I am afraid to use my self cleaning oven?!?
Question:I have a self cleaning oven and i have always been too afraid to use it b/c it gets dangerously hot?! I have two toddlers and if you come in the kitchen you can feel the burn so i am scared that they will touch it, is it safe to use a self cleaning oven and should i pull it out away from the wall if i use it, fire hazard?
Answers:
I have been using the self cleaning oven feature for about 12 years and found nothing about it unsafe. The door locks automatically and cannot be opened until the cleaning is completely done and cooled and you can set the amount of time you want it clean. Cleaning more often means you don't have to have it run for 3 or 4 hrs. The oven is totally sealed so there is no reason to move it away from the wall as there is no fire hazard. If there was, these things would have been off the market years ago. It's a great thing.don't worry about it.
I have the ability to use the timer to set it to clean while we are asleep. It does reach very high temperatures, but the glass door on mine remains cool to the touch. Mine runs for several hours and since electricity is cheaper at night, I run it in the middle of the night. Why not run yours while the toddlers are in bed? I have a wall oven but even when I had a free standing oven, I never pulled it away from the wall. They wouldn't make a self-cleaning function if it were a fire hazard fo use it.
no fire hazard. its perfectly safe. just read the oven instructions.every oven is diffrent but i got idmit i prefer cleaning my oven with my hands.
It always scares me too when I turn mine on and it stinks really bad, but it IS safe even if it does get really hot. Just keep an eye on it from time to time. I would fence the tots out of the kitchen but explain to them why you don't want them in there. They may be little but even babies are amazingly smart. They learn things earlier than they let on...;)
I was afraid to use mine for almost 2 years because of my children. I tried it one day while they were with their grandparents for a few hours and just loved how clean it was after.
It does definitely get hot, but if you clean it when you know you are going to be busy with another room, or another chore, you should be ok.
I don't think you should worry about it. My mom uses the self cleaning all of the time, probably about every 3 months or so. Millions of people do so. You don't have to pull it out from the wall either, it's not like they say that if you use it you have to pull it out, they don't expect people to do that anyway. But if it make you feel better, I guess you could pull it out from the wall. Also the door locks when it is cleaning, so it won't let you open the door to get burnt. You may feel heat, but the instinct of anyone is to get away from something that can burn you, so you'd probably have to stay there for a little bit to get burnt. Also if you feel better try keeping the kids out of the kitchen for the few hours it takes to clean. Or try cleanig it when the kids aren't at home, that has to be sometime. Maybe there dad can take them out or something, I'm not sure of your situation or anything. But don't be worried, many people do it without anything happening. Good luck!
I don't blame you. My son had a brand new house and the first time they used it (it had been going for a couple of hours) and they were just going to bed when they noticed smoke outside it and it had started a fire in the wall behind it.
One quick note- Check your manual to see if the manufacturer recommends pulling your stove out while cleaning. I just bought a brand new house, and our stove manual says to pull it out away from the wall before self cleaning. It does a beautiful job though! And although it smells a little funky while it's cleaning, it doesn't get too hot to the touch.
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