Ok, am I nuts? Wait, don’t answer that. I REALLY need to clean my oven. Yesterday I tackled the glass door and had a floor full of baking soda paste, but the door is mostly clean. Do you use your self clean and did you smoke up the house, blow a fuse or start a fire?
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We’ve used it twice and both times it smoked up the house. And yes, I was afraid it would start a fire. I remember one lady on another food forum saying she turned her self clean on at night and then went off to bed. 
Would you do it again?
We had a problem with our oven and the repair guy offered a bit of wisdom: Never use your self-cleaning setting after Halloween. Apparently a good part of his business in November is helping people get their ovens repaired in time for them to make the Thanksgiving day feast. I gather it’s a feature that has an unfortunate tendency to burn out some critical part of the system.
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If you use the self cleaning feature, you need to either have an externally venting hood or open the windows. There will be smoke.
The first time we didn’t know what to expect. It’s not just smoke, it’s more like fumes. And if you have grease buildup it will flame up while burning off . I just don’t feel comfortable with it. But a lot of people do.
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Interesting- and scary. It does heat up the room, and I’m torn between doing it now and waiting until it cools off, which is seven months from now. But it really needs it.
I use mind but open windows and run whole house fan for a few minutes after the most intense part of the process about an hour in. I usually have a small fire start inside. Otherwise my fire alarm goes off. My oven is 20 years old, I have never blown a fuse. I have read in reviews of new ovens that people tend to have problems with the self cleaning function so YMMV.
Easy off fume free claims to be safe for self-cleaning ovens. Anyone ever try it?
I have used self clean on my various ovens since the 80’s. I currently have an LG that is less than a year old. I run the regular clean cycle every two or three weeks (3 hours), and have hardly a whiff of smoke or fumes. The key is to self clean before the oven gets filthy. My LG is connected to wifi and alerts me on my LG cell app to self clean on a regular basis so I don’t forget.
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Yeah. Excessive smoke and fires don’t seem normal. We use the self clean maybe once a quarter and I don’t ever remember getting those results. An appliance repair guy did tell me once that the high temps of the self clean cycle are hard on the electronics and not to overdo it.
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Self-clean every couple of months. We use the oven a lot but with sheet pans and foil the oven doesn’t get very dirty. The key seems to be clean before grease builds up. Never blown a breaker or started a fire.
Oven self clean 3-hour cycle 3 - 4 times a year, doesn’t smell good during the process inside the house, but never smoke. The first time, I didn’t read the instructions correctly, and left the oven grill inside, the silver metal became yellowish ever since.
I don’t do self-clean often, I agree that the process is harsh, after a few years, I slowly detect some coated substances getting off in the areas with lots of sliding, Don’t know if it’s related with the cleaning.
Well, that makes perfect sense to me. Too late, but lesson learned. Thanks.
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Prior to using the feature, “You should try to remove any visible debris,” according to Ron Shimek, president of Mr. Appliance, an appliance repair company with franchises nationwide. Remove chunks of food, and wipe up spills with a water-dampened rag.
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Prior to starting a self-clean cycle, ensure the oven vent, located above or below the oven door or behind the oven door handle, is uncovered. If you have a range (an oven connected to a stove), turn on the exhaust fan on the range hood to ensure that fumes get expelled to the outdoors. If you don’t have a range hood, ventilate the room by opening windows.
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Aim to use the self-cleaning feature only when the oven is heavily soiled. In fact, Shimek recommends using this feature only once per year. Schedule your cleaning well before or after holidays or other occasions when you know you’ll need the oven so that any malfunction won’t interfere with your hosting.”
The implication of this advice is that people don’t use their ovens regularly and the inconvenience of a malfunction only occurs at holidays. Clearly Mr. Shimek has not eaten my lasagna and doesn’t have cravings for mac & cheese (see HO thread on the subject) or tuna noodle casserole, or home cooked bread, or pies, or blueberry muffins, …
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The inconvenience of having your oven die the day before you’re going to roast a Thanksgiving turkey for a dozen people is much higher than the inconvenience of having your oven die when you’re going to make lasagna for your family.
Basically, if you’re planning an “event”, don’t clean your oven the night before.
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I should have bolded this part. That’s what I found interesting and pertinent to this thread.
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In my case, double oven so not a big deal and I’ve made Thanksgiving turkey on both charcoal and gas grills. The lasagna would be a greater inconvenience with tighter schedules for a regular day.
Not a statistically significant data set but I’ve never had an over fail from self-cooking. The concept never occurred to me. Can’t say I’ve ever had first hand knowledge of such a failure.
It’s May in Houston. The oven will not be used until November.
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