Care Tips for Your Appliances
Simple advice to keep up with your kitchen cleaning.
We rely on our home appliances to always be in working order. This makes it all the more important to regularly clean each of our kitchen appliances to ensure they are running smoothly and efficiently. Here are a few tips to make the most out of your maintenance routine.
Start with the Oven
Clean it weekly: Save yourself hours of scrubbing by giving your oven a simple wiping once a week. It will take you five minutes!
Maintain it monthly: “It is critical to remove the racks before running the self-cleaning cycle, unless the oven has self-cleaning racks,” says Craig Washofsky of Pacific Home and Appliance Distribution. Scrub oven racks in the sink with a spritz of oven cleaner. Doing this monthly will prevent the nightmare of scrubbing a year’s worth of baked-on crust out of your oven, which accumulates quickly if not consistently cleaned.
And give your oven door hinges a squirt of lubricant to keep them in top shape, and clean the glass or consider taking the inside panel off the door so you can scrub inside the glass. “Some ovens have a steam clean option, which works well for regular maintenance,” adds Washofsky.
All of your appliances come with care and use manuals. If regular cleaning isn’t enough, refer to these manuals to keep your appliances in the best shape. Photo: Courtesy of Pacific Home and Appliance Distribution
Fridge and Freezer
Every week, check your food inventory. Overstuffing appliances can cause them to work harder than they need to, thus shortening their life spans. Give away food that you’re not going to eat, plan your weekly meals to use up food, and throw out anything spoiled.
“What seems to be common among many manufacturers for cleaning the interior walls of a refrigerator or freezer is to use a solution of warm water with baking soda at a ratio of 1 tablespoon of baking soda to every quart of water,” says Randall Iwaishi of Pacific Home and Appliance Distribution.
“After cleaning the surface with this solution, use a separate cloth dipped in just water to rinse the surface, then wipe it dry with another cloth. If your refrigerator has glass shelves, it is recommended that you don’t use warm water, as this could crack the glass.”
Dishwasher
First, you can help your dishwasher daily by scraping chunks of food off your dishes before loading them. Dishwashers have an internal filter that can be removed and cleaned out. Do this monthly, and you’ll notice cleaner dishes right away.
“To clean and deodorize the interior of your dishwasher, there are dishwasher cleaners made by detergent manufacturers like Cascade or Finish,” explains Iwaishi. “Just run a regular wash cycle with an empty dishwasher.”
Don’t go to bed without giving your stovetop a quick wipe-down. Photo: Courtesy of Pacific Home and Appliance Distribution
Stovetop
“Customers have always expressed how hard it is to keep glass cooktops clean, but it really isn’t,” says Iwaishi. “As a standard rule, you should always ensure that the pot or pan that you are using is larger than the size of the burner so that any immediate area splatter doesn’t land within the burner area … making it harder to clean.”
Iwaishi also recommends wiping down the glass surface every time you finish cooking to remove any splatter that ends up elsewhere on the cooktop. Make sure the bottom of your cookware is clean, as any stains on the bottom are basically cooked-on food that can transfer to the hot burner surface, he adds.
Cleaning each of your kitchen appliances weekly is imperative to keeping them in tip-top shape. Photo: Courtesy of Pacific Home and Appliance Distribution
General Recommendations
GE is one of the most popular appliance brands offered at Pacific Home and Appliance Distribution because of its very broad range of products, says Iwaishi. “We do also represent a manufacturer named Fisher & Paykel, a New Zealand-based company that has increasingly gained popularity.”
When it comes to cleaning your appliances, Washofsky and Iwaishi advise people to always read the care and use manuals that come with products. They provide specific information from the manufacturers about how to get the most out of your appliances.
“The manufacturer will always have the best advice for their particular product,” adds Washofsky.
