Ceramic and induction tops cost £23. Gas costs £28, since the caps, crowns and pan supports all have to come off and soak. Most people add the hob to an oven clean, where it takes about twenty minutes of the same visit.
A gas hob, step by step
- Off come the pan supports, then the burner caps and crowns. All of it goes to soak.
- The top is degreased by hand, round each burner and out to the edges.
- Burner ports are cleared one by one, so the flame comes back even.
- The ignition points are cleaned and then dried. A wet igniter clicks and will not light, and people think the hob has broken.
- The parts are rinsed and go back on their own burners.
- We light each ring with you before we pack up.
Ceramic and induction
Glass tops are scraped with a flat blade held low, then polished. Boil-over and burnt-on food lift off. Marks inside the glass stay, since they are heat damage. Melted sugar left to cool on ceramic can pit the surface, and pits will not polish out either.
On induction and ceramic, grease also collects in the thin gap where the glass meets the worktop or the steel trim. We run along that edge with a fine blade and a cloth. Five-burner gas hobs with a wok ring or a griddle plate are still £28; the extra ironwork simply soaks with everything else.
Booking a hob on its own
You can. The minimum charge on one-off work is £67, though, so a hob by itself costs that. Book it with an oven and you pay only the £23 or £28, and because it is done while the racks soak, it adds little to the day. Hob, extractor and single oven booked as a set are £117, and the single oven page covers that visit.
| What | From |
|---|---|
| Single oven | £77 |
| Double oven clean | £110 |
| Wide single oven | £114 |
| 90cm range cooker | £143 |
| Master range, 100cm | £167 |
| AGA (two ovens) | £143 |
| Glass or ceramic hob | £23 |
| Hob, gas | £28 |
| Cooker hood | £28 |
| Oven alongside an end of tenancy | £31 |
Scale round Egham hobs
Hard water, about 275 mg/l in Egham, shows on hobs before anywhere else. A kettle or pasta pan boils over, the water dries, and a white ring of scale is left on the glass or the steel surround. Degreaser slides over it. So after the grease is off we go round again with a descaler. In a shared student house, where one hob feeds five or six people, the rings are often layered over a year of cooked-on grease, and that is a slower job than the size suggests.
Most people have the extractor above done in the same visit. If your hob is part of a range cooker, it is already in the range price. There is also a list of the areas we cover.
Questions we get asked
A ring on our hob takes ages to catch. Is that dirt?
Often. A slow burner usually means blocked ports or a greasy, damp igniter, and we clear both. If it still lights slowly afterwards, the fault is inside the hob and needs a Gas Safe registered engineer. We will say so.
Can you clean the glass splashback behind the hob?
Yes. A splashback is £26 and is done in the same visit. Glass and steel ones are both fine.
We are a student house. Is the hob worth doing for checkout?
If the oven is being done, yes. The hob is one of the first things anyone looks at in a kitchen, and at £23 or £28 it is a small addition. Book both for the week before you hand back.
Do you clean the knobs and the control panel?
Yes. Knobs that pull off are soaked, and the panel behind them is wiped by hand. On touch controls we use a barely damp cloth so no liquid gets under the glass.