Cleaning cooker hood parts

I need to do some work on my cooker hood. The internals are now coated with that horrible sticky waxy coating which I would like to remove with minimum of physical effort. I have tried soaking parts for days in white spirit but this has no significant effect that I can see.

Is anyone aware of a solvent that is proven effective on this semi oxidised/carbonised deposit? If not, I may need to revert to trial and error.

Hopefully if there is such a thing, I won't need to keep buying those 'disposable' aluminium mesh filters.

Some of the parts are plastic, so I will apply the necessary caution, of course.

Gerry

Try vegetable oil painted on and left to soak for a while, then wipe with paper towel. I use it for the sticky residue of self adhesive labels and tape as well. Low odour and not going to cause issues if some drips down.

Martin C

Should add that I put the aluminium grilles in the dishwasher when they start to look a bit discoloured.

Edited By Martin Connelly on 12/10/2022 18:07:25

Gerry,

I learned a little while ago that a mix of bicarbonate of soda and vinegar makes a fizzy paste which works wonderfully.

It’s silly-cheap to make, and more effective than any commercial product I have found.

MichaelG.

I recently purchased a product called "Oven Mate Mesh Filter Cleaner" from Lakeland. It came highly recommended by the sales lady as she had used it. Followed the instructions on the back, a quick spray and and the grease just rinsed off. Hope this helps.

Neat dishwasher rinse aid works quite well for me.

Flash Bleach. Vinegar & bicarb. Cider Vinegar. All good. Cider vinegar good for self adhesive labels too.

Also hot water and Ammonia if you can stand the smell.

Providing there is no aluminium, anything containing caustic soda will saponify the grease on the oven.

Mr Muscle oven cleaner, Cillit Bang grease and grime, etc. Screwfix No Nonsense degreaser, generic traffic film remover (look specifically for the caustic version as it is available in non-caustic as well).

Your own flesh is fairly close chemically to the greasy deposit on the cooker, so whatever chemical you use will have similar effects on it, so glove up well.

Another vote for Screwfix no nonsense heavy-duty degreaser. I have used it for the same job. 12 quid for 5 litres

It's a safe bet that no housewife was involved in the design of any cooker hood. If one had been, some consideration would have been given to ease of cleaning of the wretched things! Apologies for 'sexist' comment, but if you take offence, that's entirely your problem.

If you can submerge the parts, then normal household clothes washing powder works quite well. Add Bold powder or whatever, and soak for a few days, agitating it every time you walk past.

My wife favours the household clothes washing powder for difficult cleaning, I have noticed after she has used it on various utensils that anything aluminium starts to corrode, makes you wonder what they are putting in washing powders nowadays, especially as they now say you can achieve miraculous results with virtually cold water. Having contact dermatitis I make sure that I wear gloves when getting anywhere near said washing powders if I don’t, I suffer. Dave W

Hello Gerry,

I've always used methylated spirits to good effect on that awful sticky mess that accumulates in cooker hoods.

I have found that parts that can be put in a dishwasher become much easier to clean after a cycle through the dishwasher, although they don’t come out clean they are very easy to clean compared to the wretched scrubbing and scraping without the dishwasher pretreatment. Mr muscle is effective but is a truly disgusting smell and unpleasant on the skin.

Mike

The best cleaner I have found for the removal of this gunge is IPA, isopropyl alcohol which is similar in ways to meths. Put some on a cloth/paper towel and just wipe and the greasy gunge just wipe away. Depending on the amount of deposit it may need a second wipe over. Minimum effort for great results and it is safe to use on most painted surfaces and plastics even on the wooden cabinets which have polished/varnished finish.

Another use is on IC engines that have been stored and have become gummed up, just squirt some IPA into crankcase and cylinder leave for a couple of days and the engine can be turned over with no need to strain anything.

HTH

Martin

ps

The lighter brown staining on glass oven doors can be removed using ipa provided they havn't become burnt on.

Edited By Martin W on 14/10/2022 16:49:19

Phew Martin!, I thought for a minute you use beer to clean your cooker hood.

After a curry I use TF90 fast drying solvent cleaner aerosol. I find that the smell of the last night curry lingers on till I remove the aluminium filters wash in soapy water followed by spray cleaner and then wipe the inside of the housing with a paper towel and solvent cleaner.

David

Well, since I had a trip to Screwfix already lined up I thought I would pick up some of the heavy-duty degreaser as mentioned by a couple of you. It worked shockingly well, and the years of gunge just seemed to fall away from the cookerhood meshes. Interested to see what this wonderous product contained I thought I'd check the label. It was then that I discovered that one is supposed to dilute this product with water in the ratio of about 1:5. No wonder it was good!

Subsequent to this, I thought I would try the washing powder and hot water on some gunged up grinder parts. This proved to be shockingly effective too! In addition to being water soluble (like the above) this makes nice and familiar smells, enabling one to do horrendous tasks in the domestic environment and get away with it

After years of messing around with Gunk, paraffin, acetones and various other noxious solvents in the corner of my garage, the above two products are a godsend. Thanks for your ideas and suggestions.

G.

My partner and I have just sat down for a cup of tea after cleaning our cooker hood. We use "Cillit Bang" kitchen degreaser. Spray it on, leave for a few minutes then wipe off.

Realy tough deposits, the stuff the last clean missed may need a second application.

The mesh bits that hold the filters in place and the frame that supports them go in the dishwasher.

John