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Your oven is one of the most long-lasting and essential appliances in your home.
However, this does not mean that you can just neglect to maintain it.
Even if you just use it for heating up fast-food and left-overs, you need to give your oven a little bit of TLC.
Routine cleaning and maintenance can go a long way in keeping your oven from wearing down quicker.
This article will provide you a list of oven maintenance tips from professional appliance repair experts.
Helpful Oven Maintenance Tips
Do a Regular Deep Cleaning.
Experts recommend that your oven should be deep-cleaned at least twice a year.
For baking hobbyists, who use theirs more frequently, the suggested cleaning routine is once every two months.
Of course, you must also deal with the mess from recent baking activities as soon as possible.
Leaving the mess for later will allow build-up, which will make your routine maintenance more exhausting for you.
Better to clean up any messes now so that cleaning gets easier.
Use Self-Cleaning Feature Wisely.
A lot of modern ovens have a self-cleaning feature.
However, the opinions over their use are conflicting with some experts recommending to use it while others insist on avoiding it.
When you use the self-cleaning feature, it uses very high heat to burn off stuck bits. So make sure to observe if something goes wrong.
You must also use it sparingly since frequent use of high heat wears down the heating elements quickly.
Unplug the Oven During Cleaning.
This is a tip that can’t be stressed enough.
If your oven is electrically-powered, you must always make sure it’s unplugged.
This is not only for the oven’s components but also for yours.
A thorough cleaning of your oven requires you to wash the inside part with water, which conducts electricity.
Make sure to unplug the appliance so that you won’t get electrocuted when cleaning inside the oven.
Don’t Clean Under the Knobs.
This might contradict your purpose of cleaning every part of the oven, but this tip is for a good reason.
The knobs are connected to the oven’s electrical system.
Cleaning them with water is a recipe for disaster, both for you and your oven.
You risk short-circuiting the oven’s electronics and electrocuting yourself, so better leave the knobs.
Take Care of Spills.
If you’ve used your oven to bake something, you might have experienced your baking food spilling over its container.
As mentioned in the tip above, you must clean this as soon as possible to avoid mess build-up.
You can prevent this by placing a larger baking sheet underneath the food.
By doing so, you’re creating a barrier that prevents food from falling to the bottom of the oven.
Clean the Oven Racks.
While most of the spills end up on the bottom, some end up on the racks.
Make sure also to clean them to minimize the mess in your oven.
Check the Gasket.
The gasket is the rubber covering the lip of the oven door.
The rubber acts as a seal to effectively trap the heat in so that none would be wasted.
However, the rubber wears down over time, so make it a part of your routine maintenance to check it.
Look for crack and tears in the gasket and replace it to keep your oven efficient.
Check the heating elements.
The heating elements are the coiled metals found either on top or the bottom of the oven, and it poses a risk when damaged.
Make sure to check for deformities, or if there’s a spot brighter than the rest, which means it’s about to short circuit.
Should you find these, replace them as soon as possible.
Clean the Spaces Under and Behind the Oven.
Move your oven from its spot to clean the spaces underneath and behind it.
The build-up of dust or food particles can get into the oven and affect its performance.
Get a Professional Repairman
One of the best ways to provide proper care for your oven is to have it checked by an expert appliance repairman.
Let them have a look at your oven to see if it needs repair or replacement. Make you oven last with the help of experts.
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