These Electric Range Brands Scored The Highest Self-Cleaning Score According To Consumer Reports

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While the more minor, regular chores like vacuuming or dusting are pretty easy to work into a routine, there are so many other household chores people dread doing. For instance, cleaning the oven. Most people only do it every couple months, if that, and it can be arduous and time consuming. It's especially frustrating if your oven is built into your electric range, requiring you to get on your hands and knees to properly clean it.

Thankfully, there are many electric ranges out there with self-cleaning features for their ovens, so you can avoid a lot of that manual work. You can turn it on and let it run while you go do other chores (or have some fun). But while that's a convenient feature, not every self-cleaning electric range actually performs the job well. Some brands produce far superior self-cleaning ranges than others.

Consumer Reports has performed in-house expert tests on dozens of electric ranges from many different companies on a variety of features, including baking, broiling, and more. Another of its tests was on the ovens' self-cleaning abilities, and in those tests, there were three brands that stood head and shoulders above the rest when it came to their electric ranges consistently delivering excellent scores for self-cleaning. Here, we're going to look at what those three brands are and which of their appliance models were able to pass CR's test with flying colors.

The first company to bring a self-contained electric refrigerator to market, Frigidaire has been around for over 100 years. Even though the American company is now owned by Swedish manufacturer Electrolux, it's still what a lot of people think of first when it comes to kitchen appliances. Refrigerators may be the brand's most famous appliances, but Consumer Reports thinks very highly of the company's electric ranges as well. Frigidaire produces CR's three top-rated overall electric 30-inch smoothtop single oven electric ranges. It also makes the three top-rated electric induction ranges too. That's some quality dominance.

When it comes to self-cleaning capabilities, Frigidaire ovens generally perform quite well under CR's testing. Four separate Frigidaire electric range models — including one that's discontinued — earn the highest of marks in these tests, which is the second most of any brand. This includes the 30-inch Frigidaire Gallery GCFE3060BF electric range, which is the overall top-rated smoothtop range of its size. The range features two different styles of self-cleaning. The first is called "Steam Clean." This is a less intense quick-cleaning process that just takes 30 minutes. Then there's "Self Clean" mode, which is the more thorough cleaning method, allowing you to choose between cycles lasting two, three, or four hours, depending on your needs.

The other Frigidaire ranges with high self-cleaning test scores actually don't have these options. Instead, they simply have a three-hour self-cleaning cycle, but that was good enough for these tests. Frigidaire just knows how to clean its ovens, fancy features or not.

Although probably best known for electronics like televisions, LG often ranks among Consumer Reports' most reliable appliance brands on the market, too. When it comes to the company's electric ranges, a number of them also test about as well as they could for their self-cleaning features.

LG is the only brand to produce a smoothtop range with double ovens that earns top marks for its self-cleaning ability. That honor goes to the 7.3 cubic-foot LG LTEL7337F electric range. Along with its excellent self-cleaning score, it ranks overall as the best smoothtop, double oven range that CR has tested. LG also gets a tremendous self-cleaning score for the 6.3 cubic-foot LSEL6331F model, which is a smooth top range with a single oven and comes in third place among them for overall scores.

Both of these electric ranges promote a feature called EasyClean. This is a quick 20-minute cleaning process, but it requires you to do a good bit of manual prep work before running it. You'll have to chip off burnt debris with a scraper and use a spray bottle of water to completely cover the inside of the oven before you can run a cycle.

These LG ranges do also have separate, thorough self-cleaning options, though. You have the selection of a three, four, or five-hour cycle, depending on how soiled the inside of your oven is. When setting this, you can also select when you want the self-cleaning cycle to begin, so you can be away from the range when it starts.

Samsung, not unlike LG, is involved in countless technology and appliance markets, and that certainly includes kitchen appliances. Among its array of electric ranges on offer, five models tested highly for self-cleaning functions.

In fact, the 6.3 cubic-foot Samsung NSI6DG9100SR range is one of only two electric induction ranges tested by CR to get top scores for self-cleaning. On the smoothtop range side of things, Samsung also had four single oven models achieve high scores. They're the NE63A6511SS, the NE63A6751SS, the NSE6DG8100SR, and the NE63A6311SS models, all of which offer 6.3 cubic feet of oven capacity.

Similar to the best-tested Frigidaire electric ranges, these Samsung models all have two different self-cleaning modes. First, there's Steam Clean, which requires you to pour about 10 ounces of non-distilled water in the Steam Clean tray at the bottom of the oven before starting the cycle, and takes about 20 minutes. If there's particularly heavy debris on the oven's sides, rub detergent into it to break it up. 

The other more standard, intensive self-cleaning mode offers you the choice for a cleaning cycle that lasts two, three, or five hours, depending on your needs. Three hours is the default amount of time, and you cycle through the different lengths just by pressing the Self Clean button on the range. These are also smart Samsung appliances that you can control with your Galaxy phone, but turning on or adjusting your range's self-cleaning modes isn't an available function remotely.