Cleaning your oven is the first major step in extending its lifespan. Although the easiest way to make sure your oven is clean is to wipe up spills immediately after they happen, it can be hard to remember to clean the oven after it's cooled down. Many people lead busy, hectic lives, and cleaning an oven every time it's used is almost impossible. Leaving your oven dirty ensures it will last less than its life expectancy. Baked-on food can make the oven work harder to heat up, which will burn out its heating elements faster, reducing its lifespan in the process. That's why Landmark Home Warranty has a few tips that you can use to clean the interior of your oven.
First off, if you have a self-cleaning oven, do not use the self-cleaning feature. That feature heats the oven up to extreme temperatures to burn off leftover food, but it can hurt your oven more than help. The heating elements have to work extra hard to get the oven to those extreme temperatures, which wears them out earlier. Oven professionals have found the self-cleaning feature blows fuses and ruins electrical components. Sometimes the self-cleaning feature breaks the glass on your oven door!
1. BOIL WATER
Place a pot of boiling water into the oven for 20 minutes to loosen food particles. Clean them off.
2. WASH YOUR OVEN RACKS IN THE DISHWASHER
Leave them out while you clean the rest of the oven.
This portion of cleaning your oven takes about 12 hours, so make sure to start this process when you know you won't be using your oven for cooking. It's a good idea to begin this process when you go to bed and finish when you wake up.
3. MAKE A SIMPLE CLEANING SOLUTION
Mix a a ½ cup of baking soda with a few tablespoons of water. Make a paste.
4. COAT YOUR OVEN IN THE SOLUTION
Spread the mixture on the dirty parts of your oven. Do not put the paste on your heating elements. Let it sit overnight.
5. WIPE OUT SOLUTION
After 12 hours, wipe out the solution from your oven.
6. RINSE WITH VINEGAR
Douse a rag in some vinegar to make the leftover solution foam off.
Do not leave baking soda residue on your oven and try and bake with it - it will smell. Make sure to get all of the excess baking soda solution out of the oven.
Your oven is clean!
Put your oven racks back into the oven, and your oven is now clean!
Cleaning your oven can extend the lifespan of your oven, but even with the best cleaning and maintenance, your oven will eventually fail from normal wear and tear. When that happens, it's helpful to have a home warranty to protect your home and budget. Home warranties take care of unexpected costs from systems and appliances that fail from normal wear and tear. Instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars on a new oven, you can pay a flat rate service call fee with a home warranty if your oven failed from normal wear and tear.
For more information about home warranties, go to Landmark's main page at www.landmarkhw.com. There you can learn more about home warranties in general and what a home warranty covers.