The Kitchen: Stoves and ranges

Where you cook in the kitchen, where you bake, fry, and make your meals in the kitchen can be a very dirty place. The stove is one appliance that will need cleaned, as you use is it. The top of the stove that you actually cook on should be wiped clean daily to prevent build-ups of grease, spills, sauces, and more.

Weekly cleaning of the front of the stove and the portion of the stove above the cooking areas will be needed. Simply wiping down these areas with hot soapy water, bleach spray, a kitchen cleaner or your favorite deep cleaner will prevent the grease and odor build up. 

Your ‘deep cleaning’ every two or three months should also involve the stove. Cleaning the interior of the stove will be required to keep your stove functioning properly. Not cleaning the interior of your stove can cause build up of grease, grime, and foods that spill over in the oven. Sometimes the build of up of such things in your stove can cause fires.

Preventing fires, while stopping odors from building up is another reason to keep your stove or range clean. Lifting the top of your stove, you will find the area below the top contains crumbs, dried spills, and sometimes even actual pieces of food. This food can cause odors in the kitchen when you are cooking and when you not cooking! 

The under side of the top of your stove will come clean, most all stove and range manufactures make the materials of the stove to be easily cleaned. You can use a variety of cleaners, scratchy pads, green scuff pads, soaps, bleach and such to get out the caked on and bake on foods in this part of your stove.

To prevent the deep cleaning of this area of your stove, lift your stove lid and wipe around the burners just once a week. Around the burners and where pans sit, you will find spills, sauces, and crumbs that you can easily wipe up with just soap and water.

Be sure when cleaning any portion of your stove on the top or on the inside that you wipe out the cleaners that you use. Some cleaners are very flammable, and if you leave a puddle in the stove or on the stove, it could catch fire. Use a few wet paper towels and double check you have removed all the cleaners before using your stove again!

So, you should be wiping down the top of the stove daily, the inside of your stove gets cleaned every month or two and the underneath of the top of the stove should be done about once a week to keep it clean and odor free. That leaves us with under and behind the stove!

If you have pets, hair is attracted under the stove no matter what you do. Pet hair build up behind the stove can be a breeding place for odors and for other little critters that come into the house. The grease from cooking and baking on the stove combines with the pet hair for sometimes nasty smells.

To keep your house smelling fresh and odor free, you will need to sweep your kitchen at least every other day, and as often as possible, sweeping behind and under the stove. Most stoves and ranges have small kick panels that are removable on the front of the stove, just like your refrigerator. Remove this little panel, sweep out the pet hair as good as possible, and run your hand back there with a wet rag to get up the grease.

On your deep cleaning sprees, physically moving the stove, sweeping behind it and the scrubbing the walls and the floors good with a grease cutter is going to keep this area fresh and gleaming clean. Preventative cleaning, when sweeping weekly, will help prolong the need to physically pull out the stove and clean behind it for pet hair, grease and food.

While you have the stove out of its sitting area, you should clean the cabinetry beside the stove and the sides of the stove itself. Using a wood cleaner on the cabinetry you will be cutting through egg spills, grease, food and sauce spills with ease. Bleach water, hot soapy water or your favorite kitchen cleaning solution on the sides of the stove will cut through even dried on stuff.

Cleaning on the top, inside, behind and under the stove is going to clean up odors from pet hair, dirt, and foods that are spilled. Cleaning in, under, around and the top of your stove is also going to keep your stove in better working condition – promoting the long lasting working of your stove and even promoting more even baking and cooking for your family meals.