How To Clean A Smeg 90 Cm Range

Introduction:

Hello, it's Graham Rogers, the founder of OvenGleamers, the oven cleaning franchise. And in this video, I'm going to talk about what to look out for before cleaning a SMEG Range, in this case, a 90cm Range.

A SMEG 90cm Range, we've got it in my office (in our OvenGleamers Academy Training Kitchen). I'm looking at replacing it actually, because it's got to the point now where it's difficult to use for training because it's got so old and decrepit. So if you ever get one of these (to clean as a professional oven cleaner), a SMEG 90cm Range, here are things to look at for as you don't see this model now that often.

History of our SMEG 90cm range

The reason we've got this oven (in our training kitchen) is because one of our customers gave it to us, and she liked it so much, she actually bought another one, exactly the same. When I went to pick this up, in the kitchen was one exactly the same.

The reasons she decided to get rid of it were because of the problems she was having with it. And these problems are problems you get with lots of SMEG Range Cookers or SMEG ovens in general.  

Things to look out for before cleaning a SMEG cooker SMEG Cooker Pre-Checks - Make notes on Job Sheet.

Automatic Clock Control Buttons: These little buttons are all burnt off because heat obviously came up here (from the oven) and burnt all these and they all melted.

Fascia transfers:  (On this oven) All the transfers had come off, can you see this? There's actually no transfers at all on this, at all. 
On some of the SMEGs, they've got transfers, and on others they're actually stencilled into the fascia properly. It's difficult to tell which is which. If say I came to clean this one, at the beginning of the job, before we start cleaning it, you need to have a look (closely) at these transfers - and write down on the job sheet any defects. Well, this one obviously, you see it all completely disappeared. But sometimes they'd be half missing. Sometimes they'd all be completely there intact. But you've got to be really careful on this (sort of) of cooker, because if you just spray some cleaning product on here and then wipe it off, the transfers just come off. They come off so easily.

Cleaning SMEG Cooker Fascias With Transfers

You need to check. And when we come to clean these, the way we clean them is if they've got transfers, all I do I get some washing up liquid on a cloth, I just wipe off the grids with a washing up liquid rather than putting anything else on. And I just go around just doing this to get the grease off.

Okay, so that's a thing you need to check, you need to check obviously these things (pointing at Clock control sticks) because I've actually paid 15 pounds each for these. Incredible, I know, it was 10 pounds, and they wanted to charge me 5 pounds for posting it to me, which is completely ridiculous. I think that's a SMEG official spares company.  It could be expensive if you've got to replace these.

Checking the SMEG Oven Seal and Carrying Out Minor Repairs

And inside, you notice that the actual seal is missing. The thing about the SMEG seal, it's normally very small in width. Quite a lot of the time, you'll find that it's actually completely encrusted in carbon. And it's stuck. It actually stuck to enamel of the surround. So when you go to try to take it off, it actually breaks.

What's happened in the past is I've actually broken one, and I've paid to replace it. And they're not cheap, even going back about 10 years ago, they were 30 pounds. When the seal arrived, it wasn't a complete seal; it wasn't all the way around, it was just like a three sided seal like a goal post. So if I get to one of these and I notice it is broken, what I'll try to tiddy it up by cutting bits off to make it a goal post. Because I know that if I bought a new one, it's going to come only three-sided, so if I can make a three-sided seal out of a four-sided seal, which is there, then I'll do that.

Checking the hinges on a SMEG Oven.

Then the next thing you need to look are the hinges. So on this older version of SMEG, it's got these locking devices, and what you do, you push them up and they go, you see that top clip thing goes onto that peg. And you make sure that both sides are on, and then what you do is you pick up the door. And as you pick up the door, it locks. Can you see? It's locking. And as you pick the door up, it actually comes off. Okay? And then to put it back in, can you see at the bottom there, there are some notches. Those notches need to be on that there (metal ridge). Okay, so what you do is you slide it in until the notches go in there. Okay?

Once both sides are in, you can let it go. And you may have to wiggle it a bit to get them to line up. And once they're in, what should happen is this door should just lie flat. You check for this and then you can bring the two locks down. And then you can check the door, make sure it's closing properly and make sure it lines up properly. If it's closing properly and it's lining properly, so if you get that wrong, this gap could be wider, then you've put the door back on.

Do you strip the SMEG Door Down?

The other thing you need to know about these is some of the modern SMEG Range cookers don't actually strip the door down. And the reason we don't strip the door down is because I've found from experience that when I take it completely apart and you get inside, inside is a two-pane glass inner with a small one mil gap in between the two panes of glass. You take it all apart, and then you get to the middle, and you can't clean in the middle panes. It still looks dirty when you put it back together, so a complete waste of time, and it's really difficult to get the door back together.

On the SMEG modern cookers, what I try to do is if you tilt this top glass, most of the time it will come off. You can do the inner glass and the door glass and leave the inner door. It's just one of those things. I've ended up calling out an engineer to fix it while I've tried to do it. So as I said, do what you can. Most of the time, you can take doors apart, but SMEG, especially SMEG Ranges,  and the newer ones are particularly difficult to take apart.

This is the older style, and this was quite easy to take apart. The only thing is when you actually take it apart ( you can see in the glass here) but there's like a lip that you've  got to clean it, when you take the door apart, there's a lip inside that you've got to clean. And the way I do it is I get a toothbrush and I'll run it around inside (the rim).

The way you take this (SMEG Range) door apart is you undo the screws here, and then the handle comes off. And I think there's a couple of screws on here, and then it just opens up. And as I said, that ledge can be difficult, but I get behind it with a toothbrush.

Looking out for rust and scratches on older SMEG Cookers

Obviously that's something else you need to look out for, rust. Look out for rust on SMEGs. This one has got a rusty handle. And you get rusty racks inside of SMEG cookers quite often.

Those are the things to look out for when cleaning this SMEG. Obviously you need to look out for scratches. This, as I said, this oven needs to be replaced really, even as training tool, it's old and rusty. You can see all the rust around here.

Okay, so something else you need to look out for in SMEG are the scratched back plates. You just need to look for the scratches, they normally are scratched. The modern newer ones, they've got a plastic back on them. You need to really check those as well, because we've been accused of scratching them, but they were already scratched. And I think it's because they're plastic, you've really got to look at them from all angles just to make sure (or light them up with a bright torch).

And as I always say, when you're cleaning a Range, if it's got lights above, turn them all on. Light the cooker up as much as you can so you can see all the scratches, because I guarantee, the customer when they come in at the end, they're going to switch all the lights on, and they're going to have a good look at it when it's fully illuminated. Do this at the beginning.

As you notice scratches. This one has got a dent as well, a dent. And on SMEG, well, these, I clean these in the sink because they're not enamelled.

Do you dip the SMEG hob burner tops?

Looking at the burner tops - if these were enamelled, I will dip them (in our professional van fitted dipping tank). But as these aren't enamelled, I would clean these in the sink. And it's just basically scrubbing them and I'll blade (with a scraper) them sometimes if they're bad, and then they come out like this. Okay, I think that's it with how to clean a SMEG range cooker.

That's Graham Rogers, the founder of OvenGleamers, the oven cleaning franchise. To get oven cleaning business tips, startup and growth ideas, please subscribe to the channel by clicking the button below this video. And also, if you click the bell button, you'd be notified every time I release a new video. Okay, thanks. Bye-bye.