Cleaning the oven - sweet Jesus!

[CeliaFate]

I have a self-cleaning oven - it is a bloody liar. To my utter shame it's now so dirty that you can't see the light on through the door. You can't see through the door!
I rang an oven cleaning company who quoted £95 to clean it. I was sorely tempted, it's that bad.

How can I save myself the money and clean the ming machine? I can't use any Oven Pride or commercial oven cleaners as they all say "do not use on self-cleaning ovens".
Please help!

I'm going to lurk on your thread as I'm in the same boat - I've never cleaned my oven and it's looking pretty grim in there..

ring some more cleaning places. round here you can get it done for about £40 (am in the south-east)

Parts of my oven are self-cleaning - there's a different texture to the sides and back of the oven than the base. But it only self-cleans when you run it really hot, which I never do - have a look at your instruction leaflet and see if it says anything similar.

And if the door is glass, then you are fine to use the cleaning liquids/gels/sprays on that - I use Oven Mate ( I think - the Lakeland stuff anyway...) on the door and the bottom of the oven, plus the shelves, even though I can't use it on the "self-cleaning" sections.

Ooh, didn't know that AMumInScotland. The quote was pretty much the same for other cleaners (2 separate ovens, 6 hob ceramic burner plus grill thingy) thisisyesterday, if it had been £65 I would have gladly paid it, but not £95.

I have one of those ovens too, great at cleaning top, bottom and sides, but did not clean the metal shelves. My oven walls looked great but the shelves were a disgrace; so much so that I was looking to buy replacements instead of chaining myself to the sink for 24 hours with a brillo pad! Unfortunately the shelves were £30 each .

I read on here that if you place the shelves in the bath with really hot water and a good dose of biological washing powder and leave for several hours the dirt and baked on grease can come off with a cloth and you can use the brillo for the awkward bits. You may want to put towels in the bath to protect it.

It's amazing the result you get. I'm now quite proud of my oven and when I had completed the above, I showed anyone who came into my house how lovely my oven was, I'm really sad

Someone else on here also suggested Barkeeper's Friend (you can get it in Sainsbury's) for the baked on stuff on the door and that did a pretty good job too.

MM

PS- Goodhouskeeping section is my favourite on Mumsnet

If you can afford the £95 to get it cleaned I would really recommend it as when it's done it looks like new. It's easier to maintain then, as said above, you can clean the sections that are not self-cleaning panels. I only get my oven cleaned by the cleaning man at Christmas, and give it an occasional wipe myself other times.

You could take the shelves out and use Oven Pride as that comes with a big bag to put the trays and shelves in, and after that you could put the glass door in too if it slides out.
The rest should self clean on REALLY hot.

The lakeland oven mate is the best for all the non self cleaning parts. Apply liberally overnight. The oven door, and floor will wipe clean. It's amazing!

For shelves and oven trays, again apply liberally, leave overnight. Put all the bits in dishwasher on a hot cycle - half way through, open the dishwasher, and just rub any stubborn bits quickly with brillo pad, then let dishwasher finish.

Gleaming shelves, and none of that faffing around scrubbing bits of wire!

Then personally with everything else clean, would super heat the oven to blast off the self cleaning bits.

It takes me half an hour to clean a really filthy oven like this!!