Oven cleaning in Pinhoe

Pinhoe has grown enormously in twenty years, and most of what has been built is estate housing with a fitted kitchen supplied as part of the plot. That produces a very consistent cooker: a built in double oven at eye level in a tall housing, an induction or ceramic hob in the worktop, and a chimney or canopy hood above it.

These clean up beautifully and they are quicker than an old freestanding cooker, because everything is designed to come apart and nothing is seized. What people are usually surprised by is the door. A modern oven door has three or four panes, and the film that builds between them is what makes an otherwise smart kitchen look tired. Taking the door apart is the difference between a clean oven and one that only looks clean with the light off.

The extractor in a new estate house is very often a recirculating one, because there is no external wall behind the hob to vent through. That means two filters, not one: a metal mesh that catches the grease and a carbon cartridge behind it that absorbs the smell.

The mesh washes and comes back to new. The carbon does not, and washing it destroys it. On a house that is five or six years old the carbon filter has usually never been changed, which is why the kitchen still smells of dinner an hour later however hard the fan works. Part of this job is telling you which type you have, what fits it, and roughly what it costs, which is a part to order rather than a thing to clean.

A lot of bookings in Pinhoe are the first deep clean the appliance has ever had. That is a good job to get: nothing is seized, the enamel is sound, and the difference between before and after is dramatic for the sake of two hours.

Nothing is dismantled beyond what the manufacturer intends to be removed for cleaning, which matters more on an appliance still inside its warranty period. Catalytic side liners in particular are left alone and wiped rather than treated, because degreaser and scrubbing both ruin the coating they are there to provide, and that is exactly the sort of damage a warranty will not cover.

A built in double oven has a large main cavity underneath and a smaller one above it. In most households the small one is used as a grill a few times a year and forgotten, which means it gets the fat spatter and never gets the heat that would burn it off.

By the time the main oven is booked in for a clean, the top cavity is usually in a worse state than the one that does the cooking, and its glass is the one visible at eye level as you walk into the room. Both cavities are done as one job. It is not an add on and it does not change the hours much, but it is the part people notice most when they walk back in.