How do I replace oven insulation that has been soiled by mice and smells bad?

I'm so sorry for your loss. A Viking is a terrible thing to waste. Disassembling a Viking oven/range is not a job for a DIYer. Look for a restaurant supplier in your area or a Viking dealer to get a competent tech to do the work and bite the bullet and have it fixed right. The insulation is not something you can buy at the local Home Depot. It uses a specialty high temp spun fabric insulation . If the job is not done properly, it will be a FIRE HAZARD!!!! This is a safety issue not worth saving a few bucks on. The Viking is worth saving if you can.

Sadly enough, I had the exact same thing happen to me in the past.

If your mice were anything like mine, they are likely stockpiling food in the nest they have made inside the insulation (which, along with the droppings, is the source of the smell). More likely than not, they have made their home in the space directly underneath the burners, on top of the oven box.

When it happened to me, this was how I went about fixing the problem:

• Shut off the gas line / unplug the unit from the wall.
• Remove the cooktop portion of the range, exposing the insulated oven box
• Remove the affected insulation (in my case, only about a fist sized chunk was affected).
• Replace the cooktop, and hook the gas/electric back up (use a new flexible gas line if applicable).

In my case, the affected area was so small that I did not replace the removed insulation. To my knowledge, the only function of the insulation in that portion of the oven is to reduce heat loss. Since the area was so small, I decided that the heat loss would be negligible. If the area is relatively large, or you are paranoid about the exposed area, then you can buy some material online to patch the hole (here, for example).

The bigger issue, however, is dealing with the mice infestation in your house. As long as the mice are there, they will come back and ruin your freshly refurbished oven (trust me, I ended up doing this twice to my oven before getting rid of all the mice for good). Set traps, remove sources of food, and attempt to find and seal the places where the mice are entering the home.

Realizing this is very old: I'm going through this with a brand new stove that was kept in storage for a while. I've had to remove all of the insulation and clean all of the sheet metal that had urine on it. Definitely not a 1 hour task, I'm up to 2 days on and off.

The insulation I'd recommend is either the OEM (repair clinic or similar) or a ceramic 2400F insulating fireproof. The latter is not likely to be easily eaten and, should you choose to, you could wet it with 'rigidizer' making it practically impossible for the mice to get into.

When removing the OLD stove to replace, I found out mice had made a nest on top of the oven insulation- filled it with chocolate and butter scotch chip. They were all intact, never melted, despite loads of high temperature cooking.

Take your time, take photos, and keep the screws organized. Modern stoves use pretty much all the same screw both size and length to keep manufacturing costs down, and 'finish' screws are unique to their look/area.

Also consider spot-blasting the surface where the urine was; that'll clean it quickly and get rid of any rusting/rusty spots. Use an cheap spot blaster out doors, wear a mask (should be easy now), and use 70 grit (Fast cutting). Hit it with high temp primer/acid etch if you want to protect it, but it should be good.

Future Mice Removers, Rejoice!