Advice
The words, and what they actually mean
East Cambs Oven Cleaning, Burwell, Cambridgeshire. Published 24 September 2026.
The short answer
What do oven cleaners mean by a catalytic liner, a fan cover or a seal channel? They are parts of your oven, and which word applies decides what can safely be used on it. Here are 19 of them: defined in the maker’s own published wording where the word is theirs, and in ours where it is a trade word for part of the job.
How these definitions are written
Where a word belongs to the people who made your appliance, the definition uses their published wording and quotes it: AEG on catalytic liners, NEFF and Bosch on pyrolytic cycles, NEFF and AEG on hood filters, BESA on TR19, GOV.UK on VAT. Every one of those is listed at the foot of this page with the date it was read.
Where a word is a trade word for a part of the job, a part of an appliance or a piece of our kit, it is ours and this page says so plainly rather than dressing it up as a cited fact. Nothing on this list is defined from a vague memory of how the trade talks. Where there was neither a published source nor first-hand practice to define a word from, the word was left off.
Inside the oven
Vitreous enamel
Vitreous enamel is glass fired onto steel. It is the glassy, slightly cold surface lining most oven cavities, and it is what the outside of an AGA is finished in.
It cleans well, because very little sticks to glass for long, and it marks for good. Wire wool, scouring pads and caustic cleaner all dull it, and a dulled panel does not come back. Put a hand flat on the wall of your own oven: smooth and glassy is enamel, gritty is a catalytic liner, and the two want opposite treatment.
Catalytic liner
Also called catalytic panel, self-cleaning linerA catalytic liner is a rough, grainy panel fitted to the side or back walls of some ovens, which takes grease into its surface rather than letting it bake onto the wall.
AEG describes the absorbed grease as something that "becomes loosened when the oven reaches 250°C", which is hotter than normal roasting, so the panel needs an occasional hot empty run to do its job. Nothing caustic and nothing abrasive goes near one. AEG is blunt about it: "Never put cleaning detergent on the catalytic liners." A replacement set runs into the hundreds, which is why the walls get checked by hand here before anything is sprayed.
Fan cover
Also called back panel, fan plateThe fan cover is the metal plate at the back of a fan oven, usually held on by two to four screws, that covers the fan and the circular element behind it.
It comes off as part of a full clean here. Behind it is the one part of an oven that no spray reaches and no cloth gets to, so it holds whatever a year of roasting has thrown at it. Taking it off is a large part of the difference between an oven that is clean and one that looks clean from the sofa.
Base plate
The base plate is the removable floor fitted to some oven cavities, which lifts out so that what is underneath it can be reached.
Not every oven has one. Where yours does, anything that has boiled over during the year has run under the edges and is sitting beneath the plate rather than on it. An oven can look finished from the front with all of that still in place.
Runners
Also called shelf supports, side racks, telescopic runnersRunners, or shelf supports, are the wire frames or rails on the side walls of the cavity that the shelves slide on. In most ovens they unclip and lift out.
Out they come, into a soak with the shelves and the grill pan, because time in a soak gets them clean without anything being scoured. Telescopic runners, the sliding sort that bring a shelf out towards you, have a mechanism inside them, so those are done by hand instead of soaked.
Seal channel
Also called door seal, gasketThe door seal is the rubber or rope gasket round the mouth of the oven. The seal channel is the recess it sits in, and on most ovens it is where the worst of the baked-on grease is hiding.
A cloth passes straight over the top of a channel without ever going into it, so the channel survives most cleans. It is done by hand here with the seal left where it is, because a seal pulled out to be cleaned does not always sit back properly, and a door that no longer seals costs more than the clean did.
Extractors and hoods
Canopy
Also called hood, extractor hoodThe canopy is the body of an extractor: the part above the hob that you can see, as distinct from the filters clipped into the underside of it.
On a domestic hood it is a shell with a light and a fan in it. In a commercial kitchen it is the full stainless box over the range, with a grease channel round the edge of it. Either way it is cleaned by hand, inside and out, because none of it comes apart to be soaked.
Grease filter
Also called mesh filter, metal filterA grease filter is the metal mesh panel in the underside of a hood that catches airborne fat before it reaches the fan. It is the washable one.
AEG says to "Wash the filter in the dishwasher at a low temperature and a short cycle", and that filters "may discolour after cleaning. This doesn't affect the performance of the filter." NEFF is more careful and says only that "Some NEFF grease filters are dishwasher safe", so the manual for your own hood settles it rather than a rule of thumb.
Carbon filter
Also called charcoal filter, recirculating filterA carbon filter is the odour filter fitted to a hood that blows air back into the room instead of out through a wall. It is the one that is not washable.
NEFF says recirculating filters "cannot be cleaned or washed, as they are designed for one-time use" and that they "need to be replaced periodically". Most people do not know theirs is there, which is how a hood can be spotless and the kitchen can still smell of last night. We find it and tell you which one it is. Fitting a new one is a part you buy, not a clean.
Grease trap
The grease trap is the well that collects the fat running off the filters of a hood.
On a domestic hood it is often a small plastic cup clipped in at one end, easy to miss and rarely emptied. On a commercial canopy it is a channel running round the whole edge. It comes out and it washes, and it is the part most often left behind.
Ductwork, and TR19
Ductwork is the pipework that carries extracted air from a hood out of the building. TR19 is the specification that governs cleaning it, and cleaning it is a different trade from ours.
TR19 is published by the Building Engineering Services Association, which calls it "the definitive benchmark for the cleaning of ventilation systems" and runs its own two courses behind it, Grease Hygiene Operative and Grease Hygiene Technician. We clean canopies, filters and the appliances themselves. We do not clean ductwork inside a wall or a ceiling and we do not hold that certificate, so a commercial kitchen needing it needs somebody else for that part of the job.
How it is cleaned
Dip tank
A dip tank is a heated tank of cleaning solution that shelves, trays and oven parts are lowered into and left in, so that the soak lifts the grease instead of anything being scoured off.
Soaking rather than scouring is standard in this trade and it is the right way round: scouring is what marks enamel. What differs between firms is where it happens. Your parts are not taken away from your house here. Everything is done in your kitchen, with the parts that come out of the oven soaked while the cavity itself is cleaned by hand.
Pyrolytic cleaning
Also called pyro, self-cleaning cyclePyrolytic cleaning is a cycle built into some ovens that locks the door and heats the empty cavity until what is baked on the walls is reduced to ash.
NEFF puts the temperature at 485°C and describes the cycle as reducing "food deposits and grease in your oven to ash, waiting to be simply wiped away". Bosch gives the same figure and says to "remove everything inside the oven" first. It cleans the cavity walls and nothing else: the door glass, the seal, the fan cover and the shelves are all still there to be done afterwards.
Catalytic cleaning cycle
A catalytic cleaning cycle is the hot empty run that makes a catalytic liner do its work. It is not the same thing as a pyrolytic cycle and it does not reach the same temperature.
AEG's own routine is to take out every accessory and removable shelf support, run the empty oven on the catalytic setting and "leave it to self-clean for an hour", then wipe the bottom of the cavity with a soft cloth once it has cooled. Nothing is reduced to ash. The grease is loosened so it can be wiped off.
Caustic
Also called sodium hydroxide, lyeCaustic means sodium hydroxide, the active ingredient in most strong oven cleaners. It breaks grease down chemically rather than waiting for anything to be scrubbed, which is both why it works and why its label reads the way it does.
The label on Oven Pride, the product people ask about here more than any other, gives the contents as "5 - <12% Sodium Hydroxide" and the hazard as "May be corrosive to metals & Causes severe skin burns and eye damage". Its own do-not list rules out most of an oven: not on "aluminium, zinc, copper, tin, painted, damaged, self-cleaning or non-stick surfaces", and not in contact with "oven trim, hinges, glass oven door, door seals, pilot light or heating and fan elements". A catalytic liner is a self-cleaning surface, so that list already includes it.
Carbon
Also called carbonised greaseCarbon is the trade word for grease that has been cooked so many times it has stopped behaving like grease: hard, dry, dark brown to black, and bonded to the surface under it.
It is what is left in the corners of an oven that has been wiped out for years without ever being taken apart. It does not wipe and it does not dissolve in a hurry, which is why time in a soak beats effort with a cloth, and why the honest answer on a badly carbonised oven is sometimes that part of it will not come back.
Words on a quote
Single oven and double oven
A single oven is one cavity behind one door. A double oven is two cavities, usually a main oven and a smaller one that doubles as a grill, whether they are stacked in a tall housing or sit one above the other under a worktop.
It is the commonest thing to get wrong when comparing two quotes, because almost every price list in this trade splits on it, ours included: a single oven is £75 here and a double is £90. An oven with a separate grill compartment is priced as a double, because it is two cavities to take apart and clean.
Salamander
A salamander is the overhead grill in a commercial kitchen: an open element mounted above the range or the pass, with a rack underneath it.
It is on the list because it is nothing like an oven to clean. There is no door to strip and no cavity to line: an open element, a rack and a tray underneath it carrying most of the soil, usually above head height and usually still warm when everything else in the kitchen has gone cold. It is one of the reasons a commercial kitchen is quoted from what is in the room rather than off a price list.
VAT registered
A VAT registered business has to add the standard rate of VAT, 20%, on top of its prices. A business under the registration threshold does not.
GOV.UK puts the standard rate at 20% and the registration threshold at £90,000 of taxable turnover over the last 12 months. The practical effect is that an £80 clean from a registered business is £96, and the two numbers sound the same on the phone unless somebody says which one you were given. We are not VAT registered, so the figure you are quoted is the figure you pay.
Sources
Every outside claim on this page, with where it came from and the date it was read. Our own prices and the local price survey are published in full on the price list, with the log of when they were last checked.
- How to use Catalytic Cleaning on your AEG ovenAEG (UK support) · read 23 September 2026That oven sprays and other cleaning agents damage a catalytic surface. The page says: "Do not clean the catalytic surface with oven sprays, abrasive cleaning agents, soap or other cleaning agents. This will damage the catalytic surface", and separately "Never put cleaning detergent on the catalytic liners." It also gives the mechanism: the liners absorb grease, which AEG says "becomes loosened when the oven reaches 250°C". Note the word: LOOSENED, not burnt off. AEG's own routine is to run the empty oven on a catalytic cleaning cycle and "leave it to self-clean for an hour", then wipe the bottom of the cavity with a soft cloth once it is cool, having first removed all accessories and removable shelf supports.
- How to clean the filters on your AEG cooker hoodAEG (UK support) · read 23 September 2026What the maker says about washing a metal grease filter in a dishwasher, which is the opposite of what this site said until 23 September 2026. AEG: "Wash the filter in the dishwasher at a low temperature and a short cycle", and "Grease filters may discolour after cleaning. This doesn't affect the performance of the filter." So the discolouration is real and permanent, and the maker calls it cosmetic.
- How to clean cooker hood filtersNEFF (UK) · read 23 September 2026That it depends on the filter: "Some NEFF grease filters are dishwasher safe. Check your user manual to confirm if your filter can be cleaned in the dishwasher", and "washing the filters in a dishwasher may result in slight discoloration". It also says to wash them on their own, and to avoid a hairdryer or direct heat for drying because that can damage them.
- How to clean cooker hood filters, the recirculating filter passageNEFF (UK) · read 24 September 2026That a carbon filter is replaced rather than washed. The same NEFF page as `neff-hood-filters`, but a different passage, read a day later: recirculating filters "cannot be cleaned or washed, as they are designed for one-time use" and "need to be replaced periodically to maintain optimal performance". It is a separate entry rather than an extension of the other one because the `read` date is the day a person read THAT passage, and adding a new quote under an older date would misdate it.
- TR19, the ventilation hygiene specificationBuilding Engineering Services Association (BESA) · read 24 September 2026What TR19 is and who owns it, on the glossary entry that says ductwork cleaning is not our trade. BESA calls TR19 "the definitive benchmark for the cleaning of ventilation systems" and "a standard for all Hygiene Operatives across both air & grease", and names its own two certified courses, Grease Hygiene Operative and Grease Hygiene Technician. NOTE what it does NOT say: the page states no legal requirement to hold either, so nothing here should be written as though certification were the law.
- What is Pyrolytic self-cleaning?NEFF (UK) · read 23 September 2026The temperature a pyrolytic cycle reaches and what it leaves behind. NEFF gives the figure as 485°C and describes the cycle as reducing "food deposits and grease in your oven to ash, waiting to be simply wiped away". Our pages say "around 500 degrees", which this and the AEG figure of up to 500°C both support.
- How to use pyrolytic cleaningBosch (UK) · read 23 September 2026That the cavity reaches 485°C, that you should "remove everything inside the oven" before running the cycle, that afterwards "you can wipe away any remaining residue inside the oven with a damp cloth", and the warning that "the glass door of the oven might be hot to touch. Do not touch it during pyrolytic cleaning."
- Oven Pride, the manufacturer's own warnings and ingredientsOven Pride · read 23 September 2026What a caustic oven cleaner may and may not touch, from the label of the product this article names. It gives the contents as "5 - <12% Sodium Hydroxide" and the hazard as "May be corrosive to metals & Causes severe skin burns and eye damage". Its DO NOT list is the striking part: do not "use on aluminium, zinc, copper, tin, painted, damaged, self-cleaning or non-stick surfaces", and do not let it "come into contact with oven trim, hinges, glass oven door, door seals, pilot light or heating and fan elements". So the maker itself rules out most of the oven, including self-cleaning surfaces, which is what a catalytic liner is.
- VAT rates on different goods and servicesGOV.UK (HM Revenue & Customs) · read 23 September 2026The standard rate of VAT. The page says "The standard VAT rate is 20%" and that it applies to most goods and services. This is the figure behind the worked example on the cost page: an £80 clean from a VAT-registered business is £96.
- Register for VAT: when to registerGOV.UK (HM Revenue & Customs) · read 23 September 2026The turnover at which a business must register for VAT. The page gives the threshold as £90,000: registration is required when "your total taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000 (the VAT threshold)". It is on the cost page so a reader can see why two quotes for the same job can differ by a fifth, without anything being implied about any particular business.
About East Cambs Oven Cleaning
We clean ovens, hobs, extractor hoods, range cookers, AGAs, microwaves and barbecues by hand, in the customer’s kitchen, across 31 towns and villages in East Cambridgeshire, Newmarket and west Suffolk from a base in Burwell, Cambridgeshire. A single oven is £75, the whole price list is published, and the price is fixed in writing before we set off.
Before setting those prices we read the published price lists of 11 oven cleaning businesses covering this patch, on 12 September 2026. 3 of them publish no price at all, and of the 25 pages ranking for oven cleaning across the county, 7 put a number on the page. How those figures were gathered, and when they were last checked.