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The holidays are all about delicious dinners and relaxation. And, though it may not be obvious on first sight, this is where an oven comes to play, too.
In this post, we will discuss why you need to prepare your domestic oven for the holidays and how to do it.
Why you need to prepare your oven for the holidays
Ovens and the holidays are closely correlated. First, to cook delicious dinners, you need a well-running oven. Second, ovens may break even under a normal load. But during the holiday season, with its multiple dinners, the load increases significantly. So does the risk of oven breakage. For peace of mind that emergency will not spoil your relaxation, it is wise to exclude the risk of oven breakdown as well.
In short, there are two reasons why you need to prepare your oven for the holidays
- To ensure its best performance and great cooking results
- To get peace of mind and avoid emergency repairs
To go further, oven breakage during the holidays is not only about the stress you may experience. It is about longer waiting time for available engineers and even higher repair bills. For example, one of our customers complained to us that he found out firsthand: Lacanche repairs in London cost twice higher during the last holiday season.
How to prepare your oven for the holiday season
Now, keeping in mind the two reasons we described above, let’s discuss how to prepare your oven for the next holiday season.
A brief guide
In short, you need to ensure the following aspects:
- No bad odours will spoil the taste of your delicious meal
- No malfunctioning is left till the holidays
- Your safety will not be compromised
To ensure this, take the following steps:
- Clean your oven interior, its cavity and racks
- Inspect the oven door seals
- Check the pilot light or igniter, flame colour (for gas units)
- Run test baking to check your oven performance
- Turn to certified engineers for gas safety testing and maintenance
More details about the actions to undertake
To clean the oven, apply a spreadable paste with baking soda, leave it to soak, and then rinse it with clean water. Baking soda softens the grease and grime and eliminates unpleasant odors.
When inspecting the oven door seals, check for cracks or other damages and make sure the door is airtight.
When checking the pilot light and flame colour, make sure they are blue but not orange or yellow. When checking the pilot igniter, make sure the gas lights within a few seconds.
When running test baking, make sure the required modes perform as they should and there is no uneven baking.
If you detected any deviations from the described states, turn to us, and we will assess the issues and fix them quickly and efficiently. Also, you can count on our Gas-Safe engineers for professional gas safety testing. Gas safety testing is an annually recommended procedure. And it is a wise idea to make it a part of your pre-holiday routine.
And, one more detail is left. Timing. Start preparing your oven for the holidays not on the eve but at least a few weeks before. And now is the high time!
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