Electric ovens don’t last forever. Of course, they are built to last, but there will always come a day when it just doesn’t want to work any more. This might happen over the course of many years or it could just develop a fault in an instant. Where heat, moving parts and electronics are involved, there is always potential for issues.

Modern ovens are built to last though, particularly those that offer the highest specifications. But even these need to be looked after properly. If you don’t clean it regularly and fully, grease and other detritus can collect in the oven and cause damage, particularly if it’s left for too long. So by ensuring that all of this is dealt with and removed before it can build up, your oven is far less likely to encounter functionality issues further down the line.

Of course, comprehensive cleaning and the removal of dirt are beneficial in a number of other ways, not least when it comes to hygiene. So you won’t just be boosting the longevity of the appliance, but also making sure that your food isn’t given an unnaturally smoky taste too.

It is also possible to get a service for your oven. Some manufacturers will provide this as standard, along with any repairs that are covered under warranty, but this should ensure that if fans are damaged or filters need to be replaced that these issues are found and dealt with accordingly. Food spillages can easily clog any moving parts and quickly render an oven useless, so identify the issue and remedying it swiftly can help you to save the cost of buying a brand new appliance.

One of the telltale signs that your oven is on its way, is when getting up to temperature takes longer. Whilst this could indicate an issue with the seals, it is also indicative of more fundamental problems with the heating element and may point towards an irreversible decline in performance. This can obviously impact cooking times and energy efficiency, so whilst it may function to an extent, the continuing decline may prove to be more costly in the long run.

As we all know, prevention is better than cure, which is why it’s so important that your oven is kept in full working order throughout its life. So always ensure that repairs are made promptly, filters are changed when the manufacturer recommends it to be done and, easiest of all, make sure that it is kept clean at all times. If you don’t have the time, use professional cleaning services. This way you can enjoy all the benefits of a fully functional oven, but without any of the hassle of maintenance.

Sometimes choosing the cheapest provider only brings further pain, with corners cut on some jobs and issues with reliability. So what should you be looking for when seeking an oven cleaning service?

As any home-owner will testify, ovens need to be cleaned regularly and thoroughly. Failure to do so will result in damage to the appliance, a loss of efficiency and billowing smoke every time you open the door. As careful as you are, cooking in an oven will always result in the build up of fatty deposits, which can cause all kinds of damage.

Of course you can wipe these away when you’re finished, but many people forget or simply aren’t able to, which can allow it to build up. The end result is that you will encounter one or perhaps all of the issues named above and your oven will need an extensive clean. But many people still have misgivings about hiring a professional to do the work for them.

This is only natural, apart from having to pay for the service, you also have to entrust a very important (and expensive appliance) into the hands of somebody that you don’t know. Therefore, in order to allay any such fears, you should always look for businesses or individuals that have the necessary credentials and insurance to complete the work.

Hiring an oven cleaning company who don’t possess adequate insurance could lead to major issues further down the line. If they were to break the glass front on your oven, damage any of the fans or other mechanisms then you would be liable to pay for the repair. This could leave you hugely out of pocket and with an oven that isn’t just dirty, but also unusable.

Insurance might not guarantee that accidents will be prevented entirely, but it ensures that there is something in place to compensate you if it does. It is also a good indication that an oven cleaning expert takes their work seriously and that they understand the value of doing a good job, rather than just going after your money.

Here at Ovenu, we use specialist, non-damaging cleaning products to ensure that no surfaces are left damaged as a result of cleaning the oven. Not all practitioners will offer the same guarantee, so it’s always worth investigating exactly what they offer first and any guarantees that they can provide. It’s important that you feel confident, so never be afraid to ask questions before committing to any service.

Oven cleaning is, by and large, incredibly safe. As long as you find a provider that you can trust and that employs best practices in all services, you have nothing to worry about and can look forward to having your oven returned to showroom condition in a few short hours.

Just after Christmas 2011, a home in Meridian, Idaho, USA was the victim of a faulty self cleaning oven which had disastrous consequences. The oven was switched to self cleaning mode, but the action had actually sparked a fire. Consequently, more than $25,000 (£16,000) of damage was caused from the smoke and fire. Thankfully no one was injured, but the fire-fighters at the scene did explain that this kind of situation happens more often than people would care to think.

Self cleaning ovens work by using extremely high temperatures to reduce the grime and spillages contained within the oven to ash. This way, the oven doesn’t allow a build up of dirt, but rather lets you simply clean the ash away, once it has been incinerated. However this is where safety issues can sometimes arise.

Some believe that buying a self cleaning oven will put an end to using the marigolds, scrubbing brushes and cleaning products. Unfortunately, this isn’t exactly true. Spillages, grease and grime can build up on the surfaces and contained within the oven itself. Whilst the high temperatures will remove most of the dirt build up, it will never be entirely spotless. The oven can only do so much, and will never be a complete alternative to cleaning the oven yourself, or having oven cleaning professionals to do the job.

Regarding the safety of your oven, the story from Idaho perfectly illustrates the risk of using such a device. Self cleaning ovens do have their benefits, and many people in the UK and around the world will continue to buy them, but there are some safety tips that you should consider if you do decide on purchasing this type of oven.

First of all, regardless of the fact that your oven is self cleaning, you should still ensure that it is kept reasonably clean. Any food spillages or debris can have an adverse effect when your oven is self cleaning and cause excess smoke.

Before switching on your oven to self clean mode, locate where the circuit breaker for the oven is. This maybe a switch above the hobs or located elsewhere in the kitchen. This is useful to know, because when an oven is switched to self cleaning mode, it is then locked within that mode and the only way to stop it is by cutting the power.

Always stay in the house once you’ve switched on the self cleaning mode. This is true of other appliances, but for the sheer fact that a self cleaning oven operates at extremely high temperatures, it heightens the safety precautions you should take.

Such motivation and behaviour can manifest itself in a number of different ways, but to start a new year, many people will opt to give the house good thorough clean. If you’ve thrown the odd party over the Christmas period, or were busy cooking up a feast on the big day, then your kitchen would’ve been put to good use, especially your oven.

Just imagine all the different types of foods you’ve cooked inside your oven over the Christmas period. Now think about any spillages, fat, grease and food particles that could have built up during this time. It may not be just during the festive season though of course, perhaps you haven’t given your oven a good clean for a while now. Well the start of 2012 is the perfect time for a good cleanout, to start the year afresh.

Whilst cleaning the oven yourself is certainly one option, you shouldn’t just throw caution to the wind as this could be very costly, especially in the long run. Make sure you use the correct types of cleaning products first and foremost. Simply buying the cheapest or strongest oven cleaner on the high street or from supermarket is not the answer.

Most of these products contain Sodium hydroxide or what’s known as caustic-soda. This is a very powerful chemical that can easily corrode your oven, leaving trims, seals and the heating elements damaged. Not only that, but it can ruin the appearance of surfaces by leaving a strong residue or an abrasive feel. Therefore, tip number one would be to specifically use caustic-soda free cleaning products, and to use them carefully when cleaning.

Another tip would be to leave the oven cleaner well alone, after all, it’s been a busy Christmas and you’re now probably back to work, or back in the swing of things at home. Whatever your circumstances, it’s fair to say that nowadays we have less and less time for these manual chores. So, one option would be to use the services of a professional oven cleaning company to do all the hard work for you.

You don’t have to worry about buying the right type of cleaning product, and spending hours giving your oven the thorough clean that it deserves. If you’re busy, let the professionals take care of it. Furthermore, if you’re at home with young children or pets, ensuring they are kept well away from any harsh chemicals can be stressful. With an oven cleaning service you can remove that stress whilst you can spend the time you’ve saved doing something far more productive.

Therefore, the best tip for post Christmas oven cleaning would be to carefully choose your oven cleaning products, or alternatively, take the weight off your shoulders and call on the services of a professional oven cleaning company.

End of Tenancy

As you come to the end of your tenancy, there is often a mad rush to get the house or flat cleaned and looking spotless. However, in many cases, the appearance of cleanliness isn’t enough. Many landlords will request that carpets are shampooed, damage fixed, and the oven is professionally cleaned.

If you try to give it a quick wipe down and hope for the best, more likely than not you can expect to see some of your deposit disappear. In this case, it could be a false economy to try and hoodwink your landlord. Oven valeting is relatively cost-effective and the work is guaranteed too, so you will never have any issues – at least where your oven is concerned – when moving out.

Professional Kitchens

If you’re working in a kitchen environment where cleanliness is absolutely essential, then you have to ensure that your oven is up to scratch at all times. Failure to comply with hygiene rules could see serious sanctions against your restaurant, cafe or hotel, which is why many businesses employ full time cleaning staff to ensure everything is disinfected and wiped down to a satisfactory level.

For others though, the cost of doing so is prohibitive. If you don’t want your food or dining room to be ruined by a smoky oven, then you have to make sure that something is done to prevent your ovens from being clogged up with grease and bits of old food. Again, this is where a valeting service could prove to be invaluable. Businesses can schedule them to be done at regular intervals, saving their staff the extra workload, and ensuring that all equipment is fully operational at all times.

Spring Clean

Busy homeowners don’t always have the time to thoroughly clean the house from top to bottom. This means that some jobs can occasionally be overlooked – either on purpose or accidentally. One such bone of contention is the oven. It’s a pretty dirty job and can take hours to complete fully. You will also usually need to buy a specialist cleaning kit in order to do a proper job. Again, this just adds to the time, cost and hassle of the process.

Therefore, once, or maybe even twice a year, you might want to consider a full oven valet. Whilst there is a cost associated with doing so, at least you will have the reassurance of having a trained, fully insured professional, using the best products to do a thorough job. At least that’s one job that you can tick off the list.

With our latest internet statistics showing that over 2,000 visits in the first three weeks of December alone came via mobile devices we’ve brought plans forwards and introduced our new-look mobile site earlier than anticipated.

The new mobile site at www.ovenu.co.uk/mobile makes it easy for browsers to locate their nearest oven cleaning & oven valeting expert via the ‘Postcode Locator’ and the National Freephone can be called using the modern ‘click to call’ facility.

Rik Hellewell, founder and MD at OVENU suggests “With mobile devices growing increasingly in popularity and to remain comfortably at the forefront of our industry, making these changes to run in parallel with technological advances is the right thing to do. If and when statistics show a shift in trends, the modern day business needs to adopt a proactive approach and move with the times”.

OVENU have also introduced their QR (Quick Recognition) code below.

The QR code can be scanned with any modern hand-held mobile device and will quickly and effortlessly load the appropriate web-site or web-page designated by the code itself.

Rik Hellewell added, “The QR codes are appearing in all types of media and allow mobile devicesto capture a web-site URL without the prospective browser having to remember a complete web address such as www.ovenu.co.uk. Over the coming weeks and months we shall be incorporating our QR code into our media activity on both local and National levels. We have always embraced technological advances and the introduction of our QR code is just another example of our forward thinking ethos.

You’ll find that there are Free Apps to download QR scanners onto your mobile device if you haven’t already got one. Why not download one now and try our new-look mobile site using the QR code above?

When you think about all the Christmas parties you’ll be hosting, as well as the holidays itself including the big day, you can see just how much your oven will be used. Whilst you may not have time get your oven cleaned before or during Christmas, be sure to get it cleaned in the New Year, and here’s why:

1. Hygiene

Ask anyone why they regularly clean their ovens and one of the main reasons they will tell you is that a clean oven is a hygienic one. Many believe that the heat generated in the oven will burn off any bacteria or grime gathered from spillages when using the oven to cook. This is simply untrue as the more grime that builds up, the more vulnerable your oven will be to bacteria build up. Also as more grime accumulates, the less effective your oven will be at cooking, meaning that your food may not be cooked thoroughly.

1. Save Money

As mentioned, with a build up of grease and grime, the less effective your oven will be at doing its job. This may mean having to cook for longer periods of time, or use more gas and electricity, just to have the desired effect. In the long run, this will cost you a lot more in bills.

1. More Effective Cooking

We’ve touched on ensuring your oven is clean to be more effective when cooking, especially for hygiene reasons. However, more effective cooking also means improving the quality, the taste and the overall experience for those consuming it. You’ll be able to judge the timings more accurately, and hence cook the food more effectively than having to account for a slower cooker thanks to the build up of grease and grime.

1. Taste

More effective cooking means improving the taste of your food, but in addition, the removal of burnt food and spillages stuck on the inside of the oven will also aid in making your food taste a lot better. When burnt food is further cooked (and burnt) it generates a lot of smoke, leaving your food with a harsh, bitter and burnt taste.

1. Save Time

Cleaning your oven will save you time in the long run. Many people will put off thoroughly cleaning their oven based on the time it takes. However there are ways to get around this. Using an oven cleaning service means that a professional oven cleaner can do the hard work for you, leaving you do spend your time as you wish.

So you see there are many reasons why you should get your oven cleaned after the busy Christmas period. Kick off 2012 in style and get some sparkle back into your oven.

Before we get started on dispelling this myth, let’s take a look at where it came from. Whenever you buy a new piece of cast iron cookware, such as a skillet or grill pan, you’re told to add seasoning to the coating to assist cooking and enhance flavour. Seasoning is the oil and fats that build up in the crevices on the cooking surface. For years it has been a tried and tested way to keep your cast iron cookware in good working condition, whilst helping the cooking process by providing a natural non-stick coating and enhanced flavour.

Unfortunately, ovens are not made in the same way. If they were, we wouldn’t need to use cookware, and instead just throw the food into an oven regardless. Ovens are pieces of machinery that must be maintained and looked after differently to actual cookware. The insides of ovens are made from sheet metal which is much thinner than your frying pan or skillet, and therefore any food spillages or grease marks will react differently.

Instead of generating a layer of ‘seasoning’, food spillages will simply burn the food and generate a lot of smoke inside your oven. Don’t be fooled in thinking that this will leave a lovely chargrilled or smoky flavour on your food, because it won’t. It will leave a bitter and harsh taste to your food that will ruin whatever you’ve cooked.

So in answer to the original question, an unclean oven won’t provide extra flavour, and in fact there’s more bad news if you leave your oven unclean for an extended period of time. Food spillages will also be detrimental to the efficiency of your oven. The heating elements will work even harder when trying to heat up unnecessary bits of food that have spilled inside your oven.  In addition, a clog up of grease will harm the effectiveness of the fan or heating element too. In the long run, an oven that works twice as hard to heat your food will cost more to run and won’t last as long as an oven which is used normally.

The final thing to consider with unclean ovens is the issue of hygiene. If grease and grime builds up inside your oven, there is a very real threat of bacteria growing. Not only that, but your food won’t be cooked as effectively as a result of the clogged up fans and heating elements. This further heightens the threat of unhygienic food, and highlights the threat of illness if you or the guests you’re cooking for consume the uncooked and potentially harmful food.

In fact for any host, it’s the kitchen that will get the most use during this time of year, and with good reason. We love to gather, be festive and merry whilst consuming our favourite food and drink. Not just on Christmas day, but during the whole holidays we love to make the most of the good food around us.

As a result, this time of year will see the kitchen get used a lot, and as we all know where there’s a busy kitchen, there’s always plenty of cleaning up to do afterwards. If you think about all the crumbs, grease, spillages and food particles that can accumulate in the kitchen, it’s no wonder anyone who has hosted over the Christmas period will want to spend a good few hours cleaning and tidying, just to get it back to shape.

However, when it comes to the kitchen, there is more than just cleaning the surfaces and floor. If you think about the amount your oven will get used over the Christmas period, the first thing you’ll no doubt want to do is give the inside a thorough clean. You’ll want to get it back to the clean and effective state that is was in before you cooked all those roasts dinners and Christmas delights.

Cleaning an oven properly and effectively is no easy task. It’s not something you can quickly do, like wiping the surfaces or vacuuming the floor. It takes time and effort, which after the Christmas period will probably be the last thing that you want to hear. However, if you don’t clean the oven, there could be huge implications for the taste and hygiene of your food, as well as the performance of your oven.

When grease and food particles build up within an oven, they can start to make your food taste bad. Furthermore, bacteria and grime may start to grow which can be quite worrying when you consider your own personal health and hygiene. Not only that, but if grease gets clogged up within the fan and onto the heating elements, this can cause your oven to work twice as hard to heat, meaning it’ll cost you more money trying to power the oven.

In any case, you’ll want to ensure that your oven is cleaned after all the festive fun. If you don’t fancy the arduous task of doing so, or you want to make sure it’s cleaned to a professional standard, then there are always oven cleaning companies on hand to do the hard work so you don’t have to.

So when the festive fun has come to a close, ensure you get your home back to the state it once was. Make sure your New Year’s resolution is to get oven cleaning professionals to give your oven a thorough clean.

Cleaning should always be done on a regular basis in any home and especially in the kitchen as you don’t want to leave work surfaces in an unhygienic state where germs can spread. Your oven should follow the same procedure as the rest of your kitchen too. However, when it comes to cleaning, you need to make sure you use the correct products. Failing to do so could result in a degree of damage to your oven and this could cost you money and also stress when it comes to sorting the problem out.

With this in mind, think carefully about the products that you buy in the run up to Christmas this year. You should never buy from a supermarket if you can avoid it. Specialist cleaning companies will have a better understanding of the best products to use due to experience, so if you are able to get valuable advice from them, this would work in your favour. Some of the products from the supermarket contain chemicals that will cause more damage than good to your oven and so a wise move would be to look on the Internet to find out about some of the best products to use.

When it comes to using the incorrect products, the last thing you want after Christmas is to have to fix your oven, especially after the expenses that you’ve already incurred over the festive period. Using the correct products will ensure that such problems do not arise and you can get the job done of cleaning your oven a lot quicker without having to worry about another hole being burnt in your wallet.

The good news is that the right cleaning products are out there, the bad news is that the most effective ones are used by the professionals. However it isn’t all bad news, because whilst these products are only used by professional cleaners, their services are an absolute god send, whether that’s before, during or after the busy Christmas period.

This Christmas, make sure you choose the best cleaning products used by the best oven cleaning professionals. This way, your oven will be thoroughly clean in time for the festive celebrations. By doing this, you will give yourself more time to enjoy the company of your family and loved ones instead of worrying about all the cleaning that needs to be done.