Your Pets and Fumes from Self-Cleaning Oven?

I don't think that boarding your dog overnight while you run your self-cleaning oven feature is silly at all. Those fumes are absolutely terrible. I have a canary so I don't use my self-cleaning feature at all. Even if I didn't have my bird, I still have guinea pigs and I wouldn't want them to breath those fumes either.

I just try to keep up with the oven by manually cleaning it once a week. I find that by just cleaning any spills almost immediately it never gets very bad. My SOS pads and elbow grease seem to work for me.

I think it's so nice that you are concerned about your dog.

I just keep up with manual cleaning so I don't have to run it, as not only the fumes are awful, but it eats a ton of electricity too.

I pretty much do what Mousiegirl does, and here's why -

If you keep it pretty much clean, then when you run the self-cleaning feature you don't have to run it for nearly as long. I never run it for more than two hours.

Whenever I have cooked something in the oven and see that there was spillage or splatter I clean that one thing up as soon as the oven is cool, or at my next convenience. Then, it stays pretty clean with a very little bit of effort.

Maybe after Thanksgiving or something like that, having used the oven numerous times over the 4 days it takes me, I will just let that go and run the self-cleaner after that. In between, for just making something here and something there, it can be pretty easy to keep it clean.

For me, one of the biggest things that I didn't notice at first was cooking bacon. I decided one day that I didn't want to deal with that because splatter is more of a pain to clean than spillage. So I decided that after I line the bacon up on the baking sheet (I just set it on aluminum foil), I cut a piece of parchment big enough to cover the whole thing. Just press the parchment paper over the bacon and in the oven it goes. It completely precludes splatter. That was probably the biggest, helpful, discovery I made that year. That was when my brain was still working well. hehe

ETA - I also do it at night, after the bird has gone to his bedroom and his door is closed. Just in case, I put a towel up against the bottom of his bedroom door. Since I only have to run it for 2 hours to get it completely clean (I'd do less but I think 2hrs is the less amt of time it has), there really aren't fumes or smoke at all. I have asthma, so I'd be affected if it was at all bad.

On 3/14/2015 chickenbutt said:

I pretty much do what Mousiegirl does, and here's why -

If you keep it pretty much clean, then when you run the self-cleaning feature you don't have to run it for nearly as long. I never run it for more than two hours.

Whenever I have cooked something in the oven and see that there was spillage or splatter I clean that one thing up as soon as the oven is cool, or at my next convenience. Then, it stays pretty clean with a very little bit of effort.

Maybe after Thanksgiving or something like that, having used the oven numerous times over the 4 days it takes me, I will just let that go and run the self-cleaner after that. In between, for just making something here and something there, it can be pretty easy to keep it clean.

For me, one of the biggest things that I didn't notice at first was cooking bacon. I decided one day that I didn't want to deal with that because splatter is more of a pain to clean than spillage. So I decided that after I line the bacon up on the baking sheet (I just set it on aluminum foil), I cut a piece of parchment big enough to cover the whole thing. Just press the parchment paper over the bacon and in the oven it goes. It completely precludes splatter. That was probably the biggest, helpful, discovery I made that year. That was when my brain was still working well. hehe

ETA - I also do it at night, after the bird has gone to his bedroom and his door is closed. Just in case, I put a towel up against the bottom of his bedroom door. Since I only have to run it for 2 hours to get it completely clean (I'd do less but I think 2hrs is the less amt of time it has), there really aren't fumes or smoke at all. I have asthma, so I'd be affected if it was at all bad.

chickenbutt, I use parchment in the microwave also, otherwise beans, etc, explode all over, lol. I bought a spatter guard at Amazon to prevent spatter on the stove, works great.

I consider the fumes from a self-cleaning oven less objectionable than the fumes from most oven cleaners, which contain ammonia, lye, or other harsh chemicals. Essentially, with a S-C oven you're just smelling grease and other oven spills burning off at high temperatures. I'd prefer that to Easy Off (or other cleaner) fumes.

On 3/14/2015 GoodStuff said:

I consider the fumes from a self-cleaning oven less objectionable than the fumes from most oven cleaners, which contain ammonia, lye, or other harsh chemicals. Essentially, with a S-C oven you're just smelling grease and other oven spills burning off at high temperatures. I'd prefer that to Easy Off (or other cleaner) fumes.

GoodStuff - there are now cleaners that do not have fumes and that are all natural, if soap and water aren't sufficient.

I don't run the self-cleaning feature. I try to keep up after spills and manually spot clean. However, I really never bake anything that's too messy, either. I don't like the high heat or the fumes created from self-cleaning.

In fact, we just had to get rid of our stove and had to buy a new one. And, the delivery guys were amazed at how clean it was. Frankly, it lasted 13 years, and I understand that is a long time now for the life of a stove. So, if you keep up after spills, the stoves don't last long enough to ever need the self-cleaning feature, lol.

I cannot imagine running the cleaning feature overnight when you are sleeping. Too hot, too long. It's designed to be safe, but I would not want that to be running when I'm not keeping an eye on it. As for the dog, can't you just move him/her to another part of the house? Keep an open window or vent fan going in the kitchen.

You are reminding me that my oven is a mess. I hate running that cleaning cycle. I'll try to clean myself.