Soak the cast iron trivets flat in a non-caustic degreaser after photographing the layout. Clean the griddle or hotplate while it is still warm, when residue lifts with a scraper. Keep every product away from the chrome and brass trim, which caustic cleaners dull permanently.
A Falcon hob is the top of a range cooker rather than a separate appliance, and it usually carries more different surfaces than any other cooktop in a domestic kitchen.
Three surfaces, three methods
A typical Falcon hob has gas burners under cast iron trivets, a griddle or hotplate section, and a fascia below carrying the controls for the whole appliance, finished in chrome or brass.
Each wants something different, and the mistake is treating them as one surface with one product.
The griddle wants cleaning warm
This is the part that catches people out. A Falcon griddle is thick steel or a chrome-finished plate, not enamel and not cast iron, and it behaves like neither.
Clean it while it is still warm, when residue lifts with a scraper and hot water. Left to go cold and harden, it becomes a much longer job, and that is exactly the situation that tempts people into an abrasive. Abrasives mark a griddle visibly, because it is a large flat surface at eye level where any scratch pattern catches the light across the whole plate.
The trivets are heavy and not identical
Falcon trivets are cast iron and span the full width in several pieces, and on most models they are not interchangeable. Photograph the hob from directly above before anything comes off.
Soak them flat for an hour in hot water with a non-caustic degreaser, in a tub lined with an old towel so the cast iron does not chip the porcelain. Work them with a stiff nylon brush rather than wire, and dry them by hand immediately, because exposed iron rusts fast here.
Keep everything off the trim
The fascia below the hob carries the controls for the ovens as well, finished in chrome or brass. Cleaner sprayed onto the cooking surface runs downhill onto it, and caustic products dull both metals permanently.
Spray onto the cloth rather than onto the hob. It is the same rule as on the Falcon oven, for the same reason, and on this appliance it is the difference between a clean and a permanently dulled front.
Our cooktop cleaning guide covers burner ports, electrodes and the general gas method.
The wok burner and the simmer burner
Falcon hobs carry a wide spread of burner sizes, from a small simmer burner up to a multi-ring wok burner, and the two ends of that range fail in opposite ways.
The wok burner blocks first, because it does the most work and carries the most ports across the largest circumference, so a given amount of debris covers more of them. If one burner on the hob has become unreliable, start there. Clear its ports while the brush is clean.
The simmer burner is the one ruined by over-enthusiasm. It has the smallest ports and the least gas flow, so it is the most sensitive to a port cleared with something metal, and enlarging a port on a simmer burner destroys the very thing it exists for. Use a wooden toothpick and accept that it takes longer.
Check each burner lights evenly around its full ring before moving on, rather than testing them all at the end.
What actually goes wrong
A scratched griddle, from an abrasive used on a cold, hardened plate.
Dulled trim, from run-down or a shared cloth.
Trivets in the wrong positions, so pans rock.
Rusted cast iron, dried by air rather than by hand.
Should you do it yourself?
Do it yourself for the trivets and the griddle, provided you do the griddle warm and keep everything off the trim.
Get someone in if the griddle has been left to harden, if the trim has begun to dull, or if you are having the ovens done anyway, which on a range cooker is the sensible way round.