| Alkaline Oven Cleaners |
Why should you use alkaline/caustic oven cleaners?
- Solutions with pH lower than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with pH greater
than 7 are said to be basic or alkaline. Solutions with pH = 7 are said to be
balanced.
- Therefore, oven cleaners with pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline.
- Since our skin likes pH-7 (i.e. balanced pH), any solution lower or greater than pH-
7 getting in touch with the skin, might cause irritation or even injury. This is the
reason why strong alkaline oven cleaners are usually labeled as corrosive.
So, why should you use alkaline/caustic oven cleaners?
- Fat and carbon are easily dissolved in reaction with alkaline solutions. This is
why alkaline detergents are used to clean greasy ovens. It is simply the most
effective way to get the job done quickly and easily. The more alkaline the oven
cleaner, the better the results you'll get.
- Good/powerful oven cleaners should contain more essential ingredients (besides
being alkaline) in order to be really effective and at the same time remain
relatively safe.
- Therefore, using balanced detergents to clean heavily soiled ovens is usually
ineffective. For this reason, oven cleaners that are claimed to be “Eco Friendly” or
“pH balanced” are likely to be too weak and ineffective to tackle carbon and you
will have to use your muscles to scrub the grease off your oven!
For more details read the following article:
The Danger Of Oven Cleaning Products
What a minefield! …. but let’s see what can be done to un-ravel the mystery behind
these products.
Oven cleaners can be divided into two main groups, those that work and those that
don’t!
Generally speaking, the oven cleaners that “do what they say on the package” will
contain ingredients that mean you’ll need to be very careful when using the product.
You MUST read the instructions first. This is very important indeed.
There are numerous cases every week of damage to both humans and appliances
where the instructions have become ‘destructions’ because warnings have not been
heeded. Warnings are put onto oven cleaning products for good reason.
A common ingredient found in many ‘off the shelf’ oven cleaners is sodium hydroxide
more commonly known as caustic soda. This product is a very high alkaline that can
cause a lot of damage if not used in accordance with instructions.
Just a few of the associated problems caused by mis-use of caustic soda based
products are,
a) Burns to the skin
b) Irritation to eyes
c) Damage to nostrils and lungs
d) Removal of paint
e) Corrosion of certain metals
f) Dulling of glass
g) Rotting of rubber
h) Distortion of elements
i) Removal of ‘self-clean’ coatings including ‘non-stick’.
The list above isn’t exhaustive, but just an idea of what can go wrong. That said,
caustic soda is a very effective oven cleaner and oven cleaning product particularly in
a commercial environment. You may also need to look out for some of the different
variations of caustic/corrosive oven cleaners including caustic potash and potassium
hydroxide to name just a couple. If the oven cleaner you’re looking at has a label for
‘corrosive’ than the chances are it contains caustic in some way, shape or form.
A huge issue with caustic based products is that they often are sold in aerosol sprays
and the product is dispensed at speed making accurate ‘spraying’ virtually impossible
without ‘masking’ all the potentially hazardous areas before-hand… pretty time
consuming in the modern world we live in!!
You’ll also do well to look out for the so called ‘professional oven cleaning companies’
that claim to be “just a bit caustic”… products are either caustic or not… bit like ‘wet’…
Either it is or it isn’t!!
A far ‘kinder’ range of oven cleaners contain ‘surfactants’ to physically break down the
grease and fatty substances rather than ‘burning’ them off. Oven cleaning products
containing these ingredients will generally be more limited in effect and will take
longer to work.
On the plus side however they will be a lot kinder to the environment and safer to
dispose of after use. You’ll probably have to use a lot of this type of oven cleaner on
heavy soiling perhaps even a second or third application in severe circumstances.
The range of oven cleaners and oven cleaning products that claim to be ‘eco-friendly’
is a huge growth market. A couple of these products claim to be ‘chemical-free’ !! This
actually means they only contain water….anything added is in fact a chemical of some
sorts. Various pastes, sprays and gels will have limited effect as their main
constituent ingredient is just water. Extremely environmentally friendly but won’t
necessarily do the job you need doing. In many cases simple washing up liquid would
produce a better result!!
As you’ll now appreciate the oven cleaning product range is interesting and diverse for
many good reasons and logic. As we pointed out from the outset, it’s a minefield out
there however, exercising due diligence before embarking on the oven cleaning chore,
should ensure that both you and your cooking appliances are still in one piece once
you’ve finished the job!!
If in any doubt, contact an oven valeting professional. These guys will know exactly
what they’re doing and will leave your oven sparkling, hygienic, safe to use and you
free to enjoy the finer things in life!!
About the author of this article:
Rik Hellewell is the Managing Director of Ovenu, the specialist oven cleaning business.
They have over 100 professional oven valeters operating across Britain.
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| Copyright © 2009 Oven Cleaning Guide |
Each solution in nature has its own
acidity level - pH level.
pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of a
solution.It is defined as the cologarythm of the
activity of dissolved hydrogen ions (H+).
The pH scale ranges from 1 to 14, with 1 being
extremely acidic, 7 being neutral, and 14 being
extremely alkaline.
acidity level - pH level.
pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of a
solution.It is defined as the cologarythm of the
activity of dissolved hydrogen ions (H+).
The pH scale ranges from 1 to 14, with 1 being
extremely acidic, 7 being neutral, and 14 being
extremely alkaline.
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