What F18 actually means
The oven's control board and the hob's control board have stopped talking to each other, so the oven shuts the heat off as a precaution.
On these Electrolux built-in ovens paired with a linked hob, the two boards exchange status messages constantly — the user interface expects regular confirmation of the oven's cooking status. If those messages stop arriving or aren't acknowledged, the interface cuts power to the oven board and shows the fault (often seen as F718 on the display rather than F18). Heating stops, and usually the display still lights up and buttons respond, which is why people assume the element has gone rather than a communication problem.
What usually causes it
- A loose or dislodged connection in the link between the hob and oven controls
- A momentary electrical glitch or supply interruption leaving the boards out of step
- Damaged or chafed interconnecting wiring behind the appliance
- A failed control or user interface board that has stopped responding
- A mismatched or incorrectly configured board after a previous repair
What you can safely check yourself
Work through these in order. Anything beyond this — panels off, testing parts, anything to do with the wiring — is an engineer's job, and not one to attempt with the machine plugged in.
- Turn the appliance off at the wall or trip its breaker for a minute, then power it back up — a genuine one-off communication dropout often clears and does not return.
- If the hob is linked to the oven, check the hob is switched on at its own control and not in a locked or standby state.
- Note whether the fault appears straight away on switch-on or only once cooking has been running — that's useful information for the engineer.
When to call someone
This one usually needs an engineer once you have tried the checks above. We cover Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, and it's £66 including VAT for an engineer to come out and diagnose it — £84 in total if it's repaired on the visit with no parts needed. Any parts needed are quoted on site before we fit them — you decide. Every repair carries a 90-day workmanship guarantee.
Outside our area? The explanation above still stands — take it to a local engineer and tell them the code. Knowing it saves them time and you money.
Other Electrolux oven codes
- Electrolux C01 — The oven won't start its pyrolytic self-clean because the te…
- Electrolux C03 — The oven has detected that the electricity coming into it is…
- Electrolux C04 — The oven won't let you start the pyrolytic cleaning cycle, a…
- Electrolux C05 — The board that switches power to the heating elements has a …
- Electrolux C06 — The oven has spotted a problem with its cooling fan and shut…
- Electrolux E01 — The oven's main control board isn't set up correctly for thi…
- Electrolux E02 — The oven's control panel isn't set up correctly for this app…
- Electrolux F00 — The oven's control board can't reliably read or write its ow…