Smelly oven

[Rollerball]

I have a Rangemaster oven (a Professional 90 Dual Fuel) which is approaching 20 years old. It still works fine but over the past few weeks it has been emitting more of an 'old cooking oil' smell from the rear vent behind the gas rings, in other words the kind of smell you would expect when it needs a good clean.

So today I cleaned the main oven as thoroughly as possible and the smell is the same.

It's used once a day, usually to bake a potato or a meat pie, nothing special.

I'm wondering if the internal 'vent' needs cleaning somehow - by the vent I mean that inside at the back, behind a removable steel plate, there is a hole that's about one inch wide that seems to be part of a steel tube that's angled and goes upwards. This seems to have some old loose burned crud in it but I could barely clean any out due to the angle.

Short of somehow dismantling the oven is there anything else I can do to eliminate the 'old cooking oil' smell?

 

[gasbanni]

Dead mouse or rat !

Mate went to a house because the cooker smelt of gas and transco capped it off.

Opened it up to find four dead rats in it !
A nice house too !

They go after food debris and the fat in cookers !

 

[Rollerball]

I can say with 100% positivity that there is no dead rat in, behind or underneath the cooker.

 

[mattylad]

Have you pulled it out to look?

 

[Rollerball]

No, it's way too heavy, but I know the smell of a decaying rodent body and this isn't it. It smells like old cooking oil or burned on debris as you would find in an old frying pan for example.

 

[aveatry]

From what you say you are right-- old oil and burnt food debris is exactly what it is.
I have a similar oven that had to have its cooling fan replaced.
There will be a fan in your oven ( not the fan oven element ) but it sits underneath your hob and its job is to click in and draw air from under your oven door up and through the gap between your hob and oven, its role is to keep your door cool and also the internal control components, it then exits at those vents at the back.
Whilst my cooling fan was being replaced I took the opportunity to clean inside the duct that goes from the vent slats to the fan, I took out about half a mug full of burnt food debris and grease and also cleaned the duct surfaces with bbq cleaning liquid now what was a dark brown is back to a metal colour.
As the fan is drawing air up and out the back it is rolling over ll of that crud.

 

[Rollerball]

Thanks, think I'll have to try and pull the damn oven out and get to the fan duct.

 

[aveatry]

Problem is to get to it you need to remove the top hob plate which I think should be a gas safe job.

 

[Rollerball]

Ah, I see. Duly noted, thanks!

 

[aveatry]

Once the top is off you also need to remove the top of the cowl that goes from the fan to the exit slots, mine was held by two screws at the fan end and then little tabs that you bend straight and then you can lift off the top reviling the mess inside. It sits under the hob burners and their brackets holding them in place so you have to jiggle it and slide it out from under them.

 

[Rollerball]

Many thanks, that's very helpful.

 

[gasbanni]

I can say with 100% positivity that there is no dead rat in, behind or underneath the cooker.

Unless you've taken the top and back off you don't know. Believe me I've found dead mice that people had bo idea about. Never seen a dead rat but their droppings in a cooker I've seen.
I doubt food debris or fat is the problem.

 

[aveatry]

Unless you've taken the top and back off you don't know. Believe me I've found dead mice that people had bo idea about. Never seen a dead rat but their droppings in a cooker I've seen.
I doubt food debris or fat is the problem.

I know that you are the expert and seen 100s of ovens but I have an almost identical oven at a similar age and when the top to the fan cowl was off - think its called the chimney it was rank and stank and at its lowest point where it go's flat it was like molasses drizzled over muesli. Also the underside of the stainless steel hob plate looked like it had a dark brown varnish on it, a build up over 15-20 hears of oily grease vapour baked on. That did not smell so much until it started to loosen with BBQ cleaner.
When cooking little bits of food seem to love diving down that vent at the back.

 

[gasbanni]

It's purely that I don't see smelly ovens and I see a lot. The oldest was a 1940 model followed by a 50's model.

I've seen rodents dead in them, but mostly ovens don't smell offensive in any way .....Once or twice but not my expetiance I'm not stating an opinion only what I've observed.