When we moved into our house almost 3 years ago, we were excited about the Wolf range that went with the kitchen. For the most part, it's been great... but we finally decided to address two issues we had with it... and found a third once we started work.
1. The oven lately had been taking a long time to start, and when it finally did, it scared the bejeezes out of us - sometimes blowing the door open and getting a lot of gas smell. After a lot of searching, I found a couple things online that lead me to believe this was because the ignitor had started to wear out. Apparently these things only last 5 or so years. Sure enough - a new one, bought from
Mr. Appliance Repairman on ebay did the trick. It wasn't too hard to replace - the only tough part being that the screws are in a very tricky spot. After firing it back up, we found that our slow pre-heating issue was also solved! The Christmas prime rib roast pre-heating to 500 degrees took about an hour and a half. We roasted some brussel sprouts last night at 400 degrees and it took about 5 minutes. MUCH better. Issue #1 (and #1a solved).
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| old ignitor out, new ignitor installed |
2. While reading the owner's manual, I learned that you're not supposed to line the bottom of the oven with foil... oops. I thought we were being clever, but apparently it's not a good idea. I believe the manual - don't line the bottom of your Wolf range with foil - it will kill the porcelain, and may have caused the bottom sheet metal to warp.
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| porcelain flaking off |
3. When the oven was on, it seemed there wasn't enough gas getting to the burners. After much research, I finally found this one guy that had the exact same problem: see his video on YouTube
here. I e-mailed him to see if he finally resolved his problem. Apparently he called Wolf and they went through 3 ranges to get him one that worked fine. I didn't want to deal with this hassle, and felt there had to be a more sensible solution - it really shouldn't be a faulty range. After pulling the unit out to clean it and generally check things out, I noticed the flexible tubing connecting it to the gas line seemed way too small. I also read that it shouldn't be longer than three feet, and this was four feet. I was also amused to find a tag for the installer - it was very clear they shouldn't use the standard "range" supply line you pick up at Home Depot. I think it was a 4-foot long 1/2" flexible line. I found a 3-foot long 5/8" flexible line and swapped them. The 5/8" flexible line is an outside diameter dimension, and it's about 1/2" inside diameter - which is consistent with the plumbing in the range. I also added up the BTU/hr listed on the range and came up with 96,000 max BTU/hr - which matched the specs on this 5/8" line (75,000 to 125,000). We should be in good shape now. After firing it up, it still didn't seem to be perfect... but it was MUCH better. I can live with this.
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| original small line installed, bigger line waiting to be installed |
Since it was so hard to find info about all this online, I hope this serves as another data point and possible solutions for others having similar challenges with their Wolf range. For reference, ours was made in 1997 (I believe that's before Sub Zero bought the company) and it is a R364c model (36" wide, 4 burners and a grill). I have a feeling there isn't much info out there, because Wolf really encourages people to use their "authorized" service, etc... I say, baloney. This isn't rocket science. It's a very simple appliance that anyone can work on... just use the normal caution when working with natural gas and electricity. If you're unsure, educate yourself or hire someone. I prefer the "educate yourself" route - clearly hiring someone doesn't always work - I'm assuming some "professional" had incorrectly installed this in the first place.
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