How to Clean Appliances

You might think a dishwasher cleans itself enough every time you use it, but that’s not how it works. Over time, detergent and food particles can collect in a dishwasher, creating bad odors and making it tough to get dishes spotless. Our guide, How to Clean a Dishwasher, shows you how to keep your dishwasher spic and span, how often you should clean it and how to keep it clean longer.

No, laundry detergent won’t really clean your washing machine. The truth is the suds that keep your laundry clean and fresh can eventually make your washer dirty and musty. Detergent residue collects dirt and allows mold to grow. A regular washer cleaning plan is a must. Our guide, How to Clean a Washing Machine, has tips on reducing dirt and detergent deposits so your cleaning machine can do what it does best: make sure your laundry looks and smells clean.

Drips and spills in your oven do more than make a mess, they create smoke while you’re baking, potentially flavoring your food, setting off the smoke detector and creating a fire hazard. Our project, How to Clean an Oven, gives you steps for cleaning an oven from the oven walls to the racks and door.

Just like an oven, a dirty cooktop creates smoke and can be a fire hazard. Whether you’ve got a glass cooktop, a gas cooktop or a traditional coil stove top, keeping it clean is easier with our guide, How to Clean Your Cooktop or Stove Top. We tell you the tools and cleaners that work best and give you step-by step-cleaning instructions for different types of cooktops.

Moving fresh food and leftovers in and out of a refrigerator during food prep and on grocery days creates opportunities for spills and messes. Our guide, Cleaning Refrigerators: Try These Easy Fridge-Cleaning Tips, helps you tackle spills, remove odors, prevent mold growth and reduce the risk of spreading food-borne illnesses.

Don’t forget your freezer. It gets less traffic than your refrigerator, but all the more reason you need a reminder to keep it clean. Like a refrigerator, spills and splashes can create bad odors that flavor your food. The freezer is more likely to hold forgotten foods long past their expiration dates. See our guide, How to Clean a Freezer, for the essentials steps to make sure you’re keeping your frozen foods in a clean space.

It’s not a major appliance, but a dirty humidifier can cause some big problems. Humidifiers help keep the air in your home comfortable while maintaining a good humidity level in your home, but the moisture that makes a humidifier work leads to mold and bacteria growth. See How to Clean a Humidifier for tips on how — and how often —to clean this helpful appliance.