September 19, 2022

Don't wait until the last minute to get your stove ready for the holidays

Introduction article for holiday range preparation.

It happens – you put things off until the last minute all the time. But that’s not a good idea when it comes to getting your stove ready for the holidays.

When you depend on your range for holiday cooking, you’ll want to have it clean and working efficiently to avoid any holiday hiccups (or even disasters). Start early to avoid stress and have your cooking appliances in top shape for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

What should I do to get my oven ready for holiday baking?

A clean oven is always an inviting gesture for holiday guests. One of the first appliances that your company will look at when they walk into the kitchen is your oven. Make a good first impression by thoroughly cleaning your oven.

Oven cleaning tips

When your oven has a self-clean cycle, you’ll want to run a cleaning cycle as the first step to get your oven ready for the holidays. Follow the instructions in the owner’s manual for your oven to use the self-clean cycle.

Here are some important tips to follow when using the self-clean cycle on most ovens:

Don’t use oven cleaners inside the oven cavity of a self-cleaning oven. Using cleaners inside the oven will damage the coating inside the oven cavity
Wipe out heavy spills. High oven temperature will burn off any food residue remaining after you wipe out heavy spills. Leaving a pool of grease in the bottom of your oven will create a small, controlled burn that will go out within minutes due to lack of oxygen inside the oven because the oven door is locked shut. Still, you’ll want to avoid the flames by wiping out heavy residue—especially greasy spills.
Do not clean the oven door gasket. The door gasket is essential for a good seal. Take care not to rub, damage, or move the door gasket.
Before starting the self-clean cycle, remove the broiler pan, any utensils, and cookware from the oven.
Remove the oven racks unless otherwise instructed in the owner’s manual. Some oven racks can become discolored when exposed to the high temperatures used during the oven self-cleaning cycle.
Ventilate your home while running the oven self-cleaning cycle. Open windows to dissipate the smoke that will come out the oven vent. If you don’t wipe out heavy spills, the excessive smoke coming from the oven vent can trigger smoke alarms in your home.
Protect your pets. Ventilating your home goes a long way in helping protect pets. Birds are especially sensitive to smoke. Other pets can also be bothered by smoke even though you have all the windows open. For best protection of your pets, move them outside or to another location before starting the oven’s self-clean cycle.

If you don’t have a self-cleaning oven, use an oven cleaner to remove spills and residue from the oven cavity. Follow the directions on the oven cleaner and in the owner’s manual for your oven to safely clean the oven cavity.

Don’t be tempted to put aluminum foil at the bottom of the oven cavity after you’ve got the oven sparkling clean. Foil will stick to the base of the oven cavity and cause a mess.

Cleaning the oven door

The self-clean cycle won’t clean the outside (and some parts of the inside) of your oven’s door. In a manual-clean oven, you can use oven cleaner to clean metal parts of the inner oven door. Use glass cleaner or follow the directions in the owner’s manual for your oven to clean the door glass.

Clean the outside metal panel of your oven door according to the instructions in your owner’s manual. If your oven has a stainless steel outer panel, clean the panel using the tips in our How to clean stainless steel appliances video.

You may see streaks of dried food on the inner oven door glass because a cooktop spill dripped down through the vent and inside the door. This DIY video from our Sears PartsDirect YouTube channel shows how to clean the glass inside your oven door.

If cleaning the inner oven door glass looks too complicated for you to do yourself, schedule a Sears Technician to visit your home and clean the oven door.

Cleaning oven racks

You can easily clean your oven’s racks using a number of different methods—depending on how dirty the racks are. The simplest way to clean them is to wipe them down with oven cleaner or a non-abrasive cleanser such as Bar Keepers Friend.

To clean off extensive baked-on spill from oven racks, soak the racks overnight in a large container such as the bathtub. Add plenty of dish soap to the bath water to loosen the spills. Wipe down the racks and rinse them with water after soaking. Use the oven cleaner or non-abrasive cleanser to clean the racks more thoroughly if soaking doesn’t remove all the spills.

Cooktop cleaning tips

Whether you have a gas or electric range, thoroughly cleaning the cooktop will give your stove a polished look.

The process for cleaning the cooktop depends on the type of range that you have. Follow the tips below to clean the type of cooktop that your stove has.

Cleaning a gas range cooktop

When you’ve got burnt-on spills across grates and burners on your gas cooktop, you’ll need special cleaners to cut through the grime without harming the metal surfaces. Cleaning slots and ports in gas burner heads also requires some extra effort. Here’s a list of supplies that can help you clean the grates and burner heads on a gas cooktop:

Follow the steps shown in our How to clean grates and burners on a gas cooktop article/video to thoroughly clean the stovetop on your gas range.

How to clean a glass cooktop

Making the glass cooktop on your range shine will impress your holiday guests. Keep in mind that glass cooktops can scratch easily if you use the wrong type of cleaner or if you clean them incorrectly.

First, visit our Stove Cleaning Products page to find the right tools and cleaners to safely and effectively clean your glass cooktop.

We recommend using these tools and cleaners on a glass cooktop:

Glass Cooktop Scraper WX10X302 – This scraper helps prevent scratches on the glass cooktop when removing burned-on splatters.
Cerama Bryte Smooth Cooktop Cleaning Pads WX10X350 – These pads are made of non-woven fibers and clean your cooktop without scratching the surface.
Affresh Cooktop Cleaner W10355051 – This cleaner gently cleans glass, ceramic, stainless steel and chrome cooktop surfaces. It leaves a protective coating of silicone on smooth-top surfaces as it cleans.
Cerama Bryte Burnt-On Grease Remover WX10X320 – This cleaner cuts through burned-on grease spots on ceramic glass cooktops without harming the surface.

Once you have your supplies ready, follow the steps in our How to clean a glass cooktop video to clean and polish the glass cooktop on your range.

Holiday tips for cleaning a cooktop with coil surface burners

Many electric ranges still have coil surface burners on the stovetop. Although the coils on surface burners often don’t need cleaning, the drip pans below the coils often accumulate spills and residue.

The easiest way to restore that brand new look to a stove with coil surface burners is to replace the drip pans. Find and order the surface burner drip pans that fit your stove. (By the way, this tactic also works for a gas range that uses drip pans below the burners.) You can clean and polish the metal surface of your electric stove using a cooktop cleaner such as Cerama Bryte Cooktop Cleaner.

Have your range cleaned and maintained by a Sears Technician

Don’t risk cooking problems during the holidays. Schedule a Sears Tech to perform a Clean & Maintain service on your range early in the fall.

During a Clean & Maintain Service by Sears, the tech will perform these tasks:

Check control operation. Range controls are checked for accurate temperature control of the oven and stove top burners. Faulty controls can cause the range to waste energy when overheating occurs.
Examine oven door sealing and clean the oven door gasket. A loose door gasket or bent door hinges can prevent the oven door from sealing shut — allowing heat to escape during baking. You’ll wind up paying higher energy bills if heat constantly escapes the oven during baking because the burner will need to ignite more often and stay burning longer to heat the oven. The technician adjusts and cleans the oven door gasket to make sure it seals the oven door properly.
Test oven self-cleaning operation. Some ranges have self-cleaning ovens. During the self-cleaning operation, the oven burners heat the oven to extremely high temperatures to burn spills and residue inside the oven to ash. To prevent fires, the oven door must remain shut and locked during self-cleaning. If you were to open the door during self-cleaning, a sudden rush of air into the extremely hot oven can cause a serious fire. The service technician checks the control and oven door lock to make sure it stays shut during the self-cleaning cycle.
Check and clean the stove top burners. The Electric ranges use strong current to activate stove top elements to heat food. The technician cleans and checks electric elements to make sure they’re operating properly and safely. A short circuit in an electric stove top burner can cause a serious electrocution risk. An element on a glass-top range that overheats can damage the glass top. If you have a gas range, the technician cleans, checks and adjusts the gas surface burners. A dirty gas surface burner can fail to ignite – posing a serious safety risk. Gas surface burners need to be professionally checked and cleaned regularly.
Check oven burners or elements. The tech examines and adjusts oven burners in a gas range or electric elements in an electric range. Gas oven burners that aren’t adjusted properly can fail to heat the oven properly and may emit excessive carbon monoxide. Electric elements that aren’t heating properly will fail to heat the oven properly. A shorted electric element can pose a serious electrocution risk.
Inspect readily accessible electrical wiring. Whether you have a gas or an electric range, wiring needs to be periodically checked for insulation damage, proper grounding and secure connections. Damaged wiring can short to the metal in the range – causing an electrocution risk. Risk of electrocution is elevated if the ground connection of the range isn’t secure. The ground connection dissipates an electrical short to prevent you from getting an electric shock if a loose wire touches metal in the range. Having your range wiring checked by a technician helps ensure your safety.
Level the range and check the anti-tip device. Leveling the range helps reduce the risk that a pot or pan will accidentally slide off a gas surface burner. Leveling also helps items bake properly in the oven. The anti-tip device is an essential bracket that prevents the range from tipping forward when you open the oven door and extend an oven rack out of the range with a dish on the rack.

These steps will ensure that your stove is 100% ready for the holiday season. Schedule your Range Clean & Maintain Service now. Bundle all of your kitchen appliances into one service call with our Kitchen Appliances Clean & Maintain Service to save money and make sure that your whole kitchen is ready for the holidays.