To eliminate an occurrence of trouble caused by scrap sucked into a waste gas discharging passage in an electric furnace for pre-heating the scrap by a furnace top pre-heating device.

This electric furnace 1 is constructed to have a scrap furnace top end pre-heating device operated such that there are provided pre-heating chambers 4, 5 capable of storing metallic scrap on the electric furnace 1, wherein waste gas of the electric furnace 1 is passed through the pre-heating chambers and discharged to a waste gas discharging passage. In this case, there is provided a scrap catcher 20 composed of a U-shaped flow passage for use in lowering the waste gas into the waste gas discharging passage in a right downward direction and further raising the waste gas just above the passage.