general convection oven question

[fixbear]

It will blow all the residual heat into the kitchen and burn the user at the door.  As well as cause a large drop in product in the oven.

[izzygreen]

aside from a personal safety issue, ( )  can you think of a mechanical or electrical reason not to do it?

[john]

Fans running perpetually? Nah, don’t see a problem there. 

In convection ovens I’ve seen, the fans turn off during the cooking process even if the door isn’t opened–I don’t think they’re meant to run nonstop.

 

That and what fixbear said about burns.

[ectofix]

I personally won’t modify equipment.  A former service manager drilled that into my head.

 

Equipment leaves the factory meeting all the requisite safety certification standards of:

NSF ANSI UL CE CSA ETL Energy Star and others

 

If you modify it, then you’ve negated the manufacturer’s original design from meeting those standards.  Therefore, you’ve essentially become the owner of any problems caused by its NEW design and are culpable for any repercussions that the unit’s modification may present…such as if somebody gets burned.

 

FWIW: I was once summonsed to court (unfortunately) for divulging to a customer that I’d found their equipment to be altered.  I didn’t know who did it, but ended up being done by another company.  I learned to keep my mouth shut after that (Honesty is a weakness of mine).  I don’t like court rooms and certainly don’t like testifying against the practices of another service company.

 

So, I highly suggest that you do not modify those ovens by bypassing the door switches.

[burtonmac]

Good point!

[fixbear]

Liability would be a big one.  A bigger question would be why would you want to have it run when opening the doors.  If you watch a good chef work,  He actually pops the door and waits for the fan to stop before opening the oven.  Especially at higher oven temps.  He know from experience that he will get burned. Mainly face and breathing passages.as his coat and gloves protects the rest.  Remember how most convection oven’s air flow works. It is forced toward the doors on the top, bottom, and sides.  Then comes through the racks and pans back top the blower center.  With open doors it instead gets pushed out into the room and the fan pulls room air into the oven through the center.  This in turn drop’s the product and oven temp a considerable amount.  Don’t believe it, place a temp probe in the middle of a oven, bring it to 400F, switch the fan to cool and open the door. Watch how fast it drops. 

[ectofix]

Another FWIW.  I can’t think of a convection oven manufacturer out there that makes the door switch an OPTION.  I’m not saying that convection ovens like that don’t exist.  I simply can’t remember working on one.

 

All of the ones I remember working on – DO HAVE a door switch to stop the blower when the door is opened.  Of course, the only exception to that is when the mode selector switch is set to COOL DOWN.

[ectofix]

John B (Parts Town Admin) wrote:

 

In convection ovens I’ve seen, the fans turn off during the cooking process even if the door isn’t opened–I don’t think they’re meant to run nonstop.

 

No.  Stand-alone convection oven fans generally DO run continuously and therefore don’t turn off unless the door is opened.  Some might be designed to stop and reverse direction though.  That’s an attempt in the manufacturer’s design to provide more even distribution of heat.

 

Otherwise, some manufacturers of  RANGE-unit convection ovens might provide an option to cook with or without the fan.

 

An exception to this design standard (when the fans run continuously) are how combi-ovens work.  They are modeled more so after STEAMERS in that regard (since they can be operated to do just that).  In which case, they all use a timer to stop a cooking process once the timer has timed out.  So, the fan DOES stop and heat source is turned off…even when the door is still shut.

[olivero]

In theory, no there is no problem doing it. My Vulcan’s barely ever turn off and run all day long.

 

I would have to agree with Ectofix on altering the equipment though, if you were to do it, the best way would be to email the manufacturer and ask them what they think, if they say “Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem” then you have their permission.

 

This is what I do every time I make any type of change or fix beyond replacing what’s bad and then I save their email as a PDF so I have proof that it was authorized. Never had to use it and never had any trouble with those changes but at least I have it if I do need it.

[john]

I must have been looking at a combi. Thanks for the correction ectofix!