Oven cleaning in Barnes Cray, DA1, across the cottage-society streets off Barnes Cray Road and down to the River Cray. Seven days, dip-tank method, from £77.
A neighbourhood built in four years, and it shows
Barnes Cray went up as a munition village. When Vickers expanded the Crayford armaments works between 1915 and 1919 there was nowhere for the workforce to live, so the Crayford Cottage Society built around 800 houses on the Vickers estates at Barnes Cray, Whitehill and Northumberland Heath, designed by Gordon Allen, on garden city lines, in blocks of two, four, six and eight, costing under £250 each. That is why the kitchens here are so consistent. Small rear kitchens, near enough the same footprint street after street, almost all holding a 60cm freestanding cooker rather than anything built in.
What that means when we turn up
A 60cm freestanding is a £77 single with a hob sitting on top of it, and the hob is usually where the real mess is, so most people here add the hob clean at £23–28 and have the pair done together. Ninety minutes for the oven. The cooker pulls out, the racks, shelves, trays and side runners go to the heated tank in the van, and the cavity, fan cover and door glass get degreased by hand indoors with non-caustic products.
London on the map, Dartford on the envelope
Barnes Cray is in the London Borough of Bexley, sits in the Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency, and still has a DARTFORD post town and an 01322 dialling code, which confuses half the country and means the Greater London boundary, and with it the ULEZ line, runs just east of here rather than anywhere you would notice from the street. Crayford station is the nearest rail. The 428 runs to Erith, Slade Green, Bluewater and Dartford.
Prices
| Single oven | £77 |
| Double oven | £110 |
| Range cooker, 90cm | £114 |
| Two-oven AGA | £143 |
| Hob | £23–28 |
| Extractor hood | £28 |
| Microwave | £22 |
Fixed on the phone before we come out. No premium-area surcharge anywhere we work.
Do you actually come out this far east?
Yes, Crayford, Barnes Cray, Slade Green and the Dartford side. Seven days.
Is the cooker moved out to be cleaned?
Where there is room and the fittings allow it, yes. In a cottage-society kitchen that is often the only way to reach the sides and the wall behind, which is where most of the grease has ended up.
Will there be a smell in the house afterwards?
No. The caustic work happens in the tank in the van outside. Indoors is non-caustic and by hand.
What about a really old cooker?
We still clean it, and we heat-test it before we sign off. On the older freestanding cookers around here the door glass sometimes cannot be split, and we say so before we start rather than halfway through.
Reviews from our rounds
Once again a great job guys, I will see you in a couple of months.
Very satisfied with the service. They were slightly late at first but I got a call from customer service to let me know, and it was all fine. The oven man, as he called himself, arrived and worked very hard for a couple of hours. My oven now looks like it has never been used.
I would certainly recommend this service, very efficient and good value for money. The young man did a great job and even cleaned the kitchen floor. Thank you.
Barnes Cray on the map
Close to Barnes Cray
Lower Feltham · Petersham · Leavesden · Sydenham Hill · Lambeth North · Surrey Quays
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Book the Barnes Cray slot on 020 8077 5225, seven days a week.