Do you have a self-cleaning oven? Do you use the self-cleaning feature?
By PearlGrace
@PearlGrace (3171)
United States
August 4, 2008 2:22pm CST
I've had self-cleaning ovens before and I always get a little leery of using this feature as the cabinets next to the stove always got really hot to the touch. It made me think the cabinets were gonna catch on fire.
Anyhoo, we remodeled our kitchen 16 months ago and I got this really cool Sears Elite range that has a self-cleaning feature. Last night, I decided I was gonna use the self-cleaning feature first thing this a.m. So, I read the instructions and did everything it said to do--take out all the racks and clean it with warm soap and water first.
When I got up, I set the self-clean feature for 2 hours. It offers 2 choices: 2 hours or 4 hours. It wasn't very dirty, so that's why I chose 2 hours. After an hour and 15 minutes of the self-clean cycle, I decided to press "stop" to end the self-cleaning. So, I did.
The cabinets were just barely warm. What's interesting about this oven is that it has a little fan inside and it fans out the hot air after I switch it off.
The oven itself got quite clean, but I had to scrub the glass door a little more to get it all the way clean, once it cooled down.
So, do you have a self-cleaning oven? If so, do you use the self-clean feature? If so, for how long? Does it get the oven really clean or do you still have to scrub?
1 person likes this
6 responses
@ellie333 (21016)
•
5 Aug 08
Hi PearlGrace, I have a fan assisted self celaning oven and I have never used the self clean facility, I just clean the bottom and the door window and the oven trays. The sides have always remained clean. To be quite honest I have never read the instructions and didn't realise you could even do this. LOL. Ellie :D
1 person likes this
@PearlGrace (3171)
• United States
6 Aug 08
Hey ellie333. Yes, it cleans itself and it is amazing! Mine has a fan also. I assume your oven is also convection, as I understand that is why ovens have fans (I think). Good for you that you try to wipe out the oven from time to time. I haven't been so good with that, but I will be in the future. Basically, after using the self-cleaning feature, my oven is now the same as brand new.
It is great and you should definitely try the self-cleaning feature when your oven needs to be cleaned (which sounds like never if you wipe it out alot).
Take care, ellie333.
@kimbers867 (2539)
• United States
5 Aug 08
I have a self-cleaning oven but I only use to clean it in the winter because it does get very hot while it is cleaning. We just had our kitchen remodeled last year and don't want to ruin my new cabinetry.
We hardly use our oven anymore, we use our toaster oven now for most baking.
@PearlGrace (3171)
• United States
5 Aug 08
Hi kimbers867.
If you got the oven new when you remodeled last year, you might be pleasantly surprised with the low amount of heat it emits during the self-cleaning cycle. I think they have vastly improved upon this feature in the production of oven ranges. The cabinets on either side of my oven were barely warm, just along the edge where they are up against the stove. Our new cabinetry is wood, so I was a little nervous, but it went great. Maybe yours would, too.
Anyway, I have a toaster oven also. And I love it. When my husband's gone, I fix my salmon in there. I roast my asparagus in it also. Mine is just a small countertop model, so I can't really use it to fix a regular meal for the 2 of us. But it still comes in handy.
1 person likes this
@jillhill (37354)
• United States
4 Aug 08
Actually I don't...I bake once in a while in the winter with my granddaughter but for the most part barely cook for myself. So when I got a new stove four years ago I didn't even think to look for that option...and my stove still looks brand new! LOL
1 person likes this
@PearlGrace (3171)
• United States
4 Aug 08
Hi jillhill.
Good for you, a stove that looks brand new at 4 years old. Wow. That's impressive.
I love to cook and I cook up a storm quite a bit. Plus, I usually have something that occasionally cooks over in the oven, no matter how hard I try to prevent that from happening.
I was thrilled that the self-cleaning feature worked so well today. I vowed to do it more often to keep it a little cleaner. Maybe I'll do it twice a year...
@ersmommy1 (12588)
• United States
4 Aug 08
No self cleaning oven here. We use Easy off Oven cleaner most of the time. It works well enough. Our oven gets clean. Might be nice to get a self cleaning one one day. A little less struggle to get the oven clean.
1 person likes this
@PearlGrace (3171)
• United States
4 Aug 08
That's great that Easy Off works so well. Cleaning the oven used to be a very nasty job. Hopefully, one day, you'll have a self-cleaning one. It took me alot of years to get them, but this is my third one, and I love it.
@dandj929 (423)
• United States
4 Aug 08
We have a self-cleaning oven in my house. I don't use the self-cleaning feature very often. I try to clean up spills when the oven cools by hand. Maybe once a year I turn on the self-clean for about an hour or an hour and a half. It's usually just after Christmas that I do this as I tend to use the oven more to bake goodies around the holidays and don't spend the time to clean up the spills as they happen.
I like the self-clean feature but I do worry about the extreme heat it creates. I make sure I'm not too far from the kitchen when I use it, just in case.
1 person likes this
@PearlGrace (3171)
• United States
4 Aug 08
Hi there dandj929.
Oh, it's nice to hear that someone else worries about the extreme heat that a self-cleaning oven puts out. I will say that this particular oven did not put off that much. It must be better insulated than my previous self-cleaning ovens.
Plus, it has a little fan in it that disperses the hot air, once the self-cleaning feature is complete. And the door cannot be opened for an hour after it shuts off, to protect from people getting burned. I must say, it worked like a charm.
I am going to do like you, try to wet wipe the oven down a little more often. I might use the self-cleaning twice a year. Although it was 16 months before I tried it for the first time!
Thanks for sharing. Take care.
@sunnflr (2767)
• United States
4 Aug 08
We don't have a self cleaning oven now. We did in our last house and I loved it! I can't use the sprays because the smell gets to me. I'm overly sensitive to smells because of my fibromyalgia. Therefore, my husband has to clean the stove now!
1 person likes this
@PearlGrace (3171)
• United States
4 Aug 08
Yeah, the smells of those old oven cleaners were the pits! I feel for anybody that has to clean the oven that way. It's backbreaking. Just when I was wiping the ash residue off after the oven cooled down, my back got sore from continuously bending down like that. I'm glad it's done. Hopefully, it won't have to be done for another 6 months to 1 year.
