How to fix electric burners that always stay on

💡 Note that I am not an electrician or licensed professional to do this. Please take every precaution and hire a professional if you don’t feel comfortable. This is just an account of my personal experience.

The Problem

Our front left and back left burner on our GE stove top would only heat at the highest temperature. Didn’t matter if we set it to low, the burner would stay on constantly.

I did some searching and reading and found that most likely the issue has to do with the infinite switch. This switch turns on and off at specific intervals in order to regulate the temperature. When they go bad it can mean that it just stay open and your burner will stay on all the time no matter what setting.

The Solution

It was simply a matter of entering our stove model into the GE Appliance Parts & Accessories website to get a list of replacement parts. You can find the infinite switch for the specific burner you need to fix.

💡 Safety - make sure both the breaker is off and the stove is unplugged from the wall.

Once I had the part, I pulled off the knobs on the front of the stove panel to reveal two screws. Unscrewing these released the infinite switches that I was going to replace.

Then unscrewed the protective panel on the back of the control panel to reveal the infinite switches and their associated wires.

Replace

I first took photos of the existing switches, specifically showing how the wires connect. Always good to have a reference in case something gets mixed up.

Then I replaced the wires one by one. Remove one wire from the old switch and attach it to the correct place on the new switch. This way it is unlikely that wires will get mixed up.

Close up and test

Once the wires are in place, screw the switches back on the panel, replace the rear panel, and put the knobs on the new switch.

I grabbed a pot of water and place it on one of the burners with new infinite switches. I set the knob to 3—a setting that previously would have boiled the water fairly quickly.

It works! Water gets warmed slowly and never comes to a boil. I can hear the click of the infinite switch as it turns the burner on and off to regulate the temperature. I can also watch the burner itself light up for only a brief period of time.

Conclusion

Just to have a technician come diagnose the problem would have costed more than the parts. It’s fun to feel like you have a little power in repairing things in this day and age. So often we’re told just to replace things but I find that a little wasteful for my tastes. If I can repair it, I definitely will try.

Now we have a working stove again

Reference

Here is the primary video I used for reference, although there are a bunch by AMRE Supply that are great as well.