My understanding is that many models now have an automatic cut-off after 12-hours... so if you didn't turn off the oven after the first batch, it would have cut itself off at 3a -- 12 hours after the first batch was begun.

If you don't want that feature, it is possible to buy a new oven with (I think it's called) a "Sabbath" mode, which can be set to override or ignore the 12-hour safety.

My oven is just old enough to NOT have the 12-hour cutoff, for which I am grateful. I do a fair amount of consecutive baking that run into 15- to 18-hour sessions, and if the oven had cut itself off during a session, I don't doubt my fury would have singed the ears off the idjit who put that control on.

Okay, maybe it is a good safety feature, but not everyone needs an electronic gadget to do their thinking. And 12 hours? I suspect some guy who only uses a microwave picked that number.

But I appreciate the warning, and when time comes to replace the old oven, if I can't get a new one without the 12-hour cut-off, I'll make sure to get the 'Sabbath' mode.

OMGosh, I'm glad you posted this because like both of you, I also have occasion to run my oven for long stretches and I'd have been more than a little p.o.ed to wake up and find a huge amount of beef cold in the oven. If I ever buy a new oven, I'd want to know this.

I try to read instruction books about features on tools and appliances before I use them, but I just bought a card reader for a camera and it had five pages of instructions in as many different languages to install a device a monkey could have set up by accident.

I wonder how many houses catch fire from ovens? None I've ever heard of. As an aside, I bought a clothesline the other day and it even had a warning on it. The warning simply said "Do not use this device in an unsafe manner". Short of fashioning a noose, I can't think most peoople set out to use a clothesline in an unsafe manner, or if they did by accident a written warning like that wouldn't have been of much help to prevent it.

That's very interesting. I had never heard of that feature.

LOL at the clothesline. It reminds me... last weekend we bought one of those plastic one-piece kiddie pools for our dog. It came with a warning not to dive into it!!... lol... I'll have to keep a close eye on Jessie for highdiving into his foot of water.

Well, the only time my oven did the 12 hour cutoff was when I forgot to turn it off the night before. I really think that a loud beeping after, say, three or four hours would be more practical. That would save six to eight hours of electrical usage that is wasted with the twelve hour cutoff and if you are still actually using it when it beeps, you can reset and leave it on.

I wonder why they call it a safety switch?

I've been thinking about this... if you put a hunk of beef in, it's gonna char and (really stretching the imagination here) maybe possibly even flame eventually... but I'd think a whole lot sooner than 12 hours -- if it did char, I'd think the smoke would set off your smoke alarm. And if you were slow-cooking, the only thing that would happen after 12 hours is a pan of mushy meat or whatever, but I doubt that slow-cooking would do anything dangerous even in 12 hours. If you are baking bread or cookies or pies, then shoo, you're in and out of the oven frequently because if you aren't paying attention they WILL smoke up the place. But again, that doesn't qualify for a 12-hour switch!

Seems to me that the so-called safety switch isn't, which means it's just an excuse for a fancy electronic that will go bad sooner or later. Have you noticed that when a fancy-dancy electronic goes bad, even if it's the least useful part of the unit, it will cause the whole electronical control to blip. Then you find out it's almost always cheaper to replace the item than to replace the part? A sneaky form of built-in obsolescence.

I agree. I used to work for one of the nation's largest appliance manufacturers in their engineering department. We put out a good product, but when I bought my own new, I picked out the plainest and simplest model they made. I tore apart and tested a random sample of every model coming down the line and then later moved into the lab and tested vendor parts. I had a really good feel for what was likely to fail in a range or oven. If you really need bells and whistle, fine. I spend more time at a cook unit than the average person does, and I can do without bells, whistles, buzzers and computer modules. A basic oven, cook-top or stove is a pretty straight forward appliance and can operate with little maintenance for decades and those things likely to give up like stats or temp sensors are not that expensive as a part and I can repair them myself.......a fancy one isn't the same story.

I didn't know about the automatic cut-off, either, but have never had my oven going 12 hours for it to kick in--or off. :>)

What I think should be on ovens, at least mine, is a warning that there are SHARP edges--most of them, in fact. I cut my right index finger just below the first joint by brushing my hand along the edge of the oven door as I was closing it. It took a big slice of skin and gave me a nasty cut. To say the least, I was very unhappy with that darn stove. Upon closer examination, I found most of the edges in the oven and pan drawer are sharp enough to cut.
If they were even slightly rounded, there would be less chance for cuts. Needless to say, I've very careful, now, when I open/close the oven and/or pan drawer.

My mom had one just like the one in the link below and cooked up a storm.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wedgewood Double Oven White Porcelain Stove

Wow, those stoves took me right back to when I learned to bake, not long after a new [to us] cookstove was installed. It had five regular burners, a soup pot well, a griddle in the middle, and a huge oven to the right. The bottom of the oven was on level with the burners. And warming ovens above the burners, which is where you put the pie or cobbler to keep it hot for desssert.

Memory also reminds me that this was in the years before A/C, and cooking/baking for a large family could -and did- heat up the kitchen so that just walking in made the sweat roll down your face. That was a big kitchen, what nowadays is termed a great room. Middlish in the room was a table that comfortably sat twelve; one end of the table was tucked into a large bay window. Sat 4 or 5 kids who could be trusted not to lean back onto the glass. Those seats were great in the summer breezes, but quite cold in the winter. Dad always sat in the chair closest to the stove, and I don't know how he could bear the heat waves from it when it was 90° outside in the shade. It never occurred to me to wonder how mum could bear to be inside cooking on those miserably hot days.

meldy

I think the cutoff timer is for those of us (like me) who put the hunk of meat in the oven, cook it, take it out of the oven, serve it and go to bed forgetting to turn the oven off.
Why it's set at 12 hours, I have no idea. Surly a shorter time period would save more on electricity and still be effective. (my preference would be to not have it at all)

Those vintage stoves were cool to view. When my first gas stove quit at only 15 years I had to get rid of it. Why Because it was the electic mother board and there was no sketch of it in my manual and the repair guy who had been in business for decades had died and the new repair guy was clueless. I swore I was going to drive out to Amish country and get me a real gas stove with no electric anything. Instead I bought a pretty basic gas stove. Still electronic pilot. This time around, when it goes, I am getting a basic. I wonder if I could afford one of those restored stoves? If not, I found the Brown Stove, all made right here in the USA and they have basic no automatic anything. With my messiness, I will miss the self cleaning oven.

When we renovated our kitchen two years ago, I kept our electric built in oven, but bought a gas cook top. I went to a home improvement box, and the clerk swore they didn't make pilot light gas cook tops anymore, so I grabs his catalogue and found it, of course. He moans and groans and says he'll have to order it, and I assure him I'm fine with that, thankyouverymuch.

Here's what I've noticed about appliances, vacuums, sewing machines and the like in the last couple decades. Used to be the very stripped down simple basic models were heavy and well made, just not as fancy. You paid for the extras. Now, they all come with extras whether you want them or not, and have replaced the glass and metal components with cheezy plastic wherever they could get away with it and just overall cheapened up the quality of the units.

I took a sweeper back to the big "S" store I'd bought and used once. The belt broke, no big deal, but I looked at it to replace it and it was little more than a large rubber band. There was an alien repair man on duty and I showed it to him, once I got past the clerk with the attitude and he didn't speak much English. He looks at what I am showing him, sucks in his breath and says that's a piece of ............... you fill in the blank because I can't repeat that word here. LOL.

And since I am on a roll, whoever thought up the idea of nylon gears?