As the old saying goes, “prevention is better than cure”, which so happens to apply perfectly when it comes to your cooker. By taking the necessary steps needed to avoid potential problems with your oven, you can save yourself a bunch of hassle, time and money trying to fix it up. So, what are the things that you need to be doing to ensure your cooker continues to run as efficiently as possible and avoids any unwelcome issues? Below we take a look at 10 essential oven maintenance tips.

1. Check your oven door seal – Did you know that over 20% of an oven’s heat can escape if the doors are not sealed properly? This can and will result in incredible losses in efficiency, meaning your food is going to take a lot longer to cook – nightmare! To ensure your oven door seal is intact, simply open the door and feel the rubber gasket around the perimeter of the oven’s hatch to check for any broken, torn or worn sections. If you happen to find more than one broken area, then it is time to get your seal replaced! You can browse our range of replacement door seals & gaskets below.

2. Clean your broiler pan – One thing is for sure; broiler pans can be a real pain to clean. Nobody wants to spend hours scrubbing off old, burned food do they? An easy solution to clean your broiler pan is to heat the pan up and then sprinkle some detergent on the affected areas. Cover the laundry detergent with wet paper towels and after around 15 minutes, remove the towels and scrub the food off easily.

3. Salt a grease spill – Spillovers can be an annoying part of cooking, especially if you're making an effort to keep grease off of your cooking tray or dish. To make light work of cleaning up spills, simply sprinkle table salt over a spill before using your oven. Now, close the door and proceed to cook your food. When it’s finished, you might be surprised to see a tricky grease spill has turned into a cleanable pile of ash that can be easily swiped away.

4. Oil your oven rack – If you want your oven racks to glide smoothly when taking them out and putting them back into your oven, then it’s important to not ignore them. Start by cleaning the oven wall ridges that the racks slide in and out on using soap-filled steel wool pads. Once the ridges have dried, wipe them over with some vegetable oil. Your oven racks should now glide on the ridges effortlessly.

5. Cleaning dirty oven racks – An old but effective method of cleaning your dirty oven racks. Simply get a large, heavy-duty plastic bag and fill it with vinegar, dishwashing liquid and hot water. Then, place your oven racks inside, seal the bag and place it in a tub of warm water for an hour or so. Once this has been done, remove the racks from the plastic bag, scrub, rinse and dry. Your racks should now be just fine to use again. If you can’t get hold of a heavy-duty plastic bad, then you can use your bathtub instead. Simply fill the bath with soapy water to loosen the grime on your racks. The longer you leave them to soak, the easier it will be to get the grime off.

6. Cleaning the inside of your oven – If your oven racks and clean(ish), but the rest of the inside of your oven isn’t, then you’ll be glad to know that there is an easy solution. Simply fill a microwave-safe bowl with water and turn your oven on a high temperature for two minutes. Now, turn your oven off and leave it for a further two minutes. You can now open your oven door and using a sift rag, begin to wipe the muck on your oven walls off.

7. Removing embedded food – Removing food from your oven that has been caught in between the racks can be a real pain, but it really doesn’t have to be. To get the food out, all you need is an ordinary plastic nail file and a damp cloth or newspaper bail. Attache the cloth or newspaper to the nail file and place in between your oven racks. The trapped food should attach and be easily lifted out.

8. Regular stain removal – You may be surprised to learn that newspapers actually work a lot better to clean your oven than a sponge. Try making a ball from a few sheets of newspaper, soak it in soapy water and rub your oven down with it. The burnt food and stains should easily wipe with minimal fuss and effort. A good tip to remember when cleaning the inside of your oven is to not wait for your oven to cool down. The longer you leave cleaning your oven once it has been turned off, the harder it will be to remove dirt and stains. Burnt food is a lot easier to remove while the walls are still warm.

By following these essential cooker and oven maintenance tips, you will go a long way to ensure that not only does your cooker continue to work at its optimum level, but the chances of damage and fault are dramatically reduced. If things are already looking bleak for your cooker and you require quality replacement parts to get it back and running, then Cooker Spare Parts are here to help!

We offer an extensive range of replacement parts for a wide variety of cooker models, so no matter what you need, we are confident that you’ll find it here. Click below to browse our spare parts. For more information on any of our parts or on our oven maintenance tips, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with a member of our team today.

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If your oven is taking longer to heat up or you find your meals aren’t cooking evenly, it may be due to valuable heat escaping from your oven.

If your cooker is unusually venting heat, the most common cause of this issue is a worn oven gasket. The gasket operates as a seal, insulating your oven and preventing the hot air from escaping.

Naturally, any wear and tear to this seal will likely result in a dip in performance, not to mention a potential hazard, causing your oven to run less efficiently.

If this sounds familiar, don’t get hot under the collar or blow a gasket yourself – help is at hand!

Prepare for the Worst

Like any kitchen appliance, an oven won’t last forever. Sadly, when it comes to oven cooking, Sod’s Law will usually dictate that your cooker will go to pot at the least convenient time.

Nevertheless, there’s never a good time to receive bad news, so the best way to limit the impact is to get ahead of the curve and prepare for the inevitable.

It can be wise to inspect your oven regularly, particularly at the first sign of an issue. This can help you to pre-empt a major fault and allow you to rectify the problem before your oven becomes completely unusable.

Diagnosing a Faulty Door Seal

While it can be both annoying and frustrating when your oven seal does eventually go down, it can also be largely foreseen if you know what to look for.

The tell-tale signs of a faulty gasket range from an unusually hot outer door to melted cooker knobs. Meanwhile, it could be something as simple as undercooked food.

If you spot any of the above, be sure to check the seal for any obvious signs of wear or damage. Cracked, split or eroded seals are not fit for purpose.

Next, turn the oven on and inspect the perimeter of the door for escaping heat. If heat is unusually permeating from the door, you’ll need to replace the gasket.

These steps should help identify any issues with the seal; however, if no seal issues are evident, you may want to enlist the help of an expert.

Replacing a Door Seal

Once you have identified the problem, your next port of call is to take appropriate action. For a broken seal, replacement is in the best place to start.

Luckily, replacing a cooker seal is fairly straightforward. Simply head over to our dedicated section of oven door seals and gaskets, locate the model required using our easy-to-use search tool and order your replacement door seal.

Once your substitute seal has arrived, it’s time for out with the old and in with the new!

Remove a Damaged Door Seal

Before you go any further, be sure to unplug your oven or switch it off at the mains. If your oven is hot, wait for it to cool before you attempt any repairs.

Once it’s safe to do so, remove the damaged seal by opening your oven door and locating the gasket. This will either be on the door itself or on the outer border of the oven opening.

The seal will often be held in place by small clips or pins at select points (often the corners). These can be easily removed by gently wiggling them out of place.

Once removed, prise away at the meshy perimeter to loosen it from the oven wall and proceed to gently pull away in a methodical manner.

Working around the boundary of the oven, pull away until the seal has been completely removed.

Fitting a New Door Seal

To replace the oven seal/gasket, you have to effectively work in reverse. With that mindset, feed the seal around the perimeter so that the pins/clips line up with the relevant holes.

Fasten the clips into place and ensure that the remaining lining is nestled comfortably in place around the outside.

Once the new gasket is securely in place and the clips have been fastened into their corresponding holes, feed any remaining excess into the two bottom holes provided to create the full air-tight seal.

For more information on replacing a cooker seal of replacing an oven gasket, why not drop us a line? Call now on 02920 452 510 or get in touch online using the button below.

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If we’ve learnt anything from re-runs of Jerry Springer and his “Final Thought” musings, it’s that a solid foundation is the basis of any long-term relationship (thanks, Jerry).

Coincidentally, the same thing applies to a free-standing oven!

Bring some stability back to your life and resume your balanced diet with these tips for fixing a wobbly cooker.

Shaken Not Stirred

A wobbly cooker can be more than just an annoying inconvenience; if you have hot liquids on the boil, it can quickly become a major hazard.

A simple task like boiling spaghetti shouldn’t leave you with a soaking floor and third-degree burns. Luckily, there are a few ways to avoid such a pasta disaster and keep your mealtimes safe and scold-free.

Footloose

If you discover your cooker wobbling, the very first thing to check is the feet of the cooker. If just one of the cooker feet is out by even the slightest amount, it can throw the whole levelling out of whack and leave your cooker swaying like a drunk at closing time.

When the oven is not in use, get up close and personal with the problem leg and inspect the issue, adjusting the height to ensure it is level with the other legs.

You may want to use a spirit level to ensure it’s just right. If necessary, adjust each leg accordingly so that all are aligned correctly to the same level.

If all goes to plan, your appliance should be back on its feet and good to go, leaving you with one ready steady cooker!

Finding Your Feet

If, on closer inspection, you find one or more of your cooker feet is on its last legs, it may be time to replace them. Simply swapping them with new ones could be all you need to get your cooker back on its feet and standing firm.

As luck would have it, here at Cooker Spare Parts, we have a variety of replacement cooker feet at our disposal, covering the most popular cooker brands on the market: from Hotpoint and Cannon to Indesit and Creda.

Find your feet with CSP today and browse our replacement cooker feet section for your make and model.

If you can’t find the correct cooker feet for your model, why not drop us a line today? Call 02920 452 510 or click below to drop us an email and banish your woeful cooker wobbles for good!

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Your cooker, unfortunately, is like many other things in life, it's not built to last forever. Unless you've discovered an immortal, ever-lasting oven, chances are you're going to have to replace either the oven itself or some of its parts at one time or another. But how long do cookers last? Read on to learn some of the things that you can do to prolong the life of your cooking appliance.

Modern cookers are designed to last as long as possible, especially those that offer the highest of specifications, but there will always come a day when it just seems to have given up. This may happen after many years, or soon after purchase, but it is always important to be aware that where electronics, heat and moving parts are present, there is the potential for something to go wrong. Like anything, if you don't properly care and look after your cooker, it's not going to work. Therefore it is vital to thoroughly clean your oven as regularly as possible to prevent grease and other detritus from building up and causing damage. If dealt with and removed early enough, your oven is far less likely to exhibit issues with functionality further down the line. A good scrub and clean not only improves the overall health of your cooker, but it also benefits hygiene. So, there will be far fewer chances of unusual tastes when eating your food!

If getting dirty while on your hands and knees to keep your cooker alive doesn't sound very appealing, then there is always the possibility of taking your oven in for a service. Most cooker manufactures will provide this as standard when you purchase your cooker, as well as any repairs that are covered under warranty. This, however, will ensure that if there are any parts such as fans or filters that need replacing, they can be found and dealt with as soon as possible. 

One of the most common signs to look out for to tell if your cooker is on the way out is when getting up to the required temperature takes longer than usual. This could indicate one of two things; either there is an issue with your cooker's seals or there are deeper issues with the heating element, indicating an irreversible decline in your oven's performance. You cooker, to some extent, may still work, but continuing to cook in this state may lead to more costlier issues in the future.  

So, what's better than cure? Prevention. Which is why it's extremely important to take note and practice the things talked about above. Regularly cleaning and replacing faulty parts will on average keep your cooker working for around 10-15 years, depending on the type and model. So, it is definitely worth taking that extra bit of time out every now and then to properly care for your oven!

If your oven is experiencing issues and you believe it to be due to faulty or damaged parts, then there is no reason to go out and buy a whole new oven, go ahead and get those parts replaced! We supply a wide range of like-for-like or high-quality alternatives here at Cooker Spare Parts for popular cooker brands such as Hotpoint, Belling and much more.

To view our full list of manufacturers, simply click the button below - for further information on our range of spare cooker parts, please do not hesitate to contact us today.

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