Help With A SELF CLEANING OVEN

lol...it is so funny that you should ask this tonight of all nights! earlier today i was cleaning, and going through one of my "anal" phases where i had qtips and was cleaning in the vents and such. lol- doesn't happen often, believe me! well, i noticed how dirty the inside of the oven door was, so i sprayed some windex on it and it didn't really do anything. i happened to be on the phone with my mom at the time, so i asked her, and she told me that she usually just sets the oven to clean. i had forgotten all about that option, but asked her how to do it because i never have before! :) (turns out it's easy- you just push the button). so i did it, and 4 1/2 hours later it was clean. it looks pretty good, too. i guess what it does it get super hot, hotter than when you bake in it, and the grime and stuff flakes off and is like ashes on the bottom, and you just clean them up when it's done. supposedly my hubby informed me after the fact that you are supposed to take the racks out while it's cleaning, but i didn't know this. lol nothing got ruined or anything- just an fyi! good luck!

My oven is a self-cleaning oven, and I absoluetly love it. I have never tried to use a store bought oven cleaner because the self-cleaning aspect of it works so well. All I eve have to do after the cleaning process is to let it cool and wipe it out wuth a damp rag. The oven gets very clean this way. The only downsides I can think of are the initial smell, it can get pretty stinky and smokey when it first starts, as the debris inside is being burnt to ashes, and you obviously cannot use ut while it is cleaning and it can take anywhere from 3 hours to 6 hours depending on what setting you put it on. The only places that don't get really clean are where the door closes. That area doesn't clean very well. I am not sure if using a store bought cleaner will harm it or not because I have not tried it, but I would read both the product label and the oven's owner's manual to find out before using it, just to be safe.

I have had a self-cleaning oven for two years now. I haven't used the self-clean feature, and still do it by hand. Call me crazy but I don't like the idea of the oven temps getting that high for so long. All I can see it doing is raising the electric bill to astronomical proportions. My ex Mom in law had one and used it all the time. It worked pretty slick, and all that was left was a little bit of black powdery stuff lying on the bottom. I don't recall there ever being anything oily or greasy, as that gets burnt up in the cleaning process. I think the only thing she ever did at the end of the cycle was to take a damp cloth to the bottom and it was all done and ready to go again...no racks to wipe down, etc.

You've probably gotten your answer by now however, I will tell you about my experience. Self cleaning ovens are wonderful!! I love them!! What it does is, it heats up your oven to, I believe, 500 degrees and cooks anything that's left in the oven till it's crisp and black. When it's finished and the oven has cooled, all you have to do is use a wet cloth to wipe it out clean. Everything is burnt to a crisp that it's so easy to just wipe out. Now while the oven is on, you'll need to lock the door so it can not be opened. It's very dangerous to open the door while at that temperature. Another thing, only do it in the winter time because it heats up your house so much that it'll run you out of there if turned on in the summer whereas, in the winter, you're heating your home instead of competeing with the air conditioner. We learned that valuable lesson the first time we ever used the self cleaning oven and never again will we do that again! lol