Using the barbecue is great for those summer cookouts with friends, and making a nice stir fry can be a very tasty experience, but there’s just nothing else quite like a home-cooked meal made with the heart and soul of your kitchen: the oven! From Thanksgiving turkey to homemade pies and more, the only limit to what’s possible with your oven is, quite frankly, your imagination! We encourage our valued customers to experiment with various food combinations and recipes in the kitchen, but with great culinary power comes great culinary responsibility.

Take Care Of Your Kitchen With Profix Appliance Service

This means that you should take proper care of your oven and other kitchen appliances – after all, wouldn’t it be an absolute nightmare if you bought all these expensive ingredients, ready to make a delicious meal, only to find that your oven or stove won’t turn on? This scenario is truly something out of Kitchen Nightmares. Well, you’re just in luck – not only is today’s blog post dedicated to some useful oven maintenance tips to avoid a nightmare situation like this, but Profix Appliance Service offers quality oven repair in Los Angeles and the surrounding metro area in case something does go south in your kitchen.

Learn more about Profix and our appliance repair services here. Let’s go ahead and look at some oven maintenance tips that you can incorporate in your kitchen.

Make Sure To Clean Your Oven

You might be familiar with the concept that the more often you clean something, the less thorough you have to be about the cleaning. In other words, it won’t take that long to clean if you do it often because it probably wasn’t overly filthy to begin with. Well, as it turns out, you don’t need to clean your oven obsessively, because two or three times a year will do. Of course, this is relative to what you’re cooking, what kind of mess you’re making, and how often you actually use your oven. If you happen to make a big mess, just don’t wait too long to clean it up, otherwise, regular oven use is fine in between occasional cleanings.

Safety: Don’t Clean Under Your Oven Knobs

If your oven has a self-clean feature, that’s great, but make sure that you’re following the manufacturer’s guidelines. Don’t try to pull the knobs off of your oven and spray cleaner around the area while your self-cleaning cycle is running – and for that matter, just don’t pull them off whatsoever. Though the A.D.H.D. in you might be disappointed by this news, you’re essentially dousing an electrical system inside of your oven with cleaning chemicals. This can cause your oven to short or even electrocute you. Safety first!

Keep An Eye On Your Oven’s Burners

It’s a recommended practice to inspect your oven’s coil burners for any deformities and immediately replace any damaged burners that you notice. If there’s a small spot on the coil that’s redder than the rest of the coil when you’re cooking something, that means that it is most likely about to short out. This could cause significant damage to your burners and your oven overall. This is preventative oven maintenance at its finest!

Create A Spill Barrier

This is another great preventative maintenance tip. Or really, this is more of an accident avoidance and mitigation tip so that you don’t have a sudden freak accident and set the inside of your oven on fire. If you’re cooking a pie or casserole, for example, and some of the ingredients spill onto your oven, you should clean it as soon as possible. After all, the longer messes sit in your oven, the more they’ll burn. So, before you even preheat your oven, you should consider putting a small cookie sheet covered with tinfoil underneath your oven racks in order to catch any spillage. However, be sure that you don’t block any vents.

If Applicable, Replace The Gas

If you purchase a new gas oven for your home, be sure to replace your gas line. Why? Moving and swapping the ovens creates a lot of movement, and vibration can cause leaks in your gas line, even if you don’t notice it at first. Replacing your gas line is actually pretty inexpensive – new gas lines usually run somewhere around $12, depending on the company that’s installing your new gas oven. So compared to the cost of a new oven, it’s almost nothing and it’s a safe move for you and the fellow occupants of your domicile.

Unplug Your Oven If You’re Cleaning With Water

Here’s another important safety tip when it comes to oven maintenance. If you’re going to be cleaning the inside of your oven by hand (as we mentioned above, something you should occasionally do), make sure that you unplug your oven beforehand. Thoroughly cleaning the inside of an oven usually requires a good amount of water, especially if there’s a lot of residue built up. Obviously, this is a safety measure to essentially eliminate any possible risk of electrocution.

Cleaning Doesn’t Have To Be Hard

Speaking of cleaning your oven safely, you can also do it without consuming hours of your day or breaking your back in the process. Simply spray a baking soda and water mixture all over the oven. When that mixture turns to a light film, wipe the oven down with dish soap to cut through that pesky grease. Then, go over everything with a vinegar and water solution, which will make everything nice and shiny and also kill germs in the process.

Call Profix Appliance Service If Things Get Bad

And there you have it! Follow those tips to safely maintain your oven. However, if your oven truly breaks down and you don’t know what to do, the experts at Profix Appliance Service in Los Angeles are qualified to do oven repair and Viking oven repair, including factory service and things covered under warranty. If you have any questions, contact us today.

Schedule An Oven Repair Request Today