is likely related to the wires in the back of your oven and you’ll need to consult a service technician.

If you notice your oven isn’t heating evenly, a cracked or blistered heating element is often the culprit.

You can purchase an oven thermometer online or from a home supply store for $5-10.