How to Clean Your Electric Stove the Right Way

Do you struggle to keep the hob of your electric stove clean?

Food spills on your electric stove can be difficult to clean. From dried-on and baked-on stains through to crumbs and food debris between burner coils, cleaning an electric stove is a challenge.

But when you visit some people’s homes, their cooker tops look immaculate.

How do they keep their stovetops so clean?

It’s definitely possible to clean an electric stove, and it needn’t take as much effort as you might imagine.

Here’s how to clean an electric stove the right way.

What Happens if You don’t Clean Your Stove?

If you’ve owned an electric stove for a while, you’ll understand the common problems encountered with keeping your stove clean.

Electric stoves provide heat at the base of the pan. This is different from the way that gas stoves heat food. Gas hobs heat the bottom and the side of the pan.

The way that electric stoves heat food may cause more splashes as food begins to heat up. Liquids may spit from the pan more, leaving a mess of the stovetop.

When stains come into contact with heat, they can burn and become fixed onto the stove.

While some food materials will be easily removed from the top of your stove, other stains will be more persistent.

There are three commonly found types of electric stovetops:

• First, there are smooth topped hobs where the elements are hidden under a glass style worktop. These are designed seamlessly blend in with the rest of your worktops.
• Secondly, there are induction hobs that will appear similar. However, they only provide heat when a pan is placed on top.
• Thirdly, there are electric hobs where the coil element is fully exposed, and the pan sits directly on it.

Exposed coil hobs have corners and crevices where liquid and crumbs can cling and hide. This type of hob offers its own set of challenges.

Which Electric Stoves Are the Easiest to Clean?

Each electric stove presents its own challenges in terms of cleaning.

Glass topped stoves are prone to get dried-on food baked onto the surface. As the pan directly sits onto the top of the hob, this can result in the offending food spillage being pushed down into the surface, causing it to be harder to move.

Where there is an exposed coil, you will often need to completely remove the coil to get to anywhere that food and stains may have become trapped.

The easiest stoves to clean are often smooth topped and induction stoves.

What Will You Need to Clean Your Stove?

Before you start to clean your electric stove top, you will need to get the following items prepared:

• A double-sided sponge with a scourer pad on one half
• A soft cloth
• Paper towels
• A plastic scraper
• Glass cooktop cleaner
• Warm soapy water

Once you have everything you need, you’re ready to start.

How to Clean an Electric Stove

Before you clean an electric stove, make sure it has cooled down thoroughly after its last use.

If your oven has a coil, you will need to remove this prior to cleaning the top of your hob.

• Using the warm soapy water on a sponge, collect up all any loose debris from the top of the stove. Try and get off as much of the visible grease and grime as possible.
• With a soft dry cloth, wipe down your stovetop removing all of the soapy water.
• Spread plenty of glass cooktop cleaner onto the top of the stove and begin to scrub it with the sponge. Make circular motions with the rough side of the sponge until the stove is completely covered by the cleanser.

Where grease has built up on your stove, you may feel rougher areas. Continue to work these with the sponge. Once it has softened, remove the grease using your scraper. Use your scraper gently so that you don’t scratch the surface of your stove.

As you scrape, wipe the surface down with the sponge.

You will soon start to feel the rough grease lifting, and the surface will become smoother.

Using a paper towel or the soft cloth, remove any excess cleaner from the stove and then use circular motions to buff the surface of the stove. You will soon start to see a shine.

Once your stove is completely dry, if you have coil elements, you can replace them, ensuring that they are fitted firmly back into place in the correct way.

Other Stove Problems You May Encounter

Over time, grease and food debris can build-up on your stove and cause you problems.

If your stove is not cleaned, it can fall into disrepair. Heating control knobs may become clogged up with grease and become hard to move. A loose connection may form in a switch or a knob, and this can lead to your stove stopping working.

A breakdown may mean that you may need to fix your electric stove. Due to the safety issues surrounding the heating elements and the electrical wiring, any repair work should always be carried out by a professional.

Keeping Your Stove Clean

It is recommended that you wipe down your electric stove top before and after use if possible.

Be sure to leave your coils cool down before you run a cloth over any surfaces as electric stoves can remain hot for a long time after use.

Removing all of the crumbs and the worst of any spills on a daily basis will make it easier to do a full deep clean on your stove.

Now that you know how to clean an electric stove, you should carry out the full clean once a week so that your hob maintains its shine.

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