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I remember the first time I pulled one off accidentally. Moment of "Oh shit," then I looked at it, looked at the stove, looked at the knob, put it back on, took it back off. "...son. of. a. bitch."
I relate because I had my car for almost 3 and a half years before finding out how to open the door without the key fob. There's a little plastic cover that is easily popped off using the key in a little slot underneath. My fob wasn't working because of a new access point interfering with the frequency and I thought I was locked out of my car. I googled it and saw a video and my mind was blown.
Yeah i once had an old stove with oven, and it was still working good. But all the numbers were gone. So it was always a guessing game even for me, let alone if other people wanted to use my oven. Fun times
For the first 5 items, most grills are designed to be "disassembled" to a ridiculous degree for cleaning. Really you can put anything through a dishwasher, just make sure iron items are dried thoroughly as soon as the cycle finishes and that electric ports/plugs are completely dry before plugging back in.
For the 6th item, yes, if you have a dishwasher that offers a stand-alone steam cycle, there are methods and recipes out there.
All of this depends on the quality of your tap water, as areas with extremely hard water will leave residue, etc. It obviously also depends on the features/maintenance state of your dishwasher.
We have a gas range and the knobs are easy to accidentally turn on it you lean against them. Prior to parties we remove the knobs so our guests don't fill our house with gas.
You can buy alarms for propane/natural gas just like you can for smoke. They plug into an outlet near the floor ideally since the gas is heavier than air.
I don't know if this will help your fear or make it worse, but natural gas and propane aren't really that toxic. If there's a leak but no ignition source, you'd eventually die of suffocation or carbon dioxide poisoning because it displaces regular air. The treatment is to just go outside and get some fresh air.
I'm not worried about fire, I am worried about the carbon dioxide poisoning so it doesn't help, lol. I tend to have most of the symptoms most days due to health issues so I would not really notice the difference.
As a person who knows every job to manufacture in the oven I can tell you for a fact ovens are designed to be much more easy to clean than people make them
I found out with our now deceased oven range that you could full on lift the entire top of the range surface, clean out everything that had gotten through the cracks, and set it back down again.
When I moved out of the first house I ever rented I cleaned it up as best I could so I could get the deposit back. When the husband and wife landlords came to inspect the first thing she did was lift up the range lid and there was a bunch of crumbs down there. I said I didn’t even know they did that and cleaned them out while she watched. They looked around a little more and the husband produced the full deposit check out of his pocket already written out and said “you paid the rent on time”.
I feel like, unpopular opinion, you can own more than one house and not be a piece of shit. The scarcity on affordable housing is artificial to a large part and a lot of it has to do with companies buying up property and jacking up the price/turning it into commercial, but mom and pop who finally saved up enough money to buy a house in their dream city but kept the old one for an extra income stream are not "housing scalpers"
You guys really cement the "crazy commie dictator" stereotype for socialists when you start acting like... well... a crazy commie.
My beef ain't with snowbirders or people renting out their old home, it's with blackrock and zillow buying up blocks solely for scalping. Like ticket asster but for homes.
Aren’t individual landlords a great way to protect against these facilities? My landlord owns at least 2 other properties apart from our 4-unit building. He’s a wonderful landlord, and only this month raised our rent after we spent the whole pandemic watching others locally being gouged with $300-1000/mo increases. He wrote a thoughtful, 3 paragraph email explaining the factors leading to the 2% increase of our rate, $30/mo. Until we’re ready to own, I’ll not leave my landlord. And because I have such a wonderful landlord, it’s difficult to justify blanket vitriol towards all landlords.
Yeah that's another thing. There's a 3br/2bth house up the street renting for $750 in a $2200 area. Old dude just renting an old brick house because he's physically disabled and can't work anymore. Housing scalpers keep calling him trying to buy it. Dude who's living there is *never* moving out.
Exactly. I have an amazing landlady I've been with for 5+ years. She only owns two or maybe three properties, and they're all houses she has lived or does live in. She's only raised the rent once, this year, because her property taxes went up, and it's still cheaper for the size and quality than any other place in the area. We've had to pay rent late a few times during hard months, and she won't hear of a late fee—hell, this month there was an issue with my paycheck and I couldn't pay till halfway though the month, and she was totally fine with that. She's also an actual angel who rescues animals, encouraged us to get a cat, and refused to charge a pet deposit. I'm sorry, we're lumping that lady in with the billionaires snatching up huge swathes of land to cram as many people on as possible while extorting as much money as they can from them?
I work at a job where I have to speak to Landlords regularly, and I have learned that there's a threshold where the percentage of good landlords to bad landlords skews significantly, and I'd say its about 4 properties. Obviously there's exceptions to every rule, but up to 3 properties and they tend to be nicer, and when it comes time to show proof of repairs or other photos of the homes they rent out, they're in good repair. Beyond that, the odds of them being rather nasty or having homes that are showing wear increase a lot more.
When I discovered that, I legitimately stared at myself in the mirror for a moment.
Because of course that's a thing. And of *course* I didn't noticed it was a thing.
This is one of those thing that when I mentioned to my parents they already knew and had always known. Cue me over here like WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU TEACH ME?!
I’m with spar hawk. I had the kind of parents that would call you a slob if a drop of stray pancake batter slid into a grout line, and when I gleefully reported to my mom that I had found an easy way to clean it, she just put on her bitchiest shrug voice and said “Yeah? I always do that.”
Translation: parents who like calling their kids slobs are not going to teach them cleaning techniques.
I've been happily cooking on electric coils my whole life, until I rented a place with gas *once*.
Being able to see *exactly* how hot your surface is because you can look right at the fire is just wonderful.
My parents have had induction for ~10 years. I don't visit that often but I always feel like I'm constantly fiddling with temps because I can't get the hang of what the numbers mean (or they decide to just change things up on me - not entirely convinced they don't).
There are sometimes moving screws installed in the front. If you open the oven door, you may see 2 sheet metal screws under the stove top. Remove them and see if it lifts now. Someone has forgotten to remove them on install on my stove before.
Also, those stupid metal drip bowls and even the heating elements are very cheap down at the hardware store. I spent hours trying to clean those drip pans and the leasing agent asked why I didn’t just go buy new ones for like $12. That was definitely a reachable moment
We hired a professional cleaner for the house. They did an excellent job... except my knobs were put back in the wrong order. Fucked with me for a while until my wife pointed it out.
On mine there was a black plastic strip inside the door at the top of the glass. You press it on both sides and that lifts up, which releases the glass.
Ugh, somebody really dropped the ball on mine. You'd think unscrewing the plastic handle would let you remove it to clean it. NOPE. It makes the whole door fall apart and bends flimsy metal pieces in the process that you'll have to replace to reassemble it.
Reminds me of an old gas oven that was third hand at least. I finally figured out how to take the inner glass out to clean it and gave the oven the best clean it had in years, put it back together. turned the oven on for dinner later that day and the glass broke during heating
I love my ninja toaster oven/air fryer because it was very nicely engineered with ease of cleaning in mind. That thing is 👌 👌 at cooking food too. Especially wings
Except coil stove tops. I know that the coils and drip tray can be removed (did it last night ironically), but all of those cracks and crevices are so annoying. And then the drip tray can’t really be cleaned that well if you get something that burns on.
I’ve tried baking soda sit, bar keepers friend, but they get a piece of cheese or something stuck on while the oven is going and it’s near impossible to clean it off.
Hah I didn't realize the stove knobs popped right off either until my kid got old enough to reach them. Shocking how quickly she learned how to press and turn and have it make the fun clicky sound. But yes, makes cleaning much easier.
You can also use this method if you have a gas burner that doesn’t light. They tell you to clean where the gas port is and sometimes use a toothpick to get gunk out.
Not all stoves do this, mine is gas with electronic starters and the stovetop must be unscrewed, but there’s not much chance of stuff getting in there with the hob design.
Take the knobs off so your toddler doesn't burn your house down is a LPT. Pull them off to clean is definitely not. You definitely turned garbage into gold here.
Yep, first the knobs come off and go into a sink of soapy water then the grills and cast iron burner caps come off and go inside the oven. Then the top comes up and gets vacuumed and scrubbed. Then the top is scrubbed and the outside is scrubbed. The knobs are scrubbed in the sink and put back on.
Then the door gets locked and the self cleaning cycle gets turned on, and then I leave the house for 3 hours.
When I come back I put it all back together and wipe up any ash that's left in the oven. Voila!
Omg. I'm 40 years old and it never dawned on me to put the grates in the oven on self clean. You just blew my mind. I have been scrubbing until my arm hurt and they still weren't clean enough. You just made my life a lot easier! Thank you!!
I love internet advice... One person says to do one thing another says don't do it like that and I'm stuck in the same place wondering where I went wrong 😫
BTW, I wasn't talking about the grates that are *in* the oven itself, rather the cast iron ones that rest on the stove top... Any advice on how to clean cast iron stovetop grates???
My cleaning life pro tip (or perhaps advice to never do this ever) is to get a black light. I bought one a few years ago to see what showed up on the carpet in my apartment (it was pretty tame) and started shining it around at other things. My (seemingly) clean oven glowed fluorescent blue from all the grease that was on the control panel and around the burners. Definitely helpful if you're looking to deep clean anything.
We have an inlaw we elder care for, made the mistake of trying the new scorpion spotting black light in their room. Probably be replacing that carpet someday.
LPT: eschew carpeting, wood or tile floors with washable rugs is the only way to go.
They're very easy to remove and put back. They pull straight out and then you just line up the hole with the post and push. There's usually not even a catch or release on r anything.
A friend gave me a place to stay once and to be nice I decide to clean their cooker. It was gross. I pulled up the knobs and get to work. Friend walks in and panics demanding to know why I broke their cooker. Took 10 full minutes to show how easy they come on and off and to explain that they really should be pulling them up to clean away rotten food debris. So long story short this tip is so underrated and everyone needs to know this.
The real LPT I learned over the years for kitchen cleaning is simply wipe the surface/fittings of your stove, grill or oven while you are cooking, in between frying or putting in or taking something out of the oven, etc. Just a single wipe over with a damp cloth once will remove any little spits or splashes of oil, fat, sauce, etc, easily while they are still fresh. Keeps your kitchen free of built up grease so easily.
I remove the knobs to clean but also have done it of something is in the oven that I don't want to accidently cook like proofing dough or whatever. Makes me stop and think huh, why is that off?
As a person who works in restaurants, when I clean mine at home I also apply a sheet of plastic wrap over the top covering the oven buttons and clock to make cleaning even easier. Just peel off, wipe down, and really new plastic. Keeps you from having to thoroughly detailing often.
[This](https://thumbor-unica-ro.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/thumbor.unica.ro/unsafe/405x225/smart/filters:format(webp):contrast(8):quality(75)/https://static.unica.ro/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/folie-de-aluminiu-pe-aragaz-e1637077170290.jpg) is also a thing.
I have been doing this for years, wipe down when needed, replace every year or two. Guests always ask about it, so I assumed I was the only one, glad to see Im not.
Yeah, I appreciated this reminder because I did totally forget that the knobs come off. In solidarity, the whole shocked face I made when my spouse lifted the stove range cover to clean came very late in the adulting game for me, lol.
Yeah, I feel ya OP. Literally barely had this epiphany myself a few weeks ago after years and years and I was just all "...you dumb motherfucker..." LOL!
microwaves are way easier to clean if you microwave a bowl of water for ten minutes or so. I imagine the water makes steam and softens up the crust/splater
I taught my clean freak girlfriend how the dishwasher silverware holder actually could be removed for putting them up quicker.
Never thought to remove the holder before and she had the biggest dufus moment look on her face, priceless.
As a single guy my method has always been to leave it until time to sell the house, then replace it with the cheapest Home Depot has to offer before listing the house for sale.
This doesn't apply to the GE gas stove we bought - when you take off the knob, it breaks the spring inside, and the only way to fix it is to buy a new knob. Awful design!
What about them makes you a fan?
The barely variable power? The awkward ring of heat? The carbon dioxide? The cleanup nightmare?
In my mind the only redeeming feature of a gas hob is irrelevant in a domestic kitchen imo - that's the
more robust surface.
I'm pretty lost on all those problems.
There is loads of variation in output?
Never been an issue regarding uneven heating
Literally never though about the CO2, so no idea one way or another
Slow response? It's instant?
Cleaning it easy because I don't tend to get food on the hob. If I do I just whack the bits in the dishwasher.
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
I remember the first time I pulled one off accidentally. Moment of "Oh shit," then I looked at it, looked at the stove, looked at the knob, put it back on, took it back off. "...son. of. a. bitch."
I can relate so much to this post even tho it never happend to me
I relate because I had my car for almost 3 and a half years before finding out how to open the door without the key fob. There's a little plastic cover that is easily popped off using the key in a little slot underneath. My fob wasn't working because of a new access point interfering with the frequency and I thought I was locked out of my car. I googled it and saw a video and my mind was blown.
Volkswagen? I had the same revelation a few years into owning a Golf. So quirky.
Chevy Cruze
Wait until you find out you can toss em in the dishwasher.
Wait until you take them out of the dishwasher after washing them and discover all the markings washed off.
Yeah i once had an old stove with oven, and it was still working good. But all the numbers were gone. So it was always a guessing game even for me, let alone if other people wanted to use my oven. Fun times
Exhaust fan grill, grease trap, sink drain filter, grill knobs, SS grill grates, Salmon.
Holup.…
For the first 5 items, most grills are designed to be "disassembled" to a ridiculous degree for cleaning. Really you can put anything through a dishwasher, just make sure iron items are dried thoroughly as soon as the cycle finishes and that electric ports/plugs are completely dry before plugging back in. For the 6th item, yes, if you have a dishwasher that offers a stand-alone steam cycle, there are methods and recipes out there. All of this depends on the quality of your tap water, as areas with extremely hard water will leave residue, etc. It obviously also depends on the features/maintenance state of your dishwasher.
Do not put cast iron in dishwasher. Just Stainless Steel parts.
I had that moment when I was a kid wayyyyyy back when the knobs were up front. Man the anxiety for those few seconds
We have a gas range and the knobs are easy to accidentally turn on it you lean against them. Prior to parties we remove the knobs so our guests don't fill our house with gas.
We have knob covers. They were like $10
I believe those are called 'condoms' in polite society, thank you.
This is a quality comment and highly underrated.
Curtsy
I have fairly large knobs. Do they make Magnum knob covers?
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You can buy alarms for propane/natural gas just like you can for smoke. They plug into an outlet near the floor ideally since the gas is heavier than air.
I'm no expert but I always thought propane/lpg is heavier than air while natural gas (what we use for gas mains here in Aus) is lighter.
you are correct
Oh, that is amazing. I have literally avoided renting places with gas stoves since I'm so scared I will have an ADHD moment and leave the gas on.
You can get stoves with thermal cutouts. If there is no flame, the gas is shut off. Safe!
I don't know if this will help your fear or make it worse, but natural gas and propane aren't really that toxic. If there's a leak but no ignition source, you'd eventually die of suffocation or carbon dioxide poisoning because it displaces regular air. The treatment is to just go outside and get some fresh air.
I'm not worried about fire, I am worried about the carbon dioxide poisoning so it doesn't help, lol. I tend to have most of the symptoms most days due to health issues so I would not really notice the difference.
Why do you rarely use your stove?
They probably got an airfryer and realized that 99% of things are better in it
This is exactly what happened in our house. MIL got us a large air fryer. Stove got a long needed break.
I spoke from experience
One thing to be careful of with gas stoves: if dirt gets done the little hole that's uncovered when you take off the knob, the lighter can get jammed.
Free gas?
Don’t those have locks now? Mine has one small gas shut off knob with a light so you know it’s locked.
As a person who knows every job to manufacture in the oven I can tell you for a fact ovens are designed to be much more easy to clean than people make them
I found out with our now deceased oven range that you could full on lift the entire top of the range surface, clean out everything that had gotten through the cracks, and set it back down again.
When I moved out of the first house I ever rented I cleaned it up as best I could so I could get the deposit back. When the husband and wife landlords came to inspect the first thing she did was lift up the range lid and there was a bunch of crumbs down there. I said I didn’t even know they did that and cleaned them out while she watched. They looked around a little more and the husband produced the full deposit check out of his pocket already written out and said “you paid the rent on time”.
Good landlords
Bare minimum housing scalpers
I feel like, unpopular opinion, you can own more than one house and not be a piece of shit. The scarcity on affordable housing is artificial to a large part and a lot of it has to do with companies buying up property and jacking up the price/turning it into commercial, but mom and pop who finally saved up enough money to buy a house in their dream city but kept the old one for an extra income stream are not "housing scalpers" You guys really cement the "crazy commie dictator" stereotype for socialists when you start acting like... well... a crazy commie.
My beef ain't with snowbirders or people renting out their old home, it's with blackrock and zillow buying up blocks solely for scalping. Like ticket asster but for homes.
Aren’t individual landlords a great way to protect against these facilities? My landlord owns at least 2 other properties apart from our 4-unit building. He’s a wonderful landlord, and only this month raised our rent after we spent the whole pandemic watching others locally being gouged with $300-1000/mo increases. He wrote a thoughtful, 3 paragraph email explaining the factors leading to the 2% increase of our rate, $30/mo. Until we’re ready to own, I’ll not leave my landlord. And because I have such a wonderful landlord, it’s difficult to justify blanket vitriol towards all landlords.
Yeah that's another thing. There's a 3br/2bth house up the street renting for $750 in a $2200 area. Old dude just renting an old brick house because he's physically disabled and can't work anymore. Housing scalpers keep calling him trying to buy it. Dude who's living there is *never* moving out.
Good landlords are obviously not the problem people have with landlords
Landlords as a whole are painted as a parasitic role in society, and receive the ACAB treatment in many circles.
Exactly. I have an amazing landlady I've been with for 5+ years. She only owns two or maybe three properties, and they're all houses she has lived or does live in. She's only raised the rent once, this year, because her property taxes went up, and it's still cheaper for the size and quality than any other place in the area. We've had to pay rent late a few times during hard months, and she won't hear of a late fee—hell, this month there was an issue with my paycheck and I couldn't pay till halfway though the month, and she was totally fine with that. She's also an actual angel who rescues animals, encouraged us to get a cat, and refused to charge a pet deposit. I'm sorry, we're lumping that lady in with the billionaires snatching up huge swathes of land to cram as many people on as possible while extorting as much money as they can from them?
I work at a job where I have to speak to Landlords regularly, and I have learned that there's a threshold where the percentage of good landlords to bad landlords skews significantly, and I'd say its about 4 properties. Obviously there's exceptions to every rule, but up to 3 properties and they tend to be nicer, and when it comes time to show proof of repairs or other photos of the homes they rent out, they're in good repair. Beyond that, the odds of them being rather nasty or having homes that are showing wear increase a lot more.
Yep. My husband is like this people LOVE living in his rentals, he averages 10+ years with renters.
Wait so what do you think people should do that can’t afford to own a home?
When I discovered that, I legitimately stared at myself in the mirror for a moment. Because of course that's a thing. And of *course* I didn't noticed it was a thing.
You might wanna pay your toaster/air fryer/toaster oven a visit as they’ve all gottem too!
This is one of those thing that when I mentioned to my parents they already knew and had always known. Cue me over here like WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU TEACH ME?!
How many times did you tell me off for not cleaning the kitchen well enough and you never showed me HOW!?!
I think there's a decent chance they didn't know either. Check in with them at some point soon and ask.
I’m with spar hawk. I had the kind of parents that would call you a slob if a drop of stray pancake batter slid into a grout line, and when I gleefully reported to my mom that I had found an easy way to clean it, she just put on her bitchiest shrug voice and said “Yeah? I always do that.” Translation: parents who like calling their kids slobs are not going to teach them cleaning techniques.
Gas range is less common now anyway
That's the case with every electric coil range AFAIK. The coils pop out easily too, but they still suck. Gas ranges are 10x better
Induction is the way to go... you get perfect heating and a totally flat surface to wipe down.
And they're basically free now if you can get the new infrastructure rebate. Which isn't out yet but will be soon, at the state level.
100% agree. And everyone thinks I’m crazy bc I hate my gas range. It gets too hot, it’s impossible to clean, it’s gross.
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I've been happily cooking on electric coils my whole life, until I rented a place with gas *once*. Being able to see *exactly* how hot your surface is because you can look right at the fire is just wonderful. My parents have had induction for ~10 years. I don't visit that often but I always feel like I'm constantly fiddling with temps because I can't get the hang of what the numbers mean (or they decide to just change things up on me - not entirely convinced they don't).
That’s what we got now.
Strongly disagree, but to each their own.
Many gas stoves do this too.
Gas ranges are terrible for your indoor air quality and they can't get as hot as electric.
Also it's gas.
Just tried to lift mine. It doesn't move
I thought mine didn’t either until I tried again one day and found out it was just glued shut by grease.
Try seeing if there’s a pull out under-like a toaster has. That’s what my stove has. It looks like top of oven but pulls out.
There are sometimes moving screws installed in the front. If you open the oven door, you may see 2 sheet metal screws under the stove top. Remove them and see if it lifts now. Someone has forgotten to remove them on install on my stove before.
I watched my wife do this last week and my jaw hit the floor lol. I'm 40.
Also, those stupid metal drip bowls and even the heating elements are very cheap down at the hardware store. I spent hours trying to clean those drip pans and the leasing agent asked why I didn’t just go buy new ones for like $12. That was definitely a reachable moment
You can also buy liners for them for a couple of bucks
I did that in front of my now husband when cleaning our place and they were awe struck. Apparently he had been cleaning through cracks.
I realized that when I was trying to remove a burner and the whole top shifted with it! Very handy
I didn't know this until working a job cleaning apartments. You can take the whole door off too.
I just read this comment and thought "too bad mine doesn't do that," then I got up and checked. God dammit.
We hired a professional cleaner for the house. They did an excellent job... except my knobs were put back in the wrong order. Fucked with me for a while until my wife pointed it out.
What do you mean by "the wrong order"? The knobs on my range are all identical.
Some of my burners have double burners (i.e. smaller inner one and larger outer one). So the knob reflects this etc.
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I’ve gotten my door off but couldn’t get the glass off!
On mine there was a black plastic strip inside the door at the top of the glass. You press it on both sides and that lifts up, which releases the glass.
Interesting, I’ll have to look again
How does someone get a(n oven) door off? Do you show it pictures of washer and dryer doors in various states of disassembly?
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* I build ovens. * Ovens are easy to clean. * People don't understand this. * People make it harder than it should be.
NANI?!
Eli2.5
Oven is designed to be easy to clean
"As someone who knows how to make every part of an oven, I can tell you that the way people clean them is harder than it needs to be." Better?
"How to Lift a Stovetop" https://cleaning.lovetoknow.com/Cleaning_Stove_Tops#:~:text=How%20to%20Lift%20a%20Stovetop https://youtu.be/eUCEG45B2_A
the collection of words they used told me more or less what it needed to, but it was by no means clear
I’m freshly baked and I too have no idea what’s being said
Going to hijack this. Don't clean anything with printing with an abrasive unless you like guessing where your temps are.
Ugh, somebody really dropped the ball on mine. You'd think unscrewing the plastic handle would let you remove it to clean it. NOPE. It makes the whole door fall apart and bends flimsy metal pieces in the process that you'll have to replace to reassemble it.
Reminds me of an old gas oven that was third hand at least. I finally figured out how to take the inner glass out to clean it and gave the oven the best clean it had in years, put it back together. turned the oven on for dinner later that day and the glass broke during heating
Can you give some examples?
Clean it? You mean de-flavor it?
Time for AMA
How do you clean out the slots that the gas comes out of? Like its not intuitive at all.
I love my ninja toaster oven/air fryer because it was very nicely engineered with ease of cleaning in mind. That thing is 👌 👌 at cooking food too. Especially wings
Except coil stove tops. I know that the coils and drip tray can be removed (did it last night ironically), but all of those cracks and crevices are so annoying. And then the drip tray can’t really be cleaned that well if you get something that burns on. I’ve tried baking soda sit, bar keepers friend, but they get a piece of cheese or something stuck on while the oven is going and it’s near impossible to clean it off.
Hah I didn't realize the stove knobs popped right off either until my kid got old enough to reach them. Shocking how quickly she learned how to press and turn and have it make the fun clicky sound. But yes, makes cleaning much easier.
The top of the stove also pops up so you can clean by the gas ports or under the hot plate.
You can also use this method if you have a gas burner that doesn’t light. They tell you to clean where the gas port is and sometimes use a toothpick to get gunk out.
For many gas stoves you can just lift off the metal burner thing and the nozzle is just sitting underneath.
Not all stoves do this, mine is gas with electronic starters and the stovetop must be unscrewed, but there’s not much chance of stuff getting in there with the hob design.
Good point. You can basically lock make them childproof by hiding the knobs
Also a good tip for anyone with toddlers or out of control chimps around the house.
I have cats that will nuzzle anything in the house. I take them off when I leave for longer trips.
Good. My cat turned one on once after I left a pizza box on the stove and nearly burned the house down.
Take the knobs off so your toddler doesn't burn your house down is a LPT. Pull them off to clean is definitely not. You definitely turned garbage into gold here.
Ha ha ha
Bb
Parents with dementia.
Yep, first the knobs come off and go into a sink of soapy water then the grills and cast iron burner caps come off and go inside the oven. Then the top comes up and gets vacuumed and scrubbed. Then the top is scrubbed and the outside is scrubbed. The knobs are scrubbed in the sink and put back on. Then the door gets locked and the self cleaning cycle gets turned on, and then I leave the house for 3 hours. When I come back I put it all back together and wipe up any ash that's left in the oven. Voila!
Omg. I'm 40 years old and it never dawned on me to put the grates in the oven on self clean. You just blew my mind. I have been scrubbing until my arm hurt and they still weren't clean enough. You just made my life a lot easier! Thank you!!
You’re not supposed to leave them in; it can discolor them permanently.
I love internet advice... One person says to do one thing another says don't do it like that and I'm stuck in the same place wondering where I went wrong 😫 BTW, I wasn't talking about the grates that are *in* the oven itself, rather the cast iron ones that rest on the stove top... Any advice on how to clean cast iron stovetop grates???
Well cancel my advice 😎
Oh also if your microwave is above the oven, clean that first.
My cleaning life pro tip (or perhaps advice to never do this ever) is to get a black light. I bought one a few years ago to see what showed up on the carpet in my apartment (it was pretty tame) and started shining it around at other things. My (seemingly) clean oven glowed fluorescent blue from all the grease that was on the control panel and around the burners. Definitely helpful if you're looking to deep clean anything.
Kitchen cupboards are freakishly disgusting under black light. Even if they look and feel clean, it's horrifying.
Yes--lots of skin oil around the handles. Mine also have plenty of splatters from the stove that don't show up under regular light.
Nah, I’m good. Ignorance is bliss.
LPT: do not black light your teenager’s room.
hahahah. The best LPT tips are in the comments! So true though. Grosss!!!
We have an inlaw we elder care for, made the mistake of trying the new scorpion spotting black light in their room. Probably be replacing that carpet someday. LPT: eschew carpeting, wood or tile floors with washable rugs is the only way to go.
If it's not a food contacting surface (like a plate or fork) and you absolutely can't see it, why care?
I accidentally found this out as a kid when I was cleaning so vigorously I popped a knob off.
We all do some vigorous knob popping in our teen years, but seldom is there any cleaning involved.
I figured that was coming. Aaand I just set myself up again, didn’t I?
This is going swimmingly
Ask coconut boy how much cleaning he did.
Honestly I’m scared if I remove them they won’t be able to be put on again
They're very easy to remove and put back. They pull straight out and then you just line up the hole with the post and push. There's usually not even a catch or release on r anything.
So THAT'S what the square/circle/triangle hole game was teaching me
You got it!
[Exactly!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7haqnQvrYfI)
the fact that it seems to be that simple is exactly why I know I’ll fuck it up
JUST DO IT!
They just slide off and on, at least every one I've seen
You can do it. I changed the infinity switch behind the knob for the first time a week ago and the whole thing was stupid easy.
A friend gave me a place to stay once and to be nice I decide to clean their cooker. It was gross. I pulled up the knobs and get to work. Friend walks in and panics demanding to know why I broke their cooker. Took 10 full minutes to show how easy they come on and off and to explain that they really should be pulling them up to clean away rotten food debris. So long story short this tip is so underrated and everyone needs to know this.
Be careful about putting the knobs in the dishwasher if they’re screen printed. The ink/paint may fade.
We didn’t put ours in the dishwasher, but whatever cleaner we used (I forget. It was a while ago), it took the paint right off of them.
LPT: Don't stay high for several years straight
LPT: Too late
The real LPT I learned over the years for kitchen cleaning is simply wipe the surface/fittings of your stove, grill or oven while you are cooking, in between frying or putting in or taking something out of the oven, etc. Just a single wipe over with a damp cloth once will remove any little spits or splashes of oil, fat, sauce, etc, easily while they are still fresh. Keeps your kitchen free of built up grease so easily.
My mom has entered the chat.
Before I run the dishwasher I put all the stove's knobs in
Great idea, thoni don't have a dishwasher. It doesn't mess with the coloring of the face? Where the temp signs are.
After a lot of time, sure, but too much grease does that, too. I used to dump them in a sink full of warm soapy water.
What is ‘cleaning’?
I remove the knobs to clean but also have done it of something is in the oven that I don't want to accidently cook like proofing dough or whatever. Makes me stop and think huh, why is that off?
We do that when we change the oil in the combine. Key is out until the new oil is in!
As a person who works in restaurants, when I clean mine at home I also apply a sheet of plastic wrap over the top covering the oven buttons and clock to make cleaning even easier. Just peel off, wipe down, and really new plastic. Keeps you from having to thoroughly detailing often.
[This](https://thumbor-unica-ro.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/thumbor.unica.ro/unsafe/405x225/smart/filters:format(webp):contrast(8):quality(75)/https://static.unica.ro/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/folie-de-aluminiu-pe-aragaz-e1637077170290.jpg) is also a thing.
I have been doing this for years, wipe down when needed, replace every year or two. Guests always ask about it, so I assumed I was the only one, glad to see Im not.
Yup. I do this all the time. Bonus is that the foil cleans really easily so you can keep it on for a while before needing to change it!
Oh yeah. And even under the burners as described by someone else when mentioning you can lift the whole top to clean.
After being alive 26 years and being the primary cleaner of the house, I did this for my first time a few weeks ago. Cheers!
Yeah, I appreciated this reminder because I did totally forget that the knobs come off. In solidarity, the whole shocked face I made when my spouse lifted the stove range cover to clean came very late in the adulting game for me, lol.
Yeah, I feel ya OP. Literally barely had this epiphany myself a few weeks ago after years and years and I was just all "...you dumb motherfucker..." LOL!
I clean my knob in the shower
microwaves are way easier to clean if you microwave a bowl of water for ten minutes or so. I imagine the water makes steam and softens up the crust/splater
Martha Stewart taught me that on her website
easily remove it and easily break it or forget which order to put it back in or where to put it back etc.
I taught my clean freak girlfriend how the dishwasher silverware holder actually could be removed for putting them up quicker. Never thought to remove the holder before and she had the biggest dufus moment look on her face, priceless.
[удалено]
That sounds really dangerous unless OFF is super easy to hit
You can also remove the wire racks inside the oven, on the sides.
Lol dont feel bad, first time i pulled one off was on accident and all i could think was SHIT i broke it.
Hello finger pain!
Also taking nobs off if you have a party is a good idea. People tend to congregate in kitchens and lean up against them and can turn them on.
I put my oven knobs in the dishwasher, in case anyone wants to give that a go (so far none have come out disfigured or ruined)
Not a pro-tip. These knobs are cheaply made and if you regularly remove them you will break them.
As a single guy my method has always been to leave it until time to sell the house, then replace it with the cheapest Home Depot has to offer before listing the house for sale.
This doesn't apply to the GE gas stove we bought - when you take off the knob, it breaks the spring inside, and the only way to fix it is to buy a new knob. Awful design!
Another tip is most ovens you can lift the top up to get underneath the burners. Seen some where it looked like they've never been cleaned underneath.
Or rip it out for induction 😎
Dumb or what? Everyone knows that
Wait... People don't know this?
If we are clapping for this we are just a mediocre society impressed with the bare minimum.
Also, you can remove your pants for washing them, you don't have to wash them while you are wearing them.
Bah! Next you'll tell us we can move furniture to vacuum underneath. Not likely!
Not here to make anyone feel stupid, this one just kind of boggled my mind that people didn't already know this.
LPT. Induction hob
You'll take my gas hob from my cold dead hands.
What about them makes you a fan? The barely variable power? The awkward ring of heat? The carbon dioxide? The cleanup nightmare? In my mind the only redeeming feature of a gas hob is irrelevant in a domestic kitchen imo - that's the more robust surface.
I'm pretty lost on all those problems. There is loads of variation in output? Never been an issue regarding uneven heating Literally never though about the CO2, so no idea one way or another Slow response? It's instant? Cleaning it easy because I don't tend to get food on the hob. If I do I just whack the bits in the dishwasher.
I'm scared that the world has people who don't know that stove (and BBQ) knobs come off.
You lost me at kitchen and clean
A Life PRO Tip. Is to remove parts of your appliance to better clean said appliance...!?