Smeg Opera cooker
Faulty Smeg Opera A2-6 Dual fuel (gas/electric cooker)
This may be of assistance to anyone trying to solve a hard-to-trace intermittent fault with one of these ovens.
This cooker is duel fuel. Gas hobs but electric ovens. From the day we took delivery of it, it would intermittently blow the kitchen mains trip/earth leakage circuit breaker when the small oven was used, especially when cooking rotisserie chicken (because it is recommended by the manufacturer Smeg to put tray of water in the bottom of the oven). Engineers came out multiple times but the fault was never located. Eventually I tried to trace the fault myself. (I am an ex TV/electronics engineer).
I eventually discovered that the cause of the trip switch blowing was water droplets falling onto the small oven heating element connector, causing an earth leak, therefore blowing the trip. Steam from the small oven can escape through a few small holes in the back of the oven, allowing water vapour to condense and then land on that connector. It is a very bad design fault. If you have this problem and examine the heating element connectors, you will see evidence of slight corrosion.
Do not attempt to repair this yourself unless you are qualified, but pass this information on to the repair engineer.
I solved this by covering the electrical connections with silicone sealant and created a reflector device to redirect any potential drips away from the connector.
Maybe this problem has been resolved on later models. Smeg were no help with this problem, even after prolonged telephone calls to them and their service department.
Poor design
Two other design issues of this particular model, which are nuisances, rather than faults are:
- When cooking and producing lots of steam (from either oven), water created by condensation drips from the oven into the storage drawer and onto whatever is stored within. The requires constant cleaning of the drawer and contents.
- The hob is difficult to clean because of the right-angles around the edges of the hob-top. If they were rounded you would be able to wipe any debris away with a cloth, as it is you have to pick or hoover them out - thank you Dyson hand-vac.
Replacement rubber seals for both ovens
After more than 10 years of constant use, both of the rubber door seals failed on this Smeg A2-6 Opera oven. They were available from Genuine Smeg Spares (UK) Servevast Ltd Together with postage, the gaskets (oven seals) came to £31.00 (Feb 2016) which seems expensive. However, they were easy to fit (a 10 year old child could do this job, no tools are required). The parts arrive within a few days.
- Smeg (Servevast) part numbers
- 754130519 - 44802 - Gasket (seal) for large oven Smeg A2-6 Opera cooker
- 745131176 - 45329 - Gasket (seal) for small oven Smeg A2-6 Opera cooker
See also
- www.smeg-service.co.uk - Arrange for repairs, links to spares supplier (below)
- Genuine Smeg Spares (UK) - All available parts for the Smeg A2-6 cooker