Whether you have an electric stove or a gas range, it will need some regular cleaning and maintenance to keep it working efficiently and lasting longer. The time that you spend cleaning and maintaining your stove will pay off. You’ll enjoy using your range when it’s clean and in top shape.
Cleaning the oven
Oven cleaning is typically the same for gas and electric ranges.
When your oven has a self-clean cycle, you’ll want to run a cleaning cycle as the first step in cleaning the oven. Follow the instructions in the owner’s manual for your oven to use the self-clean cycle.
If your oven doesn’t have a self-clean option, 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.
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 grease or residue on the inner oven door glass because a spill dripped down through the vent and inside the door. This DIY video shows you how to clean inner oven door glass stains: How to Clean the Glass Inside Your Oven Door.
If you’re not confident that you can clean inside the oven door yourself, schedule a Sears Technician to visit your home and clean the oven door.
Cleaning oven racks
You can 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 rack 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.
Cleaning the cooktop
The steps for cleaning the cooktop depends on the type of range that you have. Follow the procedure below to clean the type of cooktop that your stove has.
How to clean a gas 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 this video to clean a gas cooktop: