We had a nice, old refrigerator. Worked pretty well, too.
Then we decided we had to upgrade our kitchen to keep up with the neighbors. We bought a $ 2000 Jennair.
Trouble was, it had stainless steel doors. They are a pain in the xxxx to keep clean and shining. The darned thing always shows streaks. How can we possible impress our neighbors with a streaky refrigerator like this? :-)
Is there a simple way to keep stainless steel panels streakless and virginally perfect?
Walter
Hi,
This may help....
"Is there a simple way to keep stainless steel panels streakless and virginally perfect?"
Get rid of your kids.
White spray paint. My wife likes the SS, but I hate it for the reasons you describe.
Bar Keepers Friend (a type of Ajax, which you buy at Kitchen Kaboodle, hardware stores, some supermarkets) works marvelously, but you have to buy a lot and apply a lot for it to solve your problem.
get rid of your neighbors
Ya I learned this lesson with a stainless island hood.
The box stores carry a spray product for cleaning stainless.. A LITTLE goes a long way. Buy the can cleaner and you will have less problems.
When I went house shopping the realtor kept taking me to homes with SS appliances. I finally had to put my foot down and say NO.
The only stainless I have is the sink. At least it is manageable.
Spay it with Windex. Dry it with paper towels.
It will then look great for about a day. Repeat the process.
Avoid all the spay on garbage they sell. If you use that stuff you will have oily dirty SS.
From what I have seen the right way to show off and impress everyone about your stuff is to have all of your fancy stuff in the display kitchen which is never used. This is much like a museum only you wouldn't have the velvet covered chains to keep people out because that is not so "homey" looking. Then have another kitchen in the basement in case you needed to open some bottled water or a container of nuts...
Vinegar works very well for cleaning stainless steel. We have a dishwasher with a stainless steel interior, when it gets badly water spotted it's easy to run one cycle with some vinegar; it comes out beautiful.
-- Tom
You can go the other way with a stainless kitchen and have it show that this is a working kitchen. The stainless is clean, it just shows signs of habitation. Once you get over the first scratch and continue to use it you eventually get to a brushed finish.
Jon Eakes (of HGTV's Ask Jon Eakes") sells a stainless steel cleaner called Gleemit in his speciality store online. URL is:
I use the stainless steel wipes from Restoration Hardware. 2 wipes do all my appliances, I wipe with the wipe and then dry with a clean cloth, lasts about a week.
I had a house with all ss appliances and was told to use lemon oil (like Old English) to clean it with. That's all I used and it shined great and was easy to keep clean (I have kids).
What you need is a sealer. Easiest would be to purchase a bottle of silicone sealer sold to seal rock, brick, and grout; buy in most big box or ceramic tile stores. Mentioned in one comment was using lemon oil, which would probably do the trick also but probably not as well. You need to really clean the stainless steel, dry, and then apply the sealer. You will probably have to apply the sealer at least every month, but in between times finger prints and dirt should wash off without smearing.
Should have opted for "Clean Steel" as opposed to SS. The Clean Steal is a satin polished steel that looks identical to the SS, but two things are different. You can still use your refrigerator magnets to hang your kids drawings. The Clean Steel does not leave fingerprints, smudges etc. Well ok, there is a third difference too.... quite a bit cheaper than the stainless as well.
ReRe
What would the use of regular stainless have to do with using refrigerator magnets? Magnets stick to stainless. Perhaps you're thinking of aluminum?
Rick Brandt wrote: ...
Very many SS alloys are, in fact, non-ferromagnetic or, at best, very weak...
What would the use of regular stainless have to do with using refrigerator magnets? Magnets stick to stainless. Perhaps you're thinking of aluminum?
Evidently you are not familiar with stainless steel. Ok to give you the benefit, some stainless steels are magnetic. The more ferritic properties of the SS will result in higher magnetism. Most of the SS used for appliance cabinetry are Austenitic Grades. (See Below)
Austenitic Grades All austenitic grades have very low magnetic permeabilities and hence show almost no response to a magnet when in the annealed condition; the situation is, however, far less clear when these steels have been cold worked by wire drawing, rolling or even centreless grinding, shot blasting or heavy polishing. After substantial cold working Grade 304 may exhibit quite strong response to a magnet, whereas Grades 310 and 316 will in most instances still be almost totally non-responsive.
The change in magnetic response is due to atomic lattice straining and formation of martensite. In general, the higher the nickel to chromium ratio the more stable is the austenitic structure and the less magnetic response that will be induced by cold work. Magnetic response can therefore be used as a method for sorting grades of stainless steel, but considerable caution needs to be exercised.
[snip]
Fair enough. I just know that magnets stick to my SS sink. If this is a "grade" issue why would appliance makers opt for the type that is non-magnetic? Are there advantages to that type that benefit an appliance?
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