THE OVEN GUY BLOG

If you have heavy layer of carbon (the black stuff) and grease on the bottom of your oven base and sides you will need to scrape and scour the worst of it off before using ANY products. Trust me, no amount of spray on / foam oven cleaner will get rid of thick layers of dirt.

You need to use a scraper (as seen below or click link) to scrape the very worst of it away. If you warm the oven to 60°C first this may help loosen the grease. Also, the blades must be used out of the packet and very sharp. Please make sure that you don’t scratch the oven with a rusty old blade that was sitting in the shed for the last 5 years!

A very good way of cleaning the glass is to follow these steps:

(1) Heat the glass to about 30-40°C, just warm enough to melt the grease a bit. But not so hot that when you spray it with cleaner the spray instantly evaporates.

(2) Then get the glass wet. You can use a washing up liquid solution, a de-greaser, or even just water, you just need to get a wet surface for the next step.

(3) Use a scraper blade held with the edge firmly against the glass at around 15°C. and push hard along the dirty surface.This should take 90 to 100% of the dirt off the glass.

(4) Finally, I use a paste (astonish oven cleaning paste) or a household cream cleaner to remove any thin layers of dirt remaining. It is important to also use a non scratch pad for this final stage, so as not to scratch the glass.

There is nothing worse than food or cleaning fluid spilled down inside a pane of oven glass. But don’t worry, nearly every type of oven has a removable door and glass that comes apart. Most ovens you have to take the door off and access screws at the bottom of the door and this will release the frame of the door from the oven. Here is an example below of the glass being split on Neff door. Nobody I have met seems to know how to open these (except me).

If you have a dirty oven door and you would like to know how to open it, please get in contact and I will try my best to help.

I personally NEVER use any product that contains highly toxic Sodium Hydroxide (caustic soda) INSIDE THE OVEN. This is because once applied, it is very hard to remove it all from the curves and grooves inside most ovens. However, caustic soda based products can be used successfully on stainless steel racks and trays.

Oven Pride comes with a zip lock bag and a solution that can be poured into the bag along with the racks and trays. I would advise you to take these bags out of the house and follow the cleaning procedure in the garden. This way none of the nasty smells are in your house and you do not have to worry so much about spilling any of the product on the floor. Always very thoroughly clean the oven racks with washing up liquid solution after they are removed from the bags.

If you do not want to use a caustic oven cleaning product you can use Astonish Oven and Cookware Cleaner:

It is a non toxic product, so if you are cleaning the inside of your oven, you will need to use a little elbow grease and a scourer. But you can achieve really impressive result and there is no unpleasant odour or dangerous fumes and residues. I would never be without this stuff in my cleaning kit.

Caustic soda is a very strong alkaloid, which basically means it is the opposite of an acid. When you use a caustic product on your oven it can leave white chalky marks. These can be eradicated with a cloth soaked in white vinegar. The acidity of the vinegar neutralises the caustic and leaves your oven streak free.

Another thing about caustic soda is that it doesn’t like aluminium at all. In fact it will melt it creating a toxic cloud of smoke. The little fan at the back of your oven is made of aluminium, so never let the two come together!

Ovens smoke because of grease and carbon deposits burning. It my experience it is the grease that smokes a lot more than the blackened carbon deposits. In particular, if grease has somehow got clogged around the grill element, and every time that you turn on the grill it smokes the house out!

To remedy this problem is not easy. It is one of the harder tasks you face as a professional oven cleaner. Basically I try to get as much grease off as I can while the oven is still cold and then I turn the grill on full power until the element has burned everything off itself. This can create a massive amount of smoke but eventually the element should self clean.

Once you have got your grill cleaned, it is important to keep periodically using your grill on full power, or it will inevitably get clogged up again.

The oven scraper blade mentioned earlier in tips 1&2 is the best thing to clean ceramic hobs with. Just use the same method as for glass cleaning (see tip 2). Electric hobs are a bit trickier to blade clean because of the curves where the hob panels are raised. I do not recommend you clean these yourself as they are not flat and using a blade is potentially dangerous. As seen below, it is possible to clean an electric hob with a blade but it takes extreme care, probably better to let The Oven Guy do it!

This is a real quick and easy tip. When the aluminium filters that clip in and out of your hood get greasy, just put them in the dish washer on the hottest wash available. You can do this as many times as you like, so just put them in with all your dirty plates etc, every month or so.

I know this seems like a bit of a cheeky tip to put in to my top 10, especially because I own an oven cleaning company. But some ovens are probably too far gone for a diy cleaning job. Professional oven cleaning will leave your oven looking like new and it will give you a great start for keeping your oven clean from then on.

My next post will be regarding keeping your oven clean once you have it looking like new.

Thank you for reading
Kind Regards,
The Oven Guy.

Hello and welcome to this short blog describing the service we provide at The Oven Guy.

Our level of cleaning is quite a bit more extensive than what most people can achieve with a shop bought oven cleaning product. It is also completely non-toxic, so you can use your oven immediately after it is cleaned. It generally takes between 1.5 to 2 hours to perform a full oven clean.

The first step in cleaning your oven, is to remove all of the trays, racks, panels, light covers and fans. These are put into a specially designed cleaning tank, housed in the rear of our oven cleaning vehicles. Once cleaned these items are all put back together as they were before.

Next, the oven doors, including the inner panes of glass are then carefully dismantled. These are then cleaned with chemically sharpened blades and a non abrasive paste. After those two stages the inner oven itself is brought back to new, as described below.

First of all the oven is heated to around 60 degrees Celcius, this is to help loosen the grease and carbon deposits. Next all of the large areas of dirt are removed using a scraper blade. This process removes about 90% of the grease and carbon.Lastly the well burned on carbon deposits are are removed using totally non-toxic cleaners and specialised abrasive pads that will not damage your oven.. The oven is then buffed to a high shine.

Once we have finished the oven clean you will be able to use your cooker straight away. Many customers are surprised at this as shop bought oven cleaners often say on the instructions “not to use the oven for 24 hours after cleaning”. This is because most popular oven cleaning products that you buy in the supermarkets (such as Mr. Muscle / Oven Pride), contain very high levels of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). This is a very toxic chemical, but don’t worry, the oven guy will not use caustic inside your oven at any stage.

Thank you for reading,
Best Regards,
The Oven Guy.

Posted on November 26, 2012 by dougbackman

Hello and welcome to the blog of The Oven Guy, Dublin’s No.1 Oven cleaning service.In addition to our full oven cleaning service, we also provide a comprehensive repair service. This service includes fixing these common oven faults:

- Replacing oven door hinges,
- Repairing broken oven door seals,
- Repairing broken fans / fan motors,
- Replacing blown grill and oven elements,
- Replacing burnt/missing control knobs.

If there are any other faults with your oven that are not listed please get in touch with our engineer (Doug 0857039978 for further details). Also, repairs are heavily discounted if you also require our oven cleaning service, at the same time.

The most common fault’s I experience with oven’s is when the glue (or gasket) holding the glass to the oven door fails and causes the pane to rattle around or fall off completely. But there’s no need to throw the oven away, or buy a new door, as ‘The Oven Guy’ can reseal these doors as good as new.

First the oven door is removed and taken away to our workshop. The red arrow shown here indicates where the door has become separated from the frame.Next the door is cleaned, re-glued and secured to the frame using a heat proof mastic, this is then left to cure for 24 hours.Finally the door is re-assembled and fitted back to the oven, just like new.

If you want to attempt to seal these doors yourself you will need to get hold of a high temperature silicone. I often use the high temperature gasket sealants that you can buy from any local motor factors. These are able to withstand very high heat a lot more than your oven door will be exposed to.

Any questions on oven repair I am happy to help you with. Simply reply or you can email info@theovenguy.ie for more information.