Yikes, indeed. As if selling a home was not already stressful enough!

But was that a home appraiser or a home inspector?

Also, 5 or 10 minutes longer than what? 10 minutes? Did the inspector/appraiser just rely on a preheat indicator?

If so, I'm guessing that the appraiser/inspector doesn't cook and has no idea that that most oven preheat indicators are grossly inaccurate as a measure of actual oven preheating.

Forgive me if I sound cranky -- sorry if this is coming across as a rant that hijacks your thread --- but the oven preheat indicators on most stoves exist for the sole purpose of giving manufacturers some bragging rights. The indicators only measure air temperature which is just the start of preheating. It is the oven walls that need to be preheated, not just the air. A proper preheat will take at least twenty to thirty minutes (and sometimes 40 minutes) with almost every normal oven. You want the point where the oven temperatures stabilize with the cavity walls fully heated to give you relatively even baking or roasting. If your stove's preheat indicator is telling you that it takes 20 to 25 minutes to preheat, you may have one of the few stoves with a something close to a reasonable preheat indicator.

Now, it is possible that something could be wrong with your oven. I gather that you have not been having any problems cooking in it. A quick check with an hardware-store oven thermometer will dispel the possibility of an oven that is too hot or not hot enough. If you set your oven for 350F and it holds close to that after a 20 minute preheat, your oven is fine.

If anybody gives you guff about this, make them go read Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cusine or at least visit the web site. Or google with a search string like this:

oven preheating + (myhrvold "modernist cuisine")

You'll discover waaaaayyyyy more than you ever thought anybody wanted to know about how ovens work and what fussy people/techincal visionaries (take your pick) want to do about it.

This post was edited by JWVideo on Wed, Oct 1, 14 at 1:40

Well Said!

Great points. Some ovens will do a "full preheat" that delays the beep until the oven is completely preheated. I believe the brands that do this are Wolf and KitchenAid. Those two brands also get frequent complaints for long preheat times, go figure.

Was it a home appraiser or a home inspector? Home inspectors are not experts in everything about a home but serve to point out real or potential problems to prospective home buyers. We recently sold our house and the home inspector was absolutely incorrect about a number of items and alarmist about a number of minor issues. Unfortunately, it's then up to the seller to prove him (or her) wrong. That being said, I would never buy a house without a home inspection. But, checking out an oven sounds more like an inspector than an appraiser.