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SERVICELINE TIPS & HINTS

SIX COMMON MISTAKES WITH COMBI OVENS

My combi is only a year old, and won’t need servicing yet!”

Today’s combis are built to exacting standards with clever self-diagnostic systems. And service engineers have been trained to download information from your combi, and upload the manufacturer’s most recent software programmes. If you don’t have your combi serviced regularly, you will be storing up trouble which can easily be prevented.

"The water is soft here so we do not need any water treatment”.

This once may have been true, but nowadays the water supplied to some parts of the country does not always come from traditional source areas. Fitting a water treatment filter or calcium treatment unit is the only way to ensure that the water in your combi is scale free. Water treatment assures food grade standard of potable water, removing heavy metals, lead, copper, mercury etc., and chlorine as well as limescale.

“We only roast meat in our combi”.

If you only ever roast meat in a combi, or use it mostly in convection mode, it will need to be cleaned more often to remove the build up of food soil and fats. For machines with a self cleaning option, run this cycle once a day. Running the machine on a steam cycle for an hour will help clean the cavity and flush the drain. The fat filters should be removed and cleaned to avoid any risk of fat residue catching fire.

“The meat probes keep breaking”.

Shutting the meat probe in the door, or leaving the probe in a joint of meat when taking it out of the oven, will damage it. The probe must be put back in the holder every time after use.

“The glass in our combi door shattered when the door was shut”.

Always make sure that rack inserts are pushed fully home into the combi especially when using a roll-in trolley system. If the rack sticks out, it can shatter the glass when you shut the door.

“The door seals are always splitting or falling off”.

Periodically clean then lubricate the door seals with an approved silicone grease to prevent them sticking together. Make sure that the roll-in trolleys are properly lined up before pushing them into the oven and always replace the door seal when a split starts – it will only get worse!

SERVICE NOTES FOR USERS

Don’t ignore the simple signs that something is wrong before doing something about it!

• If you’re having a gas combi serviced, check the engineer has Catering NG or LPG on the back of his Corgi Card – if you’re not sure, you can call Corgi to check his registration.
• If the fan or elements are cream coloured when hot or grey when cold there is limescale on them and consequently, too much calcium in the incoming water. Check that your water treatment such as a water filter or calcium treatment unit is working properly. If you have a cartridge filter fitted, check the water meter reading with your supplier to make sure it’s not exhausted.
• If you don’t have cleaning agents approved by the manufacturer, get some - don’t use a scourer to clean the oven, inside or outside.
• If the programme says to start the cleaning cycle, don’t ignore it – do it soon.
• If the door seal is split - it won’t fix itself, but it will leak steam and get worse.
• If the electronic message says “Limescale”, you need to have the steam generator descaled.

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