Oven cleaning

[cjsmith]

Never truly had to do this before. May I say for the record that it is a major pain in the patootie?

1. Attempt self clean cycle. Minimal to no effect.
2. Repeat attempt (in the hopes that "minimal" was progress). No effect at all.
3. Buy oven cleaner and apply according to instructions. Gunk in oven is loosened but now the entire oven is gray-white and I can't get that off no matter how much rinsing and scrubbing I do.

At this point I would be happy to have the oven back in the state it was in before I started. Why do I try, people? Somebody, somewhere, tell me the answer to this fundamental question?

So now I'm doing something that I know is a not so good idea, but I'm out of options:

4. Repeat self clean cycle. Maybe it will burn some of this stuff off. (From the fumes, I can tell it's doing SOMETHING.)

Wish me luck.

Comments

[cjsmith]

Oh well. I doubt I’ll ever have cause to use this knowledge again. If all this results in a permanently unusable oven, then next time I have an oven that is dirty I will know that it is quicker and easier simply to buy a new one from the get go.

[marahmarie]

People don't generally buy new ovens each time the current one gets "that dirty" but hey, if that's an option then more power to you.

[cjsmith]

It is not even remotely an option. Also, this oven is not "dirty" but UNUSABLE. These two facts together are quite frustrating to me.

[marahmarie]

Oh, well I'm sorry to hear that. If I lived more nearby I'd be happy to poke my head in and think what could be done, if anything, but we live far, far away from each other (about 1,500 miles or so, I think), so.

I was only quoting you on the "dirty"part from your reply to me. I had no idea it was unusable as I thought you were getting somewhere with the vinegar (well, the last I saw on it, it sounded like you were, but that was last night). Really sorry to hear that. :(

[cjsmith]

Yeah, I was thinking NEXT time an oven gets dirty enough that I'd want to clean it, I would be wise to remember that this episode of "cleaning" resulted in an unusable oven, so I could (if I chose) skip all the effort of the cleaning attempt and just go straight to "looks like I need an oven". Sort of a send-up of "I need a new car because this one's dirty", except tragically too close to reality.

I may be getting somewhere with the vinegar. Three passes so far and it still reeks if it warms up. Maybe it reeks less. I dunno.

[marahmarie]

Regular maintenance will prevent it getting so dirty that it gets to that point for you (and is a lot easier/less time consuming to tackle). I've never run into an oven that's too dirty to clean (though I've run into a few that are impossible to return to a like-new, spotless state only because I don't know what people put in their ovens but yeah man, sometimes it isn't food!), and boy howdy, lemme tell you: I've seen some unbelievably bad ovens, as in, "Let me try to reconstruct this oven from what my memory of what ovens might look like, clean" - so lack of care is *not* an oven-killer, so to speak, but can take a few hours spread out over several days to get through (between letting the spray sit, scrubbing, letting it sit and scrubbing again) so patience is probably one's greatest friend there.

[cjsmith]

Hahaha I didn't mention HOW it got dirty. This wasn't exactly a long-standing thing. (The oven is two years old and my attempts to learn to cook are a lot more recent than that.) But a pie got poured into it... in retrospect, it's funny... :)

[marahmarie]

Yeah, it happens (and can happen quickly!) so don't feel too bad...

[cjsmith]

It sure did happen fast! Oh well!

[marahmarie]

Also, if you can afford it there's no need to do it yourself! You can hire someone off TaskRabbit or similar (I'd do that myself if I could afford it just for more free time, and I do it for a living). Housekeeping's time-consuming, which is my main thing against it, and super-annoying/frustrating/exhausting at times like these when something's just become a disaster, for another, so I wouldn't blame you (nor should anyone) for handing it off, not at all.

[cjsmith]

And with 20/20 hindsight I realize that this would have been a great idea. Sigh. Now, of course, it's far too late! Ah well!

Thanks for all your advice throughout... this one's a bust, but at least I learned something.

[marahmarie]

You're welcome and hey - you fought the good fight! We've all been there at one point or another, even if it was not with an oven. :)

[cjsmith]

Thanks for the solidarity! Yeah this one has definitely been... dispiriting. I had no idea I could do this much damage. Live and learn.

[marahmarie]

You're welcome! Guess what I did today? Totally, totally cleaned my oven...talk about online stuff bleeding into real life (after this convo I've got ovens unstoppably on my brain, now)... :)

[cjsmith]

LOL! I hope it sparkles! Go you! :-D

[marahmarie]

Oh yeah, it look great now after scrubbing - thanks!