By Becky Hieter 4/19/16
How to clean an oven
Day 1 –
Prepare the Oven
- Remove the black racks, now coated with a film from the crusty oven.
- Curse son that allowed pizza to drip into the bottom of the oven.
- Blame every other oven user for the mess inside.
- Swear this will never look like this again.
Clean the Oven
- Set oven to self-clean.
- Open all the doors and windows in anticipation of stinky smoky smell.
- Dismantle smoke alarms
- Pretend not to notice.
Wait until faces are again visible, emerge for the bomb shelter. Close the windows and doors. Reassemble smoke alarms, add working batteries.
Side Work
Place racks into the sink to soak overnight. Place many chemicals in the sink. Add water, Run from the room.
Go to bed.
Day 2 –
Post Cleaning
- Stumble into the kitchen in search of coffee.
- Observe old greasy rack in the sink soaking.
- Scrub a little bit at the blackish spots noticing the racks really were not that color.
- Scrub a little more, seeing the silverfish hue immerges.
- Add more hot water for posterity sake to improve soakability.
Get coffee; leave the kitchen, intend to come back right after coffee has begun to work.
Later that day, after accomplishing everything but this:
Return to scrubbing the racks, employ elbow grease and any grease cutting substance that will return the racks to chrome sheen. Some of the black is very stubborn and appears to be permanently the new color on sections of the rack. Some of the rack is shiny clean. The black sections now make it look dirtier than when the rack was clean even though they are not considered polka dots on the silver heifer style rack.
Reconsider color scheme for the kitchen, country kitchen is a popular theme; cow colored racks would look nice in there.
Oven Proper
- Open the oven door to see what the “laser clean” function accomplished.
- Notice the ash in the bottom, oooo and ahhhh in wonderment.
- Clean the ash and preserve it in an urn for the time capsule.
- Wipe the side and the glass to remove any remaining debris
- Pause to appreciate the reflection glowing back at you. Close enough – looks good with the racks.
Oven Door
It’s hard not to notice that despite the cleaning of the glass both inside and out that much food drip residue still is apparent on the tempered glass. Upon further inspection – the triple panes, two inside and one out, appear to have been dripped into even though there are no holes to allow this to happen. It reminded me of my son that could become dirty in a sterile room. The unnamed church can explain these mysteries to you. I cannot.
I cannot sell a house with a gross oven; no one will buy the “gross oven house”. We will be marked by realtors, neighbors; future places to live won’t accept us… Wait – we have tools, I will take it apart to clean it. Our reputation can be saved.
Technically, I won’t, as soon as I ask my handy hubby if he has “a nut remover thingy that looks like this”, he will no longer allow me to proceed and is on this job. The tools come out in force. After separating the front and back of the door, by removing the screws, we clearly see the dirty glass, no entry point for filth and interesting enough, nothing around the glass is remotely dirty. I still don’t know what to think about that.
The glass is however held firmly in place. There is a three inch gap we can jimmy into that he now suggests I use to squish my hand into to the clean the glass, all, three, panes. Bear in mind, panes 1 & 2 inside the oven are separated by a ¼ inch gap.
I wait for him to leave the room, re-examine the door and see some suspicious brackets that appear to be removable and ask for another wrench type thing that can get these non-standard nuts (not me) out of the oven. I am pretty sure that one of two things will happen, we will get a new stove, or I can remove the glass. We were able to remove the glass. The panes were cleaned after much scrubbing, replaced and reassembly was easier than disassembly.
The oven is now cleaner than when it was new. Not that you can tell, the bulb inside of the oven is burnt out.
Comments