What is a heating element?

Heating elements are the simplest components in an appliance and among the easiest to test: with the power off, a healthy element shows its rated resistance across the terminals, and a failed one reads open. In an oven you can often see the failure as a blister or a burn-through. In a dryer the element sits in a housing behind the drum. Always check the element’s insulation to ground too — an element leaking current to the chassis trips breakers only when hot.