DIY wins on upkeep: a bicarb paste or a £4 gel kit keeps a lightly used oven presentable. A professional clean (£77 for a single oven, about 90 minutes) wins on baked-on carbon, door glass and racks.
We clean ovens for a living, so you might expect us to rubbish the paste-and-wipe routine. We will not: half the ovens we open would never have needed us with twenty minutes of care a month.
What DIY does well
Routine upkeep belongs to you. A hob wiped while still warm never lets fat harden into burnt rings. A weekly soapy cloth keeps the inner door glass clear, and racks soaked in hot washing-up water come up fine with a scourer.
For light soiling in the cavity, the bicarbonate of soda method works. Mix about half a cup of bicarb with two or three tablespoons of water into a paste, coat the walls and floor keeping it off the heating element, and leave it overnight. The paste turns brown as it lifts grease. Wipe everything out, mist with white vinegar so leftover powder fizzes away, and wipe again until no white remains; stray bicarb bakes onto enamel next time the oven heats. Done every month or two it keeps a family oven ahead; our guide on how often you should clean your oven sets out a schedule.
Where DIY stops
Three places defeat the paste in almost every kitchen we visit.
Between the door glass. Grease vapour rises through the vents at the top of the door and condenses between the panes, where no cloth can follow. Reaching it means taking the door off its hinges and splitting it, usually a pair of Torx screws, sometimes clips under the handle trim; some budget doors are sealed and never come apart. On a hard kitchen floor, this is how glass chips.
Carbonised fat. Around the fan surround and under the grill element, spilt fat has been cooked past grease. It is carbon, fused to the metal.
Bicarb will not touch it.
Shifting it takes a proper degreaser, dwell time, scrapers held at the right angle and a feel for how much pressure enamel takes. Most of a professional visit goes on exactly this.
Racks and trays. Chrome racks scrubbed in the bath scratch the tub, grease the plughole and still come out grey. Our heated dip tank exists for this job; no household has one.
Caustic cleaners and your kitchen
The strong shop products clean by chemistry, and the label deserves a straight read.
- Caustic gel kits, £4–5
- Oven Pride and similar: a sodium hydroxide solution with a bag for the racks and an overnight dwell. Effective on moderate grease, weaker on hard carbon.
- Aerosol foam sprays, £3–4
- Mr Muscle and similar: quicker dwell, but the spray hangs in the air of a small kitchen; ventilate well.
- Bicarbonate paste, about £1.50
- Safe on hands and worktops, fine for light soiling, no use on carbon.
We want to be fair rather than frightening. Used with the gloves from the box and a window open, most kits do their job without incident: of 796 oven-cleaner enquiries logged by the National Poisons Information Service from 2009 to 2015, most ended in minor symptoms, around 4% moderate or severe. Still, 96% of the products involved contained sodium or potassium hydroxide, skin burns (mostly hands and forearms) occurred in 44% of skin-contact cases, and eye splashes caused pain and conjunctivitis, which is why the gloves in the box are not decoration.
It is why we split the job: racks soak in the heated tank in the van while the cavity and glass are degreased by hand indoors with non-caustic products, and the oven is heat-tested before we leave, so you can cook the same evening.
What each route costs
Price it for a genuinely dirty single oven. A gel kit at £4, a can of foam for the corners at £3.50, gloves, scourers and cloths, perhaps £4 more: call it £10–12 in products. The hours are the real cost: an overnight dwell, then two to four hours of scrubbing, with the door glass gap and the carbon by the fan usually still waiting.
Ours is fixed when you phone on 020 8077 5225: £77 for a single, £110 for a double, a hob £23–28 in the same visit, and a single takes about 90 minutes. The full table, with range cookers and AGAs, is on the prices page.
| What you are weighing | DIY, paste plus gel kit | Professional, single oven |
|---|---|---|
| Your time | 2–4 hours plus an overnight dwell | About 90 minutes of ours |
| Money out | £10–12 in products | £77 fixed |
| Between the door glass | Only if you split the door yourself | Door split where the design allows |
| Racks and trays | Bag or bathtub, messy | Heated dip tank in the van |
| Carbon at the fan and element | Mostly stays | Scraped and degreased by hand |
| Chemicals indoors | Caustic gel or spray in the kitchen | Non-caustic indoors; caustic stays in the tank |
| Best suited to | Upkeep and light soiling | First clean in years, move-outs, smoking ovens |
When we would tell you not to book us
If your oven is under a year old, or you wipe the hob after cooking and paste the cavity every couple of months, a £77 visit buys you very little, and we will say so on the phone. The same applies if a gel kit last month left the glass clear. Check again in a year.
The paste cleans the oven you can reach. Most of what we are paid for lives in the parts you cannot.
Book someone, us or another firm, when the glass is brown on its inner faces, when the oven smokes at roasting temperature, when the racks have gone matt, or when a check-out inspection is coming. Our note on preparing for your oven clean covers the five minutes of prep that speed the visit.
Is bicarbonate of soda enough to clean an oven?
For light, recent soiling, yes: paste it, leave it overnight, wipe out every trace. Brown door glass, carbonised fat and greyed racks sit beyond it, however long the dwell.
Are caustic oven cleaners safe to use at home?
Generally, when the label is followed exactly: gloves on, window open, product kept off catalytic liners and aluminium. Treat the bottle like drain cleaner rather than washing-up liquid.
How long does a DIY deep clean take?
Plan for an overnight dwell plus 2–4 hours of scrubbing the next day. Our visits take about 90 minutes for a single oven because the racks clean themselves in the heated tank while the cavity is worked on by hand.
Will a professional clean make an old oven look new?
Nearly. Grease and carbon come off; pitted enamel, scorched liner patches and worn door seals stay, because that is damage, and no cleaner reverses damage. We point it out before we start.