Common Kitchen Problems and How to Troubleshoot them Yourself

It is a popular sentiment and a very true one, that the kitchen is the busiest room in the whole house. In fact, in many homes, the kitchen is actually the heart of the home. Let’s just take a second to think about everything that goes on inside an ordinary kitchen. Obviously, there is cooking and cleaning, but then there’s also washing, working, doing homework, and a whole lot more.

But with this business come a lot of malfunctions and problems as everything throughout the kitchen is being used, oftentimes in unison. It’s natural for things to start breaking down or not working as smoothly as they did when new. Some kitchen problems are more common than others and luckily there are plenty of fixes for kitchen glitches that you can do on your own. So while you may come across some rare problems that may require some professional help, the most common kitchen issues are widely known and solved by the homeowners themselves.

Noisy Kitchen Hood

The hood filters need frequent cleaning to prevent future complications.

The kitchen hood is the ventilation that is situated above the stovetops. It sucks in air from the food that is cooking on the fire and prevents it from smoking up the room. So, if you’re doing a lot of boiling and frying where there’s a lot of steam and smoke, the kitchen hood should be active so as to safely remove them from the air. As you would imagine, the kitchen hood goes through a lot of punishment over the years and can get noisy with time.

Among the easiest kitchen issues you can solve is cleaning the hood filters. After all that smoke and steam going through the kitchen hood, it’s natural that some of it would build up on the filter’s surface and cause some blockage. As a result of this blockage, air can’t travel as easily through the hood, causing extra noise as it forces the air through. Kitchen hoods are luckily very easy to clean. Scrubbing away the grease and putting it through a cycle in the dishwasher should be enough to have it cleaned up and ready to be used again.

If the noise persists, then chances are it has something to do with the hardware itself. For this, you should run the kitchen hood on a very low setting with the filter grate off. This will help you pinpoint exactly where the noise is coming from and identify the culprit. Chances are, over the years of use, a few of the screws have come loose and one of the parts is rattling. Once you found the loose screw, simply tighten it, check the hood again, and if the sound is gone you have successfully de-noised your kitchen hood. 

Damaged Cabinet Surfaces

Fixing damaged cabinets requires the most basic tools and some time.

All that opening and closing that we do does account for some amount of damage that our cabinets go through. Especially if you have someone in the household who has a terrible habit of slamming the doors shut, you can expect to see some damage on the surfaces of your cabinets. Keeping your cabinet surfaces intact is crucial since they make up a large part of your kitchen’s surface area.

Fortunately, cabinet resurfacing is one of the most doable DIY projects out there. You can quite easily do it on your own with the right tools and some amount of experience in DIY. Before you apply the new surface or a new coat of paint, you need to consider what you do in the kitchen. If it typically gets very hot in your kitchen, then consider applying a varnish finish on your cabinets, which is heat resistant and lasts a long while. As for material, the same thought process is applied. If a household door slammer does not want to let go of their bad habits, then consider installing cabinets made of solid wood or High-Pressure Laminate, which are both very sturdy and impact resistant.

It’s all about adapting to the difficulties that your cabinets face and finding ways to work around the problems. This proactive form of troubleshooting kitchen problems involving cabinets will keep them intact for a long time.

Sensitive Smoke Detector

If you often spend time cooking in your kitchen and have a smoke detector that easily goes off, consider investing in a pricier one.

Smoke detectors are a must in any kitchen. They are fundamentally important for kitchen safety and will help you prevent dangerous fires and other hazards. Unfortunately, as useful and important as smoke detectors may be, sometimes they are a little too good at what they do. Some food, by nature, has a higher smoking point and will create more smoke. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything is burning, but rather that the food is cooking on a stronger fire and is creating a lot of smoke.

So, if your smoke detector is extra sensitive, it’s going to go off every five minutes, disrupting your cooking, and putting out a loud ringing that will wake up everyone in the house. This sensitivity is usually the result of a cheaper smoke detector which is not as accurate as the higher-end ones. In the case that you prepare a lot of food that puts out plenty of smoke, consider investing in a higher-quality smoke detector. They are more capable of telling the difference between normal smoke and smoke coming out of a fire. 

Foul Odor In Refrigerator

From odor buildup in containers to rotten vegetables, there are so many factors that could result in a smelly fridge.

If you open the fridge door and your first reaction is to close it immediately, that’s the sign of a bad odor lurking in your kitchen. With all that food in there, it’s completely normal for some of it to spoil and stink up the whole unit. But just because it’s common does not mean you should tolerate it, if not for the unpleasant smell, then for the possible health risks. The typical reasons why fridges gain odors is because of some rotting food under the veggie bins, the plastic Tupperware that’s absorbed the smell of the food and hasn’t been properly washed, or it can actually be the leftovers from two weeks ago.

Whatever the cause, the best way to get rid of kitchen odors is to first empty out your fridge. This will not only give you a better understanding of where the odor is coming from but also will slightly aerate the fridge. Remove all the bins and any shelves there are. Pick up any loose pieces of food outside of their designated containers and dump them out. Next give your fridge shelves, bins, and surfaces a good scrub (the fridge should be unplugged) and leave it open to dry. Wash all the Tupperware as well to make sure that none of the food will cause another odor buildup. Let everything dry out and once that’s done, restore all the bins and shelves and the odor should have left your fridge. If it persists, then consider hiring a professional cleaner to come in and disinfect it and keep your fridge organized. 

Trash Bin That Gets In the Way

Open up space by storing your trash bin appropriately.

Trash bins have a tendency of getting in the way. What makes trash bins a nuisance is the fact that when they are out, they always find a way to bother you as you're walking around and you can knock them over, spilling their unpleasant contents all over the floor. On the other hand, putting them inside a cabinet means you’re constantly going to be ducking down to throw things away. Upgrading the cabinets is among the most viable fixes for kitchen problems involving a lack of space for storage, or in this case the rubbish.

Many modern kitchens now utilize a trash bin that is built into a pullout cabinet. This gives you the benefit of having the trash be easily accessible, without the risk of knocking it over. Also, having the bin in a drawer allows you to organize your waste into different bins depending on what you’re throwing away or recycling. 

Dripping Faucet

Check your faucet for any leaky drips and fix them by fixing its washer or O ring.

The night is quiet and you are about to fall into a deep sleep. Your bed is comfortable, everything around you is dark, and you’re slowly dozing off, except for a very faint, but very distracting sound of a rhythmic pop. The sound of the kitchen sink leaking, while very low, can be very distracting and super annoying. No matter how tightly you pull on the valve, the faucet dripping doesn’t stop. This is one of the most common kitchen problems, but the solution will surprise you as it’s actually quite simple.

This is most likely the result of a worn-out washer, which is the little rubber ring that keeps the valves tightly shut. It could also be the O ring around the faucet body which is also responsible for keeping the parts of the faucet tightly sealed. Replacing both of these is super easy and costs less than one dollar per part. And once you’re done you can brag to all your friends that you do your own plumbing.

Uneven Drawers and Cabinet Doors

Stick to one model, preferably from the same manufacturer, if you plan on changing or refreshing your hinges.

As door hinges get used, they get stretched and malformed. This is the natural lifecycle of hinges, especially if they are made of lower-grade materials. As they bend and stretch out, they cause the doors of the cabinets and drawers to become uneven as well, since they do not close properly.

The solution to this is quite simple: refresh the hinges. Don’t mix and match the hinges that you purchase for your cabinetry and drawers. Try to find ones by the same manufacturer or of a similar model, so as to ensure that all the surfaces will be even once the hinges are installed. Uneven drawers and cabinet doors could also be the result of the material warping. In this case, you would require cabinet refacing and resurfacing to restore the smoothness of the cabinet doors and drawers.