Staten Island homes on Todt Hill, Grymes Hill and Emerson Hill tend to pair a large indoor kitchen with an outdoor kitchen on the patio, so a full cleaning here usually means two stations: the range hood and ovens inside, and the built-in grill outside. A grill that sat under a cover all winter keeps last season's grease in the burner tubes and the drip tray. NY NJ Appliance Cleaning steam-cleans both, across Staten Island, New York, from Lighthouse Hill to Tottenville.
The kitchens here
The hills that run through the middle of the island, Todt Hill, Grymes Hill, Emerson Hill and Lighthouse Hill, hold large houses on wooded, sloping lots with big kitchens, double wall ovens and a patio or pool deck with a built-in grill. Dongan Hills and Richmondtown sit at the foot of those hills. The South Shore, Great Kills, Annadale and Tottenville, has a lot of newer construction with open-plan kitchens, islands and pro-style ranges.
The kitchens we see on Staten Island’s hills
Todt Hill is the highest ground in the five boroughs, and the houses on it are built the way a lot of people picture a suburb, not a city. Long driveways. Wooded lots that fall away from the street. Kitchens with room for an island, a 48-inch range and a double wall oven, and a back door that opens onto a patio with its own grill.
Grymes Hill and Emerson Hill are the same idea on the slopes closer to the Staten Island Expressway, some with a view out toward the harbor and the Verrazzano. Lighthouse Hill takes its name from the lighthouse at the top. Down below, Dongan Hills and Richmondtown fill in the flatter ground between the hills and the shore.
A big kitchen on a hill has a big hood in it, usually a chimney hood or a liner in the cabinetry over a pro range, and it’s often vented straight out the back of the house. That’s a good setup. It also means the hood is doing real work, and range hood cleaning on Staten Island starts with the filters and the blower wheel, not a wipe of the stainless.
The photo at the top of this page shows the other half of that kitchen, and it shows us in the middle of the job. Both doors of a double wall oven are down, the blue enamel is clean, and plastic sheeting is draped over the counter and cabinets on the right so nothing we loosen lands on them. There’s a bucket of rags on the floor, too. That’s what a clean kitchen looks like halfway through.
The South Shore is newer. Great Kills, Annadale and Tottenville have a lot of houses from the last couple of decades, with open-plan kitchens and a pro-style range facing the family room. An open plan shows a tired hood fast: the smell has nowhere to stop.
What homeowners on Staten Island book most
Two stations, usually. Inside, the hood and the ovens. Outside, the grill.
Start with the patio. A built-in grill on a Todt Hill or Emerson Hill pool deck works hard from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and then it sits under a cover until spring. Grease and ash stay in the burner tubes, the flame tamers and the drip tray the whole time. That’s the setup for a flare-up at the first cookout of the year. Outdoor kitchen cleaning for hillside patios takes it apart, steams it and puts it back together, and it covers the side burner, the vent hood over the grill if there is one, and the drawers. It won’t fix a burner that’s rusted through. That needs a part.
Inside, the ovens. A Staten Island double oven steam clean takes both cavities, the racks, the door glass and the gasket, and it’s the booking we’d put in the calendar for early November. Brands vary from house to house, and the luxury brands we take apart has notes for each, from Wolf and Viking to BlueStar and Dacor.
Opinion, for what it’s worth: book the grill in spring and the ovens in fall, not both the week of a party. Two calm visits beat one rushed one. If you’d like both on the same day anyway, that works too.
Getting to you over the Verrazzano or the Goethals
Staten Island is better connected than its reputation. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge brings us in from Brooklyn, and the Goethals Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing all connect the island to New Jersey. The Staten Island Expressway runs along the foot of the hills, and Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue take us south to the shore. For a Tottenville or Annadale house, the Outerbridge Crossing lands a few minutes away, which makes the far end of the island closer than it looks on a map.
The driveways make the rest simple. The van parks at the house, the gear comes in through the side or back door, and the grill is a few steps away. Some hillside driveways are steep, so tell us if yours is one of them and we’ll park on the street and carry. Scheduling runs Monday to Friday. Urgent requests are handled by phone.
Nearby
Over the Verrazzano, Bay Ridge and the rest of Brooklyn is the next stop. The Bayonne Bridge lands in Bayonne and the Hudson County waterfront, and the Goethals leads to Union County’s hilltop suburbs. The rest of the map is on the complete service area list.
Lift the grill lid, pull a grate, and take one picture before you call. It saves a round of questions.
Towns we cover in Staten Island
From Brooklyn it's the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge onto the Staten Island Expressway, which runs past the hills at Grymes Hill, Emerson Hill and Todt Hill. From New Jersey, the Goethals Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing all land on the island. Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Avenue carry us down to Great Kills, Annadale and Tottenville.
- Todt Hill
- Grymes Hill
- Emerson Hill
- Lighthouse Hill
- Dongan Hills
- Richmondtown
- Great Kills
- Annadale
- Tottenville