A self-cleaning oven is a must-have feature for any busy home, I mean who wants to spend hours scrubbing and scrapping burnt food from your oven? But traditional self-cleaning ovens aren’t for everyone. If used incorrectly, self-clean’s high heat can damage your oven, the fumes smell unpleasant and may harm small pets, and the cleaning cycle can take a long time.
Enters Aqualift. Whirlpool introduced AquaLift self-cleaning technology to the Whirlpool, Maytag, Kitchen Aid, and JennAir families to make cleaning your oven easier than ever before.
AquaLift can perform a cleaning cycle in less than an hour. It releases no harmful fumes, and at 200 degrees Fahrenheit you won’t damage your appliance with frequent cleaning cycles.
Sounds great, right? But does it clean better? Let’s break it down.
Traditional Self Cleaning
Traditional self-cleaning ovens use extremely high heat of up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degree Celsius) to burn the baked on food soil in your oven cavity to a fine ash. To begin, simply remove the racks from your oven, set the self-clean cycle and hit start. Be sure to remove any small pets to a well-ventilated area as the fumes may be harmful. Once the cycle is complete, simply wipe down your oven with a damp cloth to remove the burnt waste.
Easy enough, but be prepared to wait up to 4 hours for the cleaning cycle to complete. And though the fumes aren’t harmful to human beings, they can smell unpleasant.
Judges say? Self-clean may be slow and steady, but it definitely works.
Whirlpool Aqualift Self-Clean
Whirlpool developed AquaLift as a faster, safer alternative to traditional self-cleaning ovens. The AquaLift system uses heat and water in combination with a patented porcelain coated oven interior to remove baked on food soil.
So how does it work? Remove the racks and use the Whirlpool supplied AquaLift accessories to wipe and remove the loose soil. Pour 2 cups of distilled water in the bottom of an electric oven, or 1.75 cups of distilled water in a gas oven, and close the door. Select the Clean feature and press start. The heat will create steam to lift the soil off of the porcelain coated interior and at the end of the 40-minute AquaLift cleaning cycle, the oven will beep to tell you it’s finished. Simply wipe down the oven with your sponge, and use the plastic scraper to lift any left over waste.
That said, AquaLift functions more as an improved manual clean than a true self-clean. Be prepared to use the Whirlpool provided tools to remove any excess water or waste deposits after the AquaLift cycle finishes. You may even want to run the AquaLift cycle a second time if there’s a particularly stubborn piece of dirt. But don’t worry, because it uses lower temperatures for less time you won’t damage your oven.
And what do the judges say? The lower heat is easier on your oven, it doesn’t produce any harmful fumes or unpleasant odours and it’s much faster than traditional self-cleaning. If you’re willing to use a little bit of elbow grease than Whirlpool’s AquaLift could be the perfect addition to your kitchen.
Now that you’ve got a clean sense of traditional self-cleaning vs. Whirlpool’s AquaLift, head over and shop our BrandSource store for all of your Whirlpool Family Oven needs.
Isabelle, Your Appliance Expert