Does anybody else hear this weird banging sound in the oven a few minutes after putting something in?

It means you shut the kitchen elves into the oven and they want out.

Seriously, if it's a gas oven, the pipes might be making the noise. Or the temperature change could cause metal pans or racks to expand.

The "weird banging" is when you are using a cookie sheet or other metal pan that is not completely full or not covered with ingredients.

When it gets hot and expands, if parts of it are bare, you have uneven heat distribution.

If you look in the oven, you may even see that the opposite corners look twisted out of shape.

Happens to me when I use a cookie sheet that only has items placed in the center instead of all over the surface .

One of the racks is probably warped. When the oven heats, the metal expands and the rack can't move out of the side threads, so it "bangs" when it compensates. When the oven is cold, take the racks out and place them on a level surface to see who the offender is.

Holy Crap! now that you mention it, I hear that weird noise all the time, and until now I never realized that it only happens when I'm using the oven! I thought it was the house settling or something... HA!! the metal pan buckling makes sense, but I'm going to choose to believe the oven elves story!

If you have a gas oven it could be the ignition timer.

It used to sound like a small explosion and really freaked me out.

The first repairman said it was the gas regulator, but it wasn't, I called my gas company and they said that it was inside my stove, they fixed it but its back again, they said its because we live in a damp area and the part rusts quickly.

No its not old, my range is only a few years old.

I heard it once so i opened it up and found that i had put the dog in instead of the chicken it was a lucky escape so now i call him hot dog !!

honestly i knew a bloke who had the same problem, turns out he had mouse and it was them escaping out the back as soon as the oven got put on. i know so gross, but once he killed em, no more banging!

If you use metal sheet-pans in the oven regularly, it's just the metal buckling slightly as it's heating up. ;-)

(or it's the oven elves...)

Personally I like the elves theory but actually it is probably more likely due to metal expansion as it heats.

Is it every single time or when you put in metal baking sheets or pans? If its the latter, then it is the pans expanding in the heat.