Self Cleaning Gas Range Problem

[whirlcool]

Last night we used the self clean feature on our new Maytag gas range. It has a choice of Light, Medium or Heavy cleaning.
We only had a few stains on the bottom so we chose the light cleaning. We turned it on and the door locked and I noticed the timer came on with a 2 hour cleaning cycle. This was the first time we used the self clean cycle on this range.

We were in the next room watching television and about an hour into cleaning the over the stove microwave vent fan turned on high speed and was making a loud screeching sound. We went in the kitchen to find the room was extremely hot, like a blast furnace was in there. I tried to turn off the vent on the microwave and the over the counter light in it came on. Then it wouldn't go out. The microwave exterior cabinet was so hot you couldn't touch the exterior including the handle. I grabbed a oven mit and opened the door, and the interior of the microwave was just as hot at the exterior. I was worried about cooking the motherboard in the microwave, so I shut the cleaning cycle off. The fan and light stayed on for 2 hours more and then turned off. I consulted the microwave users guide and it said if the microwave ever overheated the fan would come on automatically until the oven cooled to normal operating temperature. I guess this is what happened.

The oven vent is right under the control panel and forces air out over the cooktop part of the range. The adjacent cabinets did not seem too warm at all, just the area above the range.

We have had self cleaning ovens before and nothing like this has ever happened. Strangely enough the glass on the oven panel warmed up but you could still touch it safely. I shudder to think what would happen if we ran this range on a heavy clean cycle. It's probably melt the microwave.

Even though the self clean cycle only ran 60 minutes it did clean all the dirt in the oven off. We just had to wipe the ash away with a damp paper towel after the unit cooled off overnight.

What do you all make of this? Is this normal with gas self cleaning ovens?

 

[danemodsandy]

Sadly:

Whirlcool:

For reasons of cost containment and design challenges, range manufacturers seem to be cutting it pretty fine with insulation, ventilation provisions and other safety features on self-cleaning ranges nowadays. Your experience is not really that unusual. I have a Whirlpool gas self-cleaner that is a few years old, and while I haven't had any experiences as dramatic as yours, it gets one hell of a lot hotter on its exterior than the self-cleaners I remember from the '70s. I burned my thigh on the glass door once; I was in shorts, a self-clean cycle was running, and I brushed up against the door. YEE-OWWWWWWCH!

Pyrolitic self-cleaning depends on a temperature of around 900 degrees F. Range manufacturers used to be extremely conservative in their approaches to containing all that heat. In fact, it was some years after self-cleaning was introduced that manufacturers would even put windows in the oven door of a self-cleaner. Even then, GE used to put a sliding metal heat shield in the oven door; you had to slide it into place during the self-clean cycle.

All that conservatism is gone; manufacturers want to do everything the cheapest way instead of the best way. And gas self-cleaners offer a set of challenges unique to gas; you have to cram an ignitor system and gas supply piping underneath the oven floor, and an infrared burner system at the top of the oven cavity. It doesn't leave a whale of a lot of room for insulation and vent runs.

I would certainly call Maytag and see what their recommendations are, but I have a gut feeling that they're going to tell you that troubles arising from installation aren't their problem, meaning that since they didn't put the microwave where it is, they won't take any responsibility.

Oh, for the days when Big Business knew what it was doing....

 

[frigilux]

My Frigidaire gas range heats the entire floor of the house when I use the self-cleaning cycle (3 hours). I try to clean it in the fall or early spring, when I can have the kitchen windows open to save on A/C.

By contrast, my electric Frigidaire range doesn't vent as much heat to the room. It still definitely warms the kitchen and adjoining dining room, but it's nothing compared to the blast furnace gas range.

If your Maytag vents like my range does, I can see how the heat would be blasting right up at your over-the-range microwave.

I know this defeats the purpose, but I buy Easy-Off Max Fume-Free Oven Cleaner, which is safe for use in self-cleaning ovens.

Spray it onto a cold oven, wait 2 hours---I usually wait only about 45 minutes or so---then wipe it out. I do this when the gas oven is lightly soiled during the summer, when I don't want to run the cleaning cycle. There is really no elbow grease involved at all. I simply wipe the residue out with a damp rag, then wipe it out again with another damp rag.

 

[qsd-dan]

I have never once used the Self Cleaning feature on my 6 year old GE oven. I have heard from a couple of technicians that using this feature is on par with playing Russian Roulette, i.e burning stuff up like motherboards and other sensitive electrical goodies. Still clean it out the old fashion way......chemicals and elbow grease.

 

[maytagbear]

Not trying to be dense or dumb,

but it it's so terrible, why continue offering it?

In the previous two apartments, I had lovely NEW Hotpoint electric self-cleaners, and I had great luck with them, and ran the self-cleaning cycle several times a year.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[qsd-dan]

Not trying to be dense or dumb, but it it's so terrible,

A selling point feature that must remain in place to keep up with the competition? All I know is that the handful of techs I talked to use to joke about the Self Cleaning feature being a "job security" function. Who knows, maybe the bugs have finally been worked out for good, but I'm not about to be the test dummy or a statistic.

I guess if there's no issues after the first trial, you're pretty much good to go for more in the future.

 

[whirlcool]

I wonder if I could fabricate some kind of heat shield for the microwave?

What I'll probably end up doing is run the self clean for 45 minutes and then if anything is left clean it the old fashioned way.

Since over the range microwaves are very popular, one would think that house fires and microwave melt downs would have been started by running this range on even medium cleaning mode. I imagine on a very cold day we could heat our entire house from one cleaning cycle. It was that intense!

 

[danemodsandy]

Whirlcool:

In addition to the greater safety measures found in vintage self-cleaners, their installation instructions often recommended that asbestos sheets be installed between the range and adjacent cabinetry.

Obviously, that won't work now, since we know better about asbestos, but I'm wondering if Hardie board or some other cementitious board might be a good idea with today's ranges. That does not help with your overhead microwave, of course.

 

[mixfinder]

Cremate the Remains

Cremate the Evidences
Self cleaning ovens use less energy than cans of chemicals that cost upwards of $6.00, water to wash out the oven and energy to heat the water to clean up the extraneous mess. My favorite oven cleaner is Mr. Muscle but it’s only available here in wholesale supply. I would guess that aerosol propellants and caustic lye kill some plankton or whales somewhere. I do incredible amounts of cooking, catering and baking. I wouldn't think of buying a range without a self cleaning oven. The extra insulation and superior door seals keep the heat in the oven so the elements cycle less often. Cakes, cookies and breads come out more evenly cooked and the kitchen is cooler during normal baking. In my house, it’s not uncommon to run the cleaning cycle a couple times a month. In the eighties when I had a second hand space selling kitchen items I was forever running the self cleaning cycle to clean an oven full of bake ware. I worry about membrane and filament controls on my GE range, GE microwave and GE tall tub dishwasher, for both issues of heat and moisture. So far, no problems with a GE Profile smooth top with convection oven. Its heresy to admit it but no stove I have used before this worked better.

 

[qsd-dan]

Mixfinder....

It appears you and I have the exact same GE range. Glad to know the self cleaning functions have worked for you, but I'm still not willing to take the risk. I also don't use the oven much, maybe 15 times a year, and I'm pretty meticulous about using plenty of aluminum foil to keep the mess down. Also, the refrigerator butts up right against the oven, so I'm sure there would be some issues running the self cleaning feature without pulling the refrigerator out and away from the stove.

 

[mayguy]

I have a Maytag Gas Convection oven, and have no issues with it in self-clean cycle. Kitchen didn't seem like a blast furnace either and used Med, clean cycle.

I don't have a Over the range micorwave, so I couldn't say about the heat issue.

 

[mixfinder]

My membranes are drying out

Dan,
I agree with everything you say, as I have friends who get a crazed look in their eye if you mention clock and GE in the same sentence. The standard fee for repair and replacement is about $400.00. The bulk of all baking here, is done in convection mode which makes wiping out the oven a breeze. The lower calrod would super heat the oven floor in the conventional mode, buring the splatter and boil overs. My concern is using the rear burners for steaming or boiling and watching the steam waft past the clock. I run into oven grunge in roasting larger quantities of beef, pork and turkey. Trust me, if I was cleaning the oven by hand, I'd be a lot more careful. My kids watch me throw everything in the dishwasher in disbelief. When they were home, I insisted on pans and large items washed by hand to same room for dishes that were loaded to military precision. All my kitchenaid appliances were a gift from Peter's neighbor who was remodeling. Having a refrigerator too large to fit in the self cleaning oven in my lament.

 

[qsd-dan]

"My concern is using the rear burners for steaming or boiling and watching the steam waft past the clock."

Have you seen the steam exit from the the oven exhaust pipe, which exits below and rises right into clock/control board? Horrible design in my opinion, but I haven't had a problem with it, yet. If I would have stood on my head in the showroom floor and saw the exhaust design, I would have passed on this model. Time will tell......

 

[whirlcool]

I'm going to call Maytag on this one and see what they say. A lot of heat comes out the vent of the stove during the cleaning process. And this vent is right under the electronic control panel.

Our last self cleaning oven was a GE P7, complete with glass shield. It cleaned wonderfully and while it did get hot, it never really heated the room up to about 95 degrees. I should also say the while the sides and the front of the oven were hot, you could still touch them. But you dare not touch the top of the stove, it'd burn your fingers.

 

[mixfinder]

Kitchen Appliances

I am a terrible proof reader. No matter how many times I look, I fail to see the mistakes. While I referred to the GE kitchen appliances as "all the kitchenaid appliances” they are clearly not. Since I am posting the correction, I’ll throw in a picture of the dishwasher for a full meal deal appliance group. My dishwasher is amazing and works like a champ. A while back, the dishes went through a phase of looking a bit milky. I removed the pump shroud and cleaned the fine mesh in the sump the wash pump pulls water through. It's been cleaning very well since then. I do not rinse and I think the food particles built up over time. I'd trade some noise for a food waste disposer

 

[countryguy]

I have a Kenmore self clean range with an over the range microwave/vent hood. The stove gets warm when the self clean is on but never so hot that the vent turns on. If your stove was giving off so much heat that it made the microwave vent turn on and the microwave untouchable then I would think that there is something wrong with the stove. I'd contact the manufacturer. With all the safety regulations and laws in place, I wouldn't think that your stove would have gotten approved for use.

Gary

 

[whirlcool]

Well, I tried to contact Maytag via e-mail about this problem since I didn't want to hang on the line on hold for hours. When I completed the comment form and submitted it, this is what I got:

We're Sorry.

An error has occurred while attempting to process your request. Please go back and try your request again, or return at a later time.

 

[cornutt]

The problem with self-cleaning gas ovens is that the burner exhaust has to go somewhere. (With electrics, it's a lot easier to contain the heat.) My experiences with over-the-range microwaves is that they tend to trap heat above the range. Next time, set up a box fan on the countertop, blowing across the top and back panel of the range, before you start the clean cycle. It will prevent heat from building up under the microwave, and the range's panel will stay cooler too.

 

[whirlcool]

That's a wonderful idea. We do have a small box fan. I can put it on the counter next to the range while cleaning. Thanks for the advice!