The kitchen: the focal point of any home, where good food is cooked, snacks are kept, and there’s plenty of space to sip a drink and have a long chat with a friend. It’s one of the best rooms in the home, if not the best (yes, even better than your cosy bedroom!), and it deserves to be a space you feel comfortable and at ease.
Kitchens can have so much function and character to them, from the appliances you invest in right down to the details of the backsplash you decide to lay behind the sink. There’s a lot you can do with a kitchen, and that makes it both a fun room to design AND use.
But the kitchen can also throw a lot of trouble at you too. There’s more likely to be an accident in the kitchen than anywhere else in your home, and it’s important to stay on top of the cleaning as well. You don’t want limescale to build up in the pipes and prevent your dishwasher from ever doing its job effectively again!
And did you know that there are some common kitchen issues that need fixing ASAP? If they get any worse, they could be genuinely dangerous (to both your health and your wallet). Indeed, we highly recommend taking care of issues like those below as a top priority as and when they crop up.
A Grease Buildup
The kitchen is quite commonly covered in grease. No matter what you’re cooking, if you’re using any kind of fat in the pan, it’s likely to spit out a bit of grease and splatter onto your surfaces, leaving them covered in it.
The issue is when this grease starts to build up. If it never gets cleaned off properly, you could be setting yourself up for a grease fire in the future. It can quite easily catch alight if this grease is concentrated around the stove area; even the oven can start to smoke if there’s too much grease burnt into it!
To prevent a problem like this from occurring, make sure you clean round your cooking area with a wet cloth and/or an antibacterial spray every single time you prepare food. You don’t want anything like that staining your walls, tiles, and grouting in the long run either.
A Misbehaving Appliance
Sometimes we turn an appliance on and it doesn’t quite work in the way it’s meant to. Maybe it trips a switch when we ask it to do a certain thing, and you have to reset the whole breaker box that supplies power to your home? Or maybe it cuts off halfway through a function and leaves you with a half cooked meal?
These might not sound like serious issues, but they could be an accident waiting to happen. We don’t recommend taking apart anything like an air fryer or a microwave here; the safest thing to do is just replace them and carefully dispose of the old model. These appliances can be very dangerous when taken apart, even when they’ve been unplugged and have no electricity supply.
Don’t chance it; simply unplug them, take them to a recycling center, and then buy a new version you can actually rely on.
A Blocked Drain
Blocked drains are more trouble than most people realize. When you have a blocked drain somewhere in the house, your whole pipe system could end up backed up. That could leave you with a serious blockage that stretches the whole way round, which you’ll not only need a plumber to take care of, but will be very expensive and could even lead to your pipes bursting and flooding the house out!
So when a drain starts showing signs of being blocked, make sure you see to it at the first opportunity. For example, if the kitchen sink is draining very slowly, or there’s a bad smell coming out of it, it’s time to grab a bowl, set it under the sink’s u-bend, and then unscrew it to release whatever’s been caught in the flow.
A Dusty Hood Fan
When a hood fan has too much dust caught in it, it’s not going to be anywhere near as effective at doing its job. The dust itself could even be a fire hazard, especially if you’re also dealing with a bit of a grease buildup.
You’re going to want to dismantle the fan, pull out all of the components, and give them a wash down. Make sure there’s no lingering dust particles that could prevent proper grease, smoke, and moisture extraction, and then leave the pieces to dry before assembling them again.
A Lack of Light
If there’s a low level of light in your kitchen, you’re never going to be as safe as you possibly could be when you’re using it! You need to be able to see everything you’re doing without any issues, seeing as you’re working with appliances that could easily lead to something catching fire or causing burns.
So, if your kitchen is a bit dim, it’s time to install more lighting and/or change the bulbs you’re currently using. Make sure you have a clear level of illumination, even if you like a lower, more intimate lighting setup.
Fix These Kitchen Issues Now!
If an issue like any of the above pops up in your kitchen, make sure it’s the next thing to take care of on your to-do list. Even when it’s a pretty common, day to day issue you’re sure won’t lead to any lasting damage, it could quickly spin out of your control.
A grease buildup on the tiles could lead to a grease fire! A dusty hood fan could also fan the flames, as well as prevent proper humidity extraction; if the moisture seeps into the walls, you’ll see a lot more mold growing in your home.
Don’t let the problems get to this extent. Fix them while they’re still only a bit of a nuisance!
