best way to clean grease from range hood
If you have: Grimy kitchen wallsThe combination of cooking grease, steam, and regular old dust creates a sticky residue on your kitchen's surfaces. Clean up grease splatters from your walls, range hood, and cabinets by washing them with a sponge dipped in undiluted white vinegar. another sponge soaked in water to rinse, then wipe dry with paper towels. Tip: Don't forget the top of your fridge, which can get greasy as well. If you have: A splatter-filled microwaveIf the interior of your microwave is a real mess, use the softening power of steam to your advantage. Mix 1/2 cup white distilled vinegar and 1/2 cup water in a glass bowl, then bring to a rolling boil inside the microwave. Carefully remove the hot bowl and wipe the microwave clean of the now-loosened food using a paper towel. If you have: A gross kitchen garbage canAn often-overlooked source of real filth is the kitchen garbage, as traces of food and liquid make their way out of the bin liner
and onto the can itself, leaving a smelly mess. detergent or multi-surface cleaning liquid and a nylon-bristle brush (your bathtub is an ideal place for this task). Rinse and dry thoroughly with paper towels. If you have: Crusty, burned-on oven spillsDon’t leave that baked-on mess on the bottom of your oven; it can give off unpleasant odors and even create smoke. If you can’t run a self-cleaning cycle, spritz with water from a spray bottle, then sprinkle on some baking soda and add a few drops of white vinegar. Let the mixture bubble for a minute or so, then use a scrub sponge to sweep away the grime. Follow with a thorough wipe-down with a If you have: Cloudy, unsightly shower soap scumA haze of soap residue and hard water spots accumulates quickly in showers and on shower doors. remove, use a sponge or clean cloth to wipe room-temperature white vinegar onto your shower walls and door. The acid in the vinegar will help dissolve the residue.
distilled vinegar or multi-surface cleaning liquid into the bowl and let sit several hours or overnight, if
best way to clean grease from range hoodThen scrub well with a toilet brush and flush. If you have: Filthy windowsClean windows make everything seem brighter, but you don’t need additional bottles of window cleaner for the job—simply use a multi-surface spray cleaner or a water-vinegar solution, and wipe windows down using crumpled-up newspapers or paper towels. Tip: Wash windows on a cloudy day; the windows dry more slowly and will streak less. If you have: Pet hair everywhereOf course, you can use special lint rollers and dry sponges—but if you’re in a hurry, simply dampen the palm of your hand and wipe the pet hair off in a downward motion. Rubber gloves or latex gloves also work, as does the sticky side of a Sources: Stylelist, Woman's Day
A friend of mine recently cancelled our Saturday night plans. It wasn’t personal: Her cleaning went full-on Amityville Horror when she got to the kitchen's range hood. It had been a little too long since the last check-up. The stove's range filters were overdue for degreasing and sent my friend into a cleaning black hole. The source of all of this scum was in the oven's range hood, and it wasn’t letting go. Most dedicated cooks are pretty vigilant about cleaning the counters, the sink, the stovetop—anywhere the eye can see. But sometimes, even that isn’t enough. The out-of-sight, out-of-mind spots are always the scariest, and the range hood is a prime example. I spoke with Donna Smallin Kuper, a certified house cleaning technician (yes, that’s a thing) and author of Clear the Clutter, Find the Happiness to get to the bottom of the filth above your stove. The range hood is a large fan housed in a structure suspended over the stove. It's there to keep your kitchen air cleaner during high-impact (and high-mess) frying and searing.
The range's fan sucks up smoke, along with any airborne droplets of grease, and keeps the kitchen fresher—even during the most intense frying sessions. Some varieties are duct-based, meaning they utilize a duct tunnel system to funnel the kitchen's fumes out of the building entirely. Both the duct-based and ductless variety (which are way cheaper and easier to install) use removable filters that fit into the underside of the hood. Filter materials range from charcoal to cheaper aluminum. The more you cook, the more gunk the filters capture. And without regular cleaning, they can get clogged with the grease of cooking experiments past. “And when you let it go, it just gets harder to clean as dust mixes with grease over time,” said Kuper. Even when it's clean, it's still kind of scary. Kuper recommends making a quick wipe-down on outside of the hood part of your daily kitchen cleaning routine. Dip a soft sponge or cloth (we've got plenty of favorites) in soapy water and simply wipe down the exterior.
The filter doesn't need daily cleaning—just a monthly check up should do. “The more often you clean the filter,” said Kuper, “the easier it is to do.” There’s a litany of range hood filter cleaning tricks (everything from baking soda to Oxy Clean), but there’s one method that Kuper swears by. To clean a filter, pop it out from the range hood. Swish it up and down through a big bowl of hot, soapy water. Using a steady stream of water (or the sink’s sprayer attachment), rinse the filters, shake the filter vigorously, and allow it to air-dry before re-installing it under the hood. While it may be tempting, resist dumping the filters into the dishwasher. Caked-on grease can get released into the dishwasher, clogging its drain, while the filter's metal housing can bang around during the cleaning cycle and leave marks on your dishes. To clean the nastier underside of the hood, you need something with power (especially if you’re at plan-cancelling levels of grime).