April 05, 2023

How to clean and maintain your stove

Introduction image for blog article on cleaning and maintaining your stove.

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:

How to clean an electric cooktop

Many electric ranges have a ceramic glass cooktop. Keep in mind that glass cooktops can scratch easily if you use the wrong type of cleaner or if you clean them incorrectly.

Here are some effective tools and supplies for cleaning 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.

How to clean an electric cooktop with coil surface burners

Some 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.

Although you can clean the drip pans, burnt-on residue can be difficult to remove. Sometimes, it’s easier to replace the drip pans rather than attempting to clean them.

Sears PartsDirect has the replacement drip pans specifically designed to fit your stove. Find and order the surface burner drip pans that fit your stove. https://www.searspartsdirect.com/

Clean and polish the painted metal surface of your electric stove using a cooktop cleaner such as Cerama Bryte Cooktop Cleaner.

Schedule professional cleaning and maintenance annually

To keep your range operating efficiently and safely, schedule a Sears Technician to perform a Clean & Maintain yearly. Yearly professional maintenance will also help your range last longer.

During Range Cleaning & Maintenance Service by Sears, the tech will complete 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.

Having your range professionally serviced every year will help prevent unexpected breakdowns.

Give all of your home’s appliances the same professional treatment by bundling cleaning and maintenance service. You’ll save money and a Sears Tech can conveniently take care of all your home’s appliances during a single visit.

Trust Sears to help you keep your home running smoothly all year long.