Oven Cleaning

That comes down to what you have got and how long it has been left. A single built in oven is the quickest job on the list. A double oven is close to twice the work, and a range cooker is longer again because every part of it is bigger. Adding the hob and the extractor adds time, and so does an oven nobody has touched in years. Tell us the make and model and roughly when it was last done, and the time goes in writing with the quote.

The products we use shift baked on grease without filling the kitchen with fumes, so you can stay in the house and you are not left airing the place out when we go. Everything is rinsed and dried before it is refitted, so there is nothing sitting on the metal for the first thing you cook to pick up. The oven is safe to use as soon as we have finished.

As far as it is designed to come apart, yes. The racks, shelves, side runners and trays all come out and are cleaned on their own instead of being scrubbed in place. Most doors split so we can reach the glass between the panes, which is where the brown film sits, and on a lot of ovens the fan cover comes off as well. If a part is sealed shut, or the hinges are tired enough that taking the door off would do more harm than good, we leave it alone and say why.

Yes. A range cooker is more of everything: wider ovens, extra doors, more shelves and a much bigger hob, so it is a longer job than a built in oven and we plan the day around that. Tell us the make and model when you book. If yours is an AGA or another cast iron range, say so, because those have to be switched off and completely cold before anyone can work on them and they take hours to come back up to temperature afterwards. We will say whether it is one we can take on before you book anything.

Yes, both come as part of a full oven clean rather than as an extra. On a gas hob the pan supports, burner caps and crowns lift off and are cleaned away from the hob, and we keep the ignition parts dry. Ceramic and induction glass has the burnt on marks taken off and is then polished. Above it we degrease the hood, the canopy and the grease filters behind the metal panel, which is the bit most people have never had out.

Metal mesh filters can be degreased and go straight back in, and they come up better than most people expect. Carbon filters are a different thing. They sit in hoods that push the air back into the room instead of venting outside, and they cannot be washed, so they are a replacement part. We will tell you which sort yours has, so you can order the right one rather than have us clean something that was never going to come clean.

It does, so say so before we start. Catalytic liners are the rough panels on the oven walls that soak up grease and burn it off while the oven runs hot, and chemicals and scourers wreck them, so we clean around them and leave them to do their own job. A pyrolytic oven takes itself up to a very high heat and turns the residue to ash, but the ash still has to be wiped out, and the cycle does nothing at all for the door glass, the shelves or the hob.

If you cook most days, twice a year keeps it from ever getting bad. Once a year is plenty for lighter use, and if you roast or batch cook a lot, every three or four months is more realistic. Wiping the door and the floor of the oven while it is still warm after cooking stretches that gap out a long way. Landlords tend to book one between tenancies whatever the calendar says.

Usually very close. The grease, the carbon and the brown film on the door glass all come off, and most ovens look far better than their owner expects. What does not come off is damage: chipped enamel, a base scored by a tray being dragged in and out, a discoloured element, a door seal that has gone hard and shrunk. If we can see any of that when we look at the oven, you will hear about it before we start rather than after.