Thanksgiving is FAST approaching and it’s time to get your appliances ready. We know it’s a busy time of the year for you. Perhaps family is coming in from across the country. And if you are hosting the Thanksgiving meal there is much prep to do. Home-Tech wants you to be able to enjoy your holiday and not have additional stresses so we’ve put together this Thanksgiving countdown to help get your kitchen appliances ready for the big day.
Table of Contents
Let the Thanksgiving Countdown Begin
5 Days Before
Clean your oven now. If you have a self cleaning oven do not wait until a day or two before Thanksgiving to use the feature. Do not use the self cleaning cycle on or before a big holiday like Thanksgiving. The oven could overheat and damage a key component such as a fuse or even the control board. Ovens can get stuck in self clean mode or have any number of problems. Wait until after your meal is prepared to clean the oven. Also check your burners to be sure that everything is working properly.
Do not wait until you’re ready to put the turkey in the oven to check your oven temperatures and working condition. Use your oven a couple of times in the weeks leading up to the big day to rule out any irregularities in temperature or uneven cooking. After your oven has pre-heated, let it preheat for another 5 minutes or so.
This will allow time for the inside walls to heat which will help keep the heat inside the oven nice and even. If the oven temperature is off, the most common cause is a bad oven sensor or maybe a bake or broil element. It’s best to call for service if this occurs. If you do need a repair, call us now to avoid the rush. We can have a technician come out right away to take care of it.
4 Days Before
If your disposal is over seven years old, it might be time to replace it. Contact Home-Tech to discuss the possibility of installing a new one. The money saved in plugged drain bills could be well worth it.
Having your garbage disposal in working order is a must for Thanksgiving! Make sure you’ve got a good water flow before you turn on the disposal, keep it going during the grinding and let if flow for a few seconds after you turn off the disposal to make sure everything is flushed from the disposal and the drain line. Do not put liquid fat down the disposal. It can dry in the drain line and the disposal and cause your disposal to clog up. Try to use a disposal cleaner occasionally to eliminate any grease that does accumulate.
Otherwise you might get an unpleasant odor coming from the disposal. Make sure the product you are using is authorized by the disposal manufacturer. It’s nice to grind up peels from citrus fruits like lemons or oranges. This will help keep the grinding area smelling fresh and the natural acidity helps suppress the bacterial growth associated with the odors. The garbage disposal is one of the items that we are called to service the most during the holidays. You might want to consider having your kitchen drain line snaked every two years or so as preventative maintenance.
3 Days Before
Clean out your refrigerator and freezer. Thanksgiving is the one time of year when your fridge is packed with delicious foods. You need every square inch of space for all of those side dishes and that huge turkey. Keep you refrigerator at least two or three inches away from the wall to give it enough breathing room to perform properly. Don’t panic if it doesn’t feel as cold as usual during the holidays.
You probably have more in the refrigerator with all the extra meal ingredients and leftover. It may take up to 24 hours for the temperature to stabilize from the door being open more frequently. Check and care for the rubber seals (or gaskets) surrounding the inside of your fridge by using a mild soap twice a year to prevent cracked and torn seals. You can test the seals by placing a dollar bill halfway inside the door. If the dollar pulls out easily, you might be losing cold air from the refrigerator and you might want to have it checked out. Dusting off the coil under your refrigerator will keep it running well. Use a soft broom or brush.
2 Days Before
If your dishwasher is not getting your dishes clean, it might be time for one of our technicians to take a look at it. After all, you want your dishes and glassware to look spotless on your Thanksgiving table. And, if your dishwasher is an older model and really noisy when it runs you might want to shop our appliance showroom and pick up a newer quiet model like one from Bosch (and there is a $200 rebate now).
Always run the disposal before starting the dishwasher. The dishwasher usually drains into the disposal and if there’s debris in the disposal you could have the contents of the disposal back up into the sink or you could have a clog. Run a bit of hot water in your sink before running the dishwasher. This gets the hot water flowing so that when the dishwasher comes on, it has immediate hot water which will help in cleaning and sterilizing your dishes. Set the thermostat on your water heater to 120 degrees. Water that is cooler than this won’t do a good job cleaning. And water that is hotter could scald you.
Running a full load on Thanksgiving is no problem usually but don’t pack the dishes too tightly. Dishwashers clean dishes by spraying water over them so the water needs to be able to flow through the dishes to clean them. Don’t pre-rinse too much. Today’s dishwashers and detergent have improved greatly. If you haven’t tried putting your dishes in dirty lately, you might want to try again. You might be pleasantly surprised.
1 Day Before
Visit our Harvest of Savings event in our showroom. Maybe you are just sick and tired of your appliances and trying to limp along with them for holiday cooking. November 16th – 9 – 5pm we are holding a big sales event in our Ft Myers store. You can spin the Wheel of Cash with every purchase and win up to 50% off (up to $1000). You can receive a free iPad2 with the purchase of a GE Slate or Café Kitchen package and we are having a drawing for a GE HE Washer and Dryer set. Enter just by stopping by.