Keeping your household appliances in tip-top shape is absolutely crucial to helping you save costs in having to replace or repair your washing machine, fridge or freezer, as well as being super useful in keeping their energy consumption down and also improving their performance.
In terms of how to go about cleaning these items properly you can definitely develop something of a strategy. Incorporating the following hints and tips can also be of major benefit also.
Fridge
Keeping your fridge in good shape is easier than you think. You’ll want a little frost as without some your fridge can become dehydrated in its interior turning liquid spills from foods you store into hardened lumps that can be particularly hard to clear.
If this is an issue you can soak removable parts of your fridge in soapy water and use some baking soda to really get them back to new. Using a toothbrush in the edges and crevices of a fridge can really help in removing debris and preventing grime building up too.
Last but not least? Odors can be tackled by moving all the food currently in your fridge into a cool box or paper bags and then unplugging the device and washing the interior in baking-soda solution.
Freezer
A freezer can be tackled much in the same way as a fridge but there also a couple of additional things you can do to keep it clean and in good shape.
Ice can build up on the bottom of freezers pretty fast and lead to blockages. You can clear and prevent these by using a baking-soda solution and squirting it into the hole of the defrost drain tube with a pipette or even a turkey baster.
Doing a manual defrost every so often, where you unplug the appliance and melt ice with a fan, can also help keep it in decent shape for years to come.
Oven
A smoking oven that spits out a load of heavy fumes is a tell-tale sign that it’s time to pay closer attention to cleaning its interior. Plug the holes of your oven with foil while using a salt and baking-soda solution and brushing it over coated parts (not bare as salt erodes metal). Remove mixture with a spatula the following day and wipe down with paper towels. You could also use a sponge to clean up other parts of the oven and get it smoke-free again. Check further tips on over repair here.
Microwave
Microwaves are usually the culprits of mess and odor. Thankfully they are easier to clean than perhaps other appliances as you can wash them directly with warm, soapy water with very little risk of damaging them.
Covering the food you heat inside the appliance in the future, especially with a paper towel, can help remove stains in the first place, helping reduce the need to clean your microwave frequently. Smells are best tackled with a cup of lemon juice and a tablespoon of baking soda heated inside for a couple of minutes and then kept with the microwave doors open for a couple of hours.