Uncertainties Installing a Fitted Oven

[BarakaBloke]

Hi, My first post and my first electric oven installation.

I've recently moved into a new build flat which had provision for a freestanding cooker, but I've decided I want a built in oven and hob instead.
I've replaced the worktop ready to cut out a hole for the hob and have a carcass prepared to fit the oven in the space between the kitchen units previously intended for the freestanding oven.

But I'm concerned about a couple of overheating issues:

First, I see that the installation instructions on page 16 of the ZYB460X manual (link below) has quite different designs depending on if you mount the oven below a worktop or at chest height.
At chest height you leave a space behind the oven and make a kind of chimney vent up behind the kitchen unit above the oven which goes right up to the top.
It surprises me there's no inlet vent below the oven to give a chimney/convection effect, but that seems to be the design from these instructions, right?

In my case though (fitting the oven below a worktop) no ventilation space appears to be required behind the oven (!) and there's no vent in the upwards direction (!),
but instead a gap of 80-100mm is cut in the back of the bottom carcass face.
I can't see it making much difference temperature wise.
Overall this gives even worse ventilation than the chest height chimney method!

Is this normal practice for built in oven installation despite not appearing to make any sense?

My second concern is whether the wall electrical connection to the oven will be safe from overheating or not.
It's located right behind where the oven will be so it will get very hot.
In fact the back plate of the oven will press against it a little.
The installation instructions indicate that you can expect 100C inside the carcass, but for a freestanding oven this wouldn't happen,
so I'm wondering if the plastic parts they used will be up to the job?
Also, perhaps even the terminal block inside might suffer at in this temperature.

I'll be getting an electrician to do the final connecting (someone else is paying for that!),
but I don't want to find when they turn up that they'll have to make a second visit.
I hope the above makes sense?
If so and you know about this sort of thing I'd really appreciate some advice!

Oven: Zanussi ZYB460X Manual: http://www.electrolux-ui.com/2011/397/203501EN.pdf
Hob: Indesit VIA640C Manual: http://www.indesit.co.uk/_pdf/booklets/02/10/19506596500_IT-FR-UK-DE-SP.pdf

 

[Steve]

Before I read the instrcutions, you might want to try something:

Power up the oven out of the carcasse, and let it heat up, run it for 20 minutes. You might find that the outer case of the oven is barely luke warm! God knows where they get 100 degrees from.

Indeed, my oven operates cool. They are designed to be fitted inside a flammable wooden cabinet! They take air in behind, circulate it around the oven case, and blow it out the front somewhere.

Now, I've skimmed the destructions, and it doesnt actually specify ventilation requirements for low level installation. Mine doesnt have any ventilation behind, not had any issues, and it blows out plenty of air at the front.

I think the reason they give ventilation requirement for high level cupbaords is because of the possibility of heat being transferred to food etc being stored above.

Hobs again are designed to run cool underneath.

 

[BarakaBloke]

Thanks Steve. That's really useful!
Looking again at the instructions, to be precise it actually says that the carcass glue needs to be good to 100C.
That sounds like a worst case scenario safety requirement rather than the regular temperature in there.

I undid some screws on the top of the oven to see where the fan in there gets its supply of air from.
It turns out it sucks in and blows out from two slots just behind the gap at the top of the door.
I haven't powered it up yet, but it makes sense if the lower slot sucks in air from behind the front gap of the door triple glazing
(keeping the front glass cool, as advertised) and the upper slot blows the air out of the gap at the top of the door.
It keeps it all very neat and compact, but it's a surprising way to do things as there is no seal to separate the air inlet and outlet slots,
which are only a couple of millimetres apart. I expect quite a bit of the hot exhaust air gets sucked back in for a another trip through the fan,
but presumably the overall effect is good enough.
Also, the path of the cooling air flow inside the oven case means the top external metal face of the oven is cooled and that means the air in the gap
between the oven and carcass is cooled by the metal case too!
It's actually quite a clever way to do several cooling jobs at once, but it's not obvious without taking the lid off for a look inside.

Anyway, the bottom line is that no ventilation into the carcass is needed.
The specified opening at the back of the bottom face of the carcass is still a bit of a mystery.
Perhaps it's just a little extra help with cooling that doesn't take much effort, so they use it.

Thanks again for the help.