Oven cleaner & Sylvania 30 Watt 120VAC bulb (LED?)

I took a quick look and didn't see any LED oven bulbs. All were incandescent. There should be a double breaker for just the oven that kills all the power to it. You could test before sticking your fingers in the socket by turning on the oven for a couple minutes. Are there any burners on top of the oven to try? A clock mounted on it?

Probably hard wired, but the breaker should be easy to find. Probably the largest current (40?) double breaker.

Normal LED's would die at that heat. And it doesn't matter, because the heat from the bulb just replaces a bit of the heat needed from the heater elements.

Got me. I thought one needed oven clener.

Even if it's plugged in, isn't it easier to swithc off the breaker than to pull out the oven?

Wear a glove because of the glass left. If you can't twist that out, stab a long narrow screwdriver through the bulb's base and twist that. (Or use 2, like chopsticks?)

I've had ovens hardwired and ovens plugged in. Either way it's easier to flip the breaker. You have to slide the oven out to unplug or unwire, and if it's built in that isn't always easy.

You *might* not have to cut power. The light is 120 where the heating element is 240, and on mine there's a separate switch for the light. If you trust the switch and maybe put a meter on it, you may not need to. Depends on how comfortable you are. If you get a small shock you're going to jump and whack your head on the dirty interior of the oven though.

Anyway, those little metal threads out come out pretty easy. They are thin metal and bendy. Use a small screwdriver to bend the edge down enough to get a needle nose pliers on it, wiggle it until you can unthread it. I've never not got one out that way.

Thanks for looking.

Here's what it looked like.

There's an oven light button but I'm afraid I can't tell if it's on or off - with the metal stuck in the socket I can't even screw in a bulb temporarily to find out which is the on or off position.

I ended up shutting off the whole 200 amp circuit for the whole house. That way I'd be sure. Thanks.

What I did was use hose-clamp pliers with the tongs facing outward to squeeze and they go outward.

That enabled me to unscrew the broken aluminum screw part of the bulb mount.

Damn oven clock is blinking now. :) The wife knows how to reset it. I've never even tried.

I googled and it seems that a "normal" appliance bulb is all they put in ovens, but the 500 degrees is likely why the metal separated from the glass.

Given Sylvania didn't last - is there a better brand or source other than Amazon, Home Depot or Walmart?

I hadn't realized it until you said it but it makes sense that the five hundred degrees is nothing to an incandescent filament.

I never thought about how hot the filament must be.

Looking it up, this first cite says it's over three thousand degrees F!

I ended up using hose-clip (jesus clip) pliers. The kind that push outward when you squeeze the plier handles. Luckily the aluminum screw was not in tightly. It came right out.

I was more worried about being electrocuted so I shut down the whole home.

The bulb might have been bumped, breaking the bond between the metal and the glass, or it just had too many cycles of heat. In the future, be sure to be gentle installing and removing it. Some times, like many stuck thread situations, start unscrewing it gently with small in and out turns to break loose corrosion rather than just cranking it out in one motion.

Be sure to mark the breaker for the oven for the next time.

I think appliance bulbs are designed primarily for ovens. Anything that can handle an oven can surely handle a refrigerator and even a freezer. So I think "normal" is all there is.

HOw long had it been in there?

On further thought, digging deep into my memory, I thinnnnk that the difference with an appliance bulb is that it's covered in plastic, so when it breaks you wont' get glass all over the place, since stoves and fridges are harder to clean. Anyone remember that?

And that it comes in 30w or some size that regular bulbs don't. And that it's smaller to fit in the space provided.

I just noticed this oven has a "self cleaning" feature, which, I think, just ramps up the temperature to as hot as it can get - which seems to me to be brutal on these "normal" appliance 30W to 40W bulbs.

I think it's odd they're limiting teh heat in the wires to the 30W or 40W when the wires must be getting heated up to over five hundred degrees from the oven. Why not a 100W bulb for that matter? No big deal. I'm sure 30W or

I used straight ammonia - which seems to work reasonably well on the glass plate in the door of the oven. I wonder if the self-cleaning actually works.

Anyone use the self cleaning feature? Does it work?

If I admit that, you'll think I haven't been maintaining the home. It has been broken for so long that I don't even know how long it has been in there - but it has to be years.

The reason I cleaned it is a woman had all four limbs amputated recently in the news because she ate uncooked tilapia fish so I wanted to put a thermometer in the oven which hasn't arrived yet so I could SEE what the oven temperature really is.

Then I also bought a thermometer that goes into the fish or poultry or meat after it's pulled out of the oven - and I tried to get a water proof one but couldn't find any on Amazon.

It's a safety thing.

1. The oven thermometer was to check the temperature in the oven
2. The cleaning of the door glass was to see that oven thermometer
3. Then I realized the oven light was off so nothing could be seen
4. And then when the meat comes out - I can stab it with the other one

I was surprised that a thermometer can be inside an oven but not under water. Seems to me it should be able to take both heat and water.

What I wanted was a thermometer that will last forever without batteries.

This one doesn't 'seem' to have a plastic shell. But there is a big glass protective shell that you screw in around it. I have that big glass protective shell dunked in ammonia right now. It went from black to almost clear in a few hours of the ammonia.

Anyone know what's the best chemical to clean an oven? It has black baked on crud everywhere.

The bulb is smaller. So I'll have to buy an "appliance" bulb. Which is OK. I just don't want it to melt like this one did in between where the metal is glued onto the glass from the heat.

Wrong reason probably, This site thinks the glass is thicker, not that the it's covered in plastic, but the reason would be the same: "The thick glass cover does not protect the light bulb from heat. It simply protects the appliance light bulb from impact and food spatter. If the food spatter landed directly on the glass of a hot, bare bulb, the temperature differential could possibly cause the bulb to shatter."

I can see that, even if the splatter is hot, it might be cooler than the bulb.

Mine did and does. I had a Kenmore / Whirlpool when I used it a bunch of times, and now a GE, and I've used it once or twice. Definitely works well. Maybe you're supposed to clean up the ash after you run it but I never did.

Then how can you say it didn't last? Few things lasts forever.

Yikes.

YOu can complain to whoever is in charge.

Use the self-cleaning for gosh sakes. Why are you avoiding that? Depending on where you live, it's cold enough out now that it will supplement your furnace.

Ask any housewife and they will tell you that cleaning the oven is one of the worst cleaning jobs. That's why the previous owner bought self-cleaning. You won't be able to use the oven for 2 or 3 hours while it's cleaning, and another half-hour while it's cooling off. The door will be locked.

The self cleaning works fine, up to the time you use "oven cleaner" in it. After that your luck may vary. Look it up for your oven.

Few plastics will survive oven temps, especially self cleaning ones.

That could be caused by using an oven cleaner in a self cleaning oven. Or, it could be that the self cleaning cycle will burn it away. Self clean ovens work really good until you ruin the surface.

Maybe look for a bulb listed as OK for self cleaning ovens, if such exists.

That was going to be my question. Why are you screwing around with ammonia when you can just use the self-cleaning feature? I haven't seen an oven without self-clean in about 30 years.

Yes, and yes. Your oven might be too far gone for the self-clean feature to be effective.

You haven't been maintaining the oven if it's crusted up with burned food.

I think the moral of that story is: don't eat tilapia. It's nasty stuff. Spend a little more on fish that doesn't eat poop (when no other source of nutrition is available).

I suppose you can't jump in a time machine and properly maintain the oven to begin with.

Buy some oven cleaner. That's what it's for. It's formulated to stick to the oven walls while it works.

Don't try heating the oven while Easy Off is in there.

It's a terrible waste of energy befitting of a Republican, that's why.

It's like running your car on full throttle while it's idling in the driveway just to warm it up. Seems like an awful lot of wasted energy.

Isn't everyone claiming to be a Democrat worried about global warming? I guess not when it's not convenient they're not worried about it anymore.

Makes them liars. In the most cynical way.

Wasting energy isn't my thing.

But it does make liars out of the Democrats - so I guess that's what it's useful for (Democrats never tell the truth about anything which you can tell by watching what they do - which is never what they say they do).

Worse. It's never what they tell YOU to do. Usually backed up by a law that YOU have to follow.

But not them. It's how Democrats work.

Republicans too. Only they don't scream that they are trying not to waste energy.

They just waste it. By running their expensive self-cleaning ovens.

No liese there. Just honest to goodness waste of our resources.

They can afford to waste our resources. That's the difference between Republicans and Democrats in the main.

Both waste our resources. But one lies about it.

The other doesn't care. You pick which is best.

Damn waste of energy.

I've been looking up how the baking soda and vinegar works, and how the sodium hydroxide (lye) works - which is basically to turn the grease into soap by the saponification method.

That's less wasteful. And befitting of a Democrat.

I did look up how the self cleaning works though. As you said, it turns the grease into ash.

But only Democrats should use it because it proves they are all liars. And I love when that happens. :)

BTW, I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. But I'm not a liar either.

Otherwise, I'd be a Democrat. Nor do I waste our resources. Otherwise I'd be a Republican.

I am making a point (albeit maybe too strongly) that if anyone _is_ a Democrat, then they are liars if they use the self-cleaning feature of the oven instead of elbow grease.

It's an absolutely terrible waste of energy.

Only Republicans should waste our energy because they can afford it. :)

People who use self-cleaning features of ovens and then they cry about global warming are why I don't plan on using the self-cleaning feature.

I just read the Consumer Reports on self-cleaning ovens. They say it works, but there are a lot of indications that it breaks the ovens too.

Consumer Reports specifically said one percent of the ovens break down due to the self cleaning feature being used.

That's a good thing. It's like you telling me I haven't wasted our precious water watering my lawn or washing my car or taking three or four baths a day.

Not wasting resources is a good thing. You seem to think it's a bad thing.

It's not. It's a good thing.

It's like a BBQ. It's _supposed_ to be all black.

You can tell others to waste their money - but I don't waste anything. I use the bones of the Tilapia as one of the layers of my fertilizer.

And yes, the fertilizer has _all_ the components that it should have. Pee. Poop. Kitchen scraps. And Tilapia.

If you don't make your own fertilizer, then you are wasting our resources becaue you have to use Nitrogen made by the Bessler process.

Which is something only Republicans can afford to do. And which is something only Democrats lie about saying they don't do it.

Bear in mind, both Democrats and Republicans are liars. They just lie in different ways.

The Democrats waste our resources but they cry about it. The Republicans waste our resources but they don't care about it.

You can choose which one you are - but I'm neither. I don't waste our resources if I don't have to.

You seem to think this "proper maintenenance" matters. It doesn't.

You clean it when it gets dirty. Just like you clean your penis.

Again. Oven Cleaner is a waste of resources. It's 1% lye and 99% wasteful crap that goes into the atmosphere.

I'll make my own lye with table salt in water plus two carbon electrodes and a 12VDC car battery if I have to but I'm not wasting our precious resources on highly marketed and packaged 1% ingredients like you suggest.

Consumer Reports suggested using ammonia but they also suggested not using too much because then the liquid spills down the _inside_ of the door glass, which is EXACTLY what happened to me when I used to much of it.

They also recommend leaving the ammonia inside in a non-aluminum bowl, to loosen the crud - which is what I'm doing now - so the fumes work.

They also said when you use the wasteful oven cleaner, it can kill your birds, and it can create carbon monoxide which can kill you so you need to keep a few windows open - which in the winter will waste even more energy.

People who waste energy should be Republicans because then they're not liars because Republicans don't care. Democrats say they care. But they lie.

Note that I'm being hard on both Democrats and Republicans to make the point that anyone who uses the oven cleaner and who _then_ cries about the environment is being duplicitous and therefore not true to their own words.

Consumer Reports said the self cleaning feature causes 1% of ovens to fail. Do you feel lucky today?

This one is covered by a glass bulb so I do agree with you that plastic won't work in an oven that habitually gets to 500 degrees and if the wasteful self-cleaning feature is turned on, maybe 800 to 1000 degrees.

Consumer Reports said not to do that - but I wonder if you wipe it all away back to the bare metal, how could it matter that you used oven cleaner six months ago and then six months later you used the self-cleaning feature?

I could see a problem if you used both at the same time though.

Consumer Reports said they have different kinds of self cleaning ovens. They said the steam type doesn't work well. But the heat type turns the grease to ash.

They said you still need to do work though. And you can kill your bird. And yourself. Carbon monoxide. And stink.

Consumer Reports suggested doing it _weeks_ before you have guests. Because one percent of the time the self cleaning breaks the oven.

Tomorrow I'll hit up Home Depot. I'm pretty sure they'll have the bulbs. I can't wait to get the thermometers. That way I can check if the oven temperature display is accurate (although who know if the thermometer is what's not accurate).

Self-cleaning ovens are such a small part of the problem. The chemicals you use are probably worse. Where do you think ammonia comes from?

No, it's not.

I don't fertilize anything. I don't water my lawn. Assume much?

When it gets dirty. Not when it's completely crapped up with burned-on filth.

If I had a penis, I might spout complete bullshit.

And ammonia isn't?

Jesus, you're an idiot.