A dirty oven can affect the efficiency and cooking capabilities of your oven. Ovens are designed for air flow and the surfaces are intentionally designed for this purpose, if your oven is dirty this function is compromised and as such either food may not cook properly or it may take longer to cook, thus wasting energy and increasing your energy costs.

In addition a clean oven is a hygienic oven, dirt build up also contains unknown bacteria, many people think that because of the heat generated in ovens will destroy the bacteria but some bacteria although destroyed it does not destroy the actual spores.

Dirty ovens also cause a nasty aroma once you heat them up, this aroma can go into the uncovered food as a nasty aroma tainting the flavour. In addition if gives off gases such as carbon dioxide or even carbon monoxide into the house which can affect the whole families health. Carbon monoxide is caused by incomplete combustion and a dirty ineffective oven can cause this incomplete combustion.

So when do I know I need to clean my oven (or have it cleaned)

  1. General appearance – is there visible grime on the bottom of the oven, door or shelves?
  2. Does the oven give off a burning aroma before you cook anything?
  3. Is there smoke given off from the oven, if so this is likely to be a grease build up

Because many people hate cleaning their oven it’s often a task that’s put off till tomorrow, this of course means that it often does not get done, the grime and grease burns on and becomes carbon. This is hard to remove and as such is often then left. Regularly cleaning an oven improves the food quality from the oven.

During inspections on commercial premises that sell food environmental health officers inspect the oven and cleaning records, this is because a dirty oven is unhygienic and a danger to the health of staff and diners.

Look at the images below and see if you would prefer your food in a dirty or clean oven, these are real images of customers ovens.