Gas oven repair

[manno]

Hey guys,

I took over a small family shop which is mostly deli but has a small selection of groceries and also makes pizza.

We currently do sandwiches, hoagies and pizzas in a small 2 shelf electric oven. I have a spare 2 shelf electric oven also.

I have a small room that was dedicated to pizza and I have an old Peerless 4 shelf gas oven but it hasn't been used in around 10 years.
It has a lot of surface rust but doesn't appear to have rotted through anywhere. It looks like both the inside and outside were painted. The outside is the standard oven black and the inside had some sort of silver paint. The burners appear to be in good shape and the oven is actually still hooked up to a gas line (valve obviously turned off).

My question is what would I need to do to repair this oven? I was planning on trying to sand off all of the surface rust inside and out. I'm pretty sure I can repaint the outside with a black high temp paint. What can I do about the inside? I would can replace the burners if they aren't in as good of shape as they look, but what can I coat the inside with? I assume there is some sort of high temp food safe paint or something but I want to be 100% positive.

I'm hoping to start delivering in the near future and promoting the business they way it needs to be, but right now my oven capacity is a serious bottleneck  During our normal business hours, especially lunch, only 1 shelf of the front hoagie oven could be used for pizza. This means I can only bake one pie at a time right now. If I do some rearranging in my pizza room I can setup my backup oven which will allow me to do 2 more pizzas at once which may be ok to start. I would most prefer to repair this oven if possible to give me the greatest capacity.

Thanks for the help and recommendations in advance!

[buceriasdon]

Without seeing the interior, so this is a shot in the dark, my bet is it's NOT paint. Most likely the interior is a special aluminum coated steel if silver colored. Similar to an anodized coating. Sorry I can't be of more help, but paint would not be food safe. Can the inside panels be removed? If so a metal farication shop could replace those panels with stainless steel. They might be able to cover over the inside with stainless using SS screws if not removable. I have been out of the metal business for a decade and there may have been some advances in paint I don't know about, perhaps some high heat epoxies. I'd get a couple of bids to line it.

Don

[TONY]

I would just sand the rust off the cooking surface and wipe it down with a damp cloth........you should be fine........look at what they cook on in a brick oven..........it's not smoothe or painted..............

[manno]

OK so I was able to remember I little more about the oven and ask my father a few questions. He had a heart attack back in March and had a massive stroke during open heart surgery and isn't able to speak very well, so asking questions is kinda difficult.

I was also able to move all of the junk sitting on top of and around the oven and inspect it better.

The oven was bought reconditioned. I know the company that it would have been bought from, and I know that they buy up equipment from shops that are going out of business and at auction. They then recondition and sell them.

The outside of the oven is painted in a very thick coat of matte black paint, most of which is chipping off due to the surface rust. I gave the whole oven a good inspection and there are no spots that have rotted through. The burners look to be in excellent shape, almost no surface rust either. The stones were removed when the oven was turned off and are in great condition in a different area.

The inside of the oven has a lot of surface rust mostly on the back and bottom of the oven. When I was able to get in there with a flashlight I noticed that both sides were still mostly covered in the silver paint/coating. On the back of the oven in areas with surface rust most of this layer has peeled off. It is VERY thin and looks just like a matte silver spray paint would. It definitely appears to be sprayed on. There is an area on the back of the oven where the coating has worn off and there is little rust where I can see some sanding marks. My guess is that the marks are from when the company reconditioned the oven.

The interior panels are not removable, but I would not have a problem screwing or riveting some stainless steel panels in if I had to.

I have a relative who is a master plumber who said he would come check out all of the lines to make sure there are no leaks. He wants to try to fire it up. That way I will know if it works and we can find and fix any possible leaks(he doubts there are any). It will also probably make cleaning the oven afterward easier as well.

Anyone else have any ideas or useful information? I have done a little bit of googling and haven't found very much info. Does anyone know of a paint or coating that I would be able to use?

[Jet_deck]

I'm sure the parts department wouldn't mind telling you what the silver stuff is.  Here is the parts list:http://www.peerlessovens.com/client_images/catalog19904/pages/files/commercial_oven_parts.pdf

give them a call and let us know what you find out.

[buceriasdon]

Myself, I'd just leave the inside alone unless the health dept. said otherwise.
Don

[c0mpl3x]

Myself, I'd just leave the inside alone unless the health dept. said otherwise.
Don

yup you might do something that ruins the ability to legally sell food out of it.