A Guide to Self Cleaning Ovens
I’ve had some laughable moments in all of my years of being in the home cleaning industry. Such as the first time I used the ‘self clean’ feature on an oven.
I mean, it sounds pretty simple, right? You just press a button and it cleans it for you? So futuristic and Jetson-esque.
I’d love for you to skip this scenario: you turn on ‘self clean’, find yourself in deep conversation across the house with a client, smell burning, only to turn your head to see smoke billowing out of the clients kitchen. I totally thought I was about to burn someone’s house down. ⚠️
Thankfully, we were able to unplug the oven and get the oven to cool down before too much damage was done. Turns out, spraying chemicals on the oven BEFORE turning on the self clean feature is DANGEROUS. In my defense, they don’t put this stuff in an easy-to-read bold font in a prominent area on the oven. You don’t know what you don’t know, until you know.
The lesson here: do your due diligent research before pressing buttons on things that you don’t know much about.
Since most of us throw our appliance instructional guides into the recycling bin or in some dark corner of our basement, it can be easy to overlook a few things when it comes to the self clean feature on the oven. Especially when it comes to important safety guidelines.
Learn these 4 need-to-know-things about self cleaning ovens and download the step-by-step oven cleaning guide.
Products & Tools You’ll Need
1. What exactly happens when you turn on self clean?
The oven door will lock and the temperature will rise to about 880 degrees fahrenheit / 500 degrees celsius. Until this cycle completes and cools, it will be HOT. Allow ample time for cooling before handling your oven. During this self clean cycle, most of the grease and debris will turn to ash.
2. Do not spray any chemicals inside of your oven before turning on self clean.
Since the oven rises to such a high temp, you don’t want any chemicals on the interior of the oven. This can be dangerous to your health AND potentially flammable. If you DO spray any chemicals on the oven, ensure you do so AFTER the self clean cycle has completed and the oven has cooled down completely.
3. Remove oven racks.
Oven racks are not made with the same material as the oven wall interior. You’ll want to remove these before you start the self clean cycle as they can wear down during this high heat process. Check your manufacturer manual for further information.
4. Once the self clean cycle is done, you still need to clean it.
While the self clean option removes the majority of the scrubbing work for you, there will be ash and hardened grease stains left behind. You’ll still need to remove this. I created an oven cleaning guide that goes over the exact step-by-step process to follow, to help lift and remove remaining debris and to polish the oven clean.
