It’s an unfortunate fact that all home appliances have a life expectancy. Even with the best cleaning, maintenance and care, there will be a time when your oven will stop working, simply because it is old. That unexpected cost of replacing a necessary appliance like your oven can be frustrating, but there are things that you can do to combat it.  You can get a home warranty to take care of the outrageous costs of repairing or replacing worn out systems and appliances. With a home warranty you’d pay $60 for repairs or replacements on an oven, instead of paying hundreds of dollars for parts and labor. You can also do preventative maintenance to extend your appliances’ lifespan. An oven can last between 10 and 20 years. Here are some of the things you can do to extend the lifespan of your oven:

 Clean your Oven

The best tip for maintaining your oven, and extending its lifespan, is to clean it. When you leave spills and food on your oven and range, it can make the heating elements work harder, which will cause them to burn out faster. The best tip is to simply clean up spills as they happen, but everyone knows that that isn’t always possible. Sometimes an oven needs a major deep clean. That’s why Landmark has created another article:How To Clean your Oven to Extend Its Lifespan. Click there for a detailed explanation of how to clean the interior of your oven.

A tip for users who have self-cleaning ovens: although it’s tempting to turn the oven’s self cleaner feature on, don’t. Many appliance professionals say that they have seen major problems come from the self-cleaning feature on ovens. Essentially, the self-cleaning feature heats the oven up to extreme temperatures, incinerating grease and food drippings off of the walls and floor of the oven. Although it seems like a simple and easy way to clean your oven, it can harm the oven’s heating elements, and can shorten your oven’s lifespan. Go to Landmark’s oven cleaning post to learn about heat-free ways to clean your oven.

Repair Oven Seals

Check the seals on your oven door. Often the seals will be old and cracked, and let heat escape. Instead of replacing the seals on the oven, homeowners turn the oven up higher, which burns out the heating elements in an oven faster. Check the seals around the oven door and if they’re cracked, replace them. Most replacement seals can be found on a local hardware store for between $10 and $30. Then you’ll save energy, and your oven.