Look at the bake element through the open oven door before you touch anything. If it is blistered or split, the element has failed and the fix is to replace it. That is the fastest path through this problem, but it only works if you can see the element. Some ranges hide the bake element under the oven floor, and I could not find a reliable list of which models do that, so if you cannot see your element, the visual check is not available to you and you will need to go straight to a meter.

If the element looks intact, run two meter tests before you buy anything. If both pass, the control board relay is the next thing to check, not a confirmed cause, just the next thing worth ruling out.

If you’re matching a replacement: GE and Hotpoint owners typically match their model to WB44K5012 or WB44X10009. Frigidaire owners typically take 316075103.

The review corpus behind this is solicited and almost entirely five-star, which sounds like a strange thing to cite in a troubleshooting article, but it tells you something real: when people bother to leave a review about a bake element, it’s usually because the failure was dramatic and obvious, sparks, arcing, a visible break in the coil. That pattern shows failures are usually visible. It does not mean most people skip diagnosis; it means the people writing these reviews mostly didn’t need to.

The visual check

A damaged bake element is blistered or split, in the words reviewers themselves use. If you see either, you don’t need a meter. Order the matching element and move on. If the element looks whole, straight, no bulge, no crack, no burn-through, go to the tests below.

The two meter tests

You’ll want a multimeter, with the oven unplugged or its breaker off. Before you take anything apart, unplug the range or switch off its breaker.

Test one: resistance across the terminals. Set the meter to measure resistance (ohms, a measure of how much the element resists electrical flow) and touch one probe to each of the element’s two terminals. PartSelect’s own testing guide gives 19 to 115 ohms as the acceptable range. A reading of zero or infinite means the element’s coil itself is open or broken, and that’s a clear failure.

Test two: the ground check, done separately. Touch one probe to a terminal and the other to the element’s outer sheath (the metal tube the heating coil runs inside). This is a different question than test one. A terminal-to-terminal reading can look completely normal even when the coil has worn through and is touching the sheath internally. That kind of short still passes current terminal to terminal, which is why test one alone can miss it, but under load, with the oven actually calling for heat, a short to the sheath routes current to the oven’s metal frame and trips the breaker. The separate ground check is what catches that fault before you ever plug the oven back in.

The Appliance Clinic’s element guide notes that a bake element’s resistance rarely changes over its life, except to go open or short entirely. That’s consistent with both tests here: you’re not watching for a resistance that’s drifted, you’re watching for a dead short or a dead open.

If both tests pass, the element is not your problem.

If both tests pass: the relay becomes the suspect

With a good element confirmed, the next question is whether 240 volts is actually reaching the element’s terminals when you call for bake. That’s a check for someone comfortable working on live circuits, since it means measuring voltage with the oven powered and running; this article won’t walk through the steps.

Two documented forum cases found exactly this. In one, a technician measured 120 volts on each of the element’s two terminals individually, but only 0.024 volts across them together, a reading that doesn’t add up unless something between the two legs has failed. The fault traced to a dead connection off the control board’s bake relay (the switch on the board that sends power to the bake element). In the other, the elements read about 20 ohms with no visible damage and no ground fault, and the actual cause was burnt circuit traces around a degraded relay on the control board. Two individual cases, not a pattern with a known frequency, but both point the same direction once the element itself tests clean: the control board relay is worth checking next.

Matching the right element

For GE and Hotpoint ranges, match your model number to WB44K5012 or WB44X10009. These are not interchangeable with each other, even though they’re rated the same.

WB44K5012 carries about 82 reviews on PartSelect. The aftermarket manufacturer Therm-Coil’s own page confirms it runs 1,940 watts at 208 volts and 2,585 watts at 240 volts. Its part-number chain includes a Whirlpool base number, 4334928 (also listed as WP4334928). I couldn’t find which Whirlpool models take it, so that is unknown.

WB44X10009 (AP2031061) carries the identical wattage rating, 1,940 and 2,585 watts, but it sits on a completely separate parts chain with different dimensions. Matching wattage alone isn’t enough here: two elements can share a power rating and still not fit the same oven.

For Frigidaire ranges, the match is 316075103, priced at $37.35 as listed at research time. Its listing is the only one in this research with any one- and two-star reviews, 6 one-star and 4 two-star out of 521 total. That’s not a durability verdict on its own, just a note that this is the one listing honest enough to show its rough edges.

The connector problem, and the fix for it

If your old element’s connector arrived burnt or melted where the wire meets the element, the retailer’s repair answer is a high-temperature female disconnect terminal, TJMA02875-1, or TJMA03362-1 for the 90-degree flag version, crimped onto a freshly stripped wire end. AppliancePartsPros prescribes this terminal repeatedly for exactly this problem. The retailer doesn’t publish a temperature rating for it, so none is given here; take the recommendation as a repeated one, not a specified one.

Installing it: the gotcha reviewers hit

Four of about 60 reviewers read in full for the install side of this hit the same problem: the spade connector wire slips back into the insulation behind the oven’s rear wall when the old element is pulled, and then it has to be fished back out, sometimes by pulling the range away from the wall. The fix reviewers converged on is taping the wires to the oven’s frame before pulling the element out.

One buyer replaced both the bake and broil elements at once, after the broil element snapped during a self-clean cycle, reasoning that the oven was old enough that the second element was likely close behind. That’s one buyer’s call for one aging oven, not a general recommendation to replace both whenever one fails.

Owners also report elements arriving bent in flimsy packaging, worth checking before you install one.

Is this worth doing yourself

Where the element is exposed, which is most of what this research covers, owners describe it as a short job: “Two screws and 15 minutes later the oven was repaired,” and “10 minute repair.” Those two lines are representative of 32 pages of near-identical one-liners on AppliancePartsPros’s repair stories for this element, which tells you that for a visible, exposed element, this is a job most owners who tried it found straightforward.

If your element is hidden under the oven floor instead, you’re likely pulling the range out from the wall to get at it, and I have no figure for how much time that adds.

FAQ

The new bake element is in and the oven still won’t bake. What’s left?

Check whether 240 volts is actually reaching the element’s terminals with bake called, a job for someone comfortable working on live circuits. Two documented cases with a good element traced the fault to a failed control board relay, but those are two individual cases, not a confirmed likelihood.

Why does my breaker trip as soon as I turn on bake?

That points to a short between the element and its outer sheath. It can pass a terminal-to-terminal resistance test fine, which is exactly why the separate ground check exists, to catch it before the breaker does.

Is the WB44X10009 the same as the WB44K5012?

No. They share the same wattage rating but sit on separate parts chains with different dimensions.

Will the WB44K5012 fit my Whirlpool oven?

Its part-number chain includes a Whirlpool base number, 4334928 (WP4334928), but I couldn’t find which Whirlpool models actually take it, so confirm against your own model number before ordering.

How long does it take to replace a bake element?

Owners with an exposed element frequently describe it as a two-screw, 15-minute job. If your element is hidden under the oven floor, you’re likely pulling the range out, and I don’t have a figure for how much extra time that takes.

My replacement element arrived bent. Is that normal?

Owners do report elements arriving bent due to flimsy packaging. I couldn’t find anything confirming whether a bent element is safe to install as-is.

Sources and Citations

Research checked 31 August 2026.