If you're a long term reader of this blog then you'll know that when I have a major plan, nothing actually goes to plan. There ends up being more twists and turns than a road through Japanese highland country.
This time around it involved the kitchen and a couple of cooking essentials..
Tax time had come and gone and with our return this year my wife and I decided to upgrade the ages old oven and cooktop for something newer, sharper and sleeker. So we found a great oven and cooktop combo, got it delivered, organised a gas fitting mate to do all the grunt work and figured after an hours work, we'd be ready to celebrate with one of her epic roast lambs.
Remember how I started this post with nothing goes to plan? Well..
After pulling out the old oven (I had no idea it was held in place with only two screws - the more you learn) my gas fitting mate discovered the first problem - the earth pin plug on the new oven was too big for the socket that the old oven was plugged into. Like a lot of new ovens, our new oven had a 15 amp plug..but of course our old clunker thumped along just drawing on 10 amps. Which meant either we got a licensed electrician to swap over the plug and wiring to handle 15 amps or we got a different oven. (Whatever you do, don't try to grind down the earth plug to fit a 10 amp plug, that's just asking for your house to go up in smoke.)
Okay then Sheldon, can you just swap over the gas cooktop and we'll worry about the oven later? Sure! Until he discovered the next problem - the new cooktop just about fell through the opening of the old one!
How did we not notice the old cooktop was 5cm bigger than the new one and had a hole to match? Ugh.
What made things worse after Sheldon pointed out that this happens a lot more than people would like to admit, was when he discovered that the old gas cooktop didn't meet the standards and regulations that it should. If the rear burners were less than 200mm away from the wall (which they were) then we'd need some kind of flame proofing in front of it (which it didn't have). So not only did we not have either installed, our old one wasn't done correctly all those years ago!
So the company was more than happy to take our new oven and gas top back and provide credit for it but they'd have to go together as it was a combo deal and no you can't keep the oven and call an electrician to get it wired up properly. So no new oven and gas cooktop for now.
Looking for a nice flame proof splash back to solve my back burner problem turned out to be an adventure too - after finding one locally for a great price that 'complied to Australian gas standards' (I figured 'Great! I'll just stick this to the tiles behind the cooktop and be done!') I rang up the manufacturer and discovered that no, I'd still need some kind of flame proof material behind the cooktop. Gah! (Why do they not write these things on the box?)
So at this stage we're waiting on the appliance company to apply credit to the account so we can spend it all on a 10 amp oven that I can swap over myself legally without having to entice my plumbing mate with a box of beer. The cooktop and splash back problem? That's a DIY night mare for another time. In the meantime if you need us we'll be in the lounge munching on salad, staying as far away from Kitchen updates as humanly possible...
This time around it involved the kitchen and a couple of cooking essentials..
Tax time had come and gone and with our return this year my wife and I decided to upgrade the ages old oven and cooktop for something newer, sharper and sleeker. So we found a great oven and cooktop combo, got it delivered, organised a gas fitting mate to do all the grunt work and figured after an hours work, we'd be ready to celebrate with one of her epic roast lambs.
 |
| The dream.. |
Remember how I started this post with nothing goes to plan? Well..
After pulling out the old oven (I had no idea it was held in place with only two screws - the more you learn) my gas fitting mate discovered the first problem - the earth pin plug on the new oven was too big for the socket that the old oven was plugged into. Like a lot of new ovens, our new oven had a 15 amp plug..but of course our old clunker thumped along just drawing on 10 amps. Which meant either we got a licensed electrician to swap over the plug and wiring to handle 15 amps or we got a different oven. (Whatever you do, don't try to grind down the earth plug to fit a 10 amp plug, that's just asking for your house to go up in smoke.)
Okay then Sheldon, can you just swap over the gas cooktop and we'll worry about the oven later? Sure! Until he discovered the next problem - the new cooktop just about fell through the opening of the old one!
How did we not notice the old cooktop was 5cm bigger than the new one and had a hole to match? Ugh.
What made things worse after Sheldon pointed out that this happens a lot more than people would like to admit, was when he discovered that the old gas cooktop didn't meet the standards and regulations that it should. If the rear burners were less than 200mm away from the wall (which they were) then we'd need some kind of flame proofing in front of it (which it didn't have). So not only did we not have either installed, our old one wasn't done correctly all those years ago!
 |
| Flameproof quality control |
So the company was more than happy to take our new oven and gas top back and provide credit for it but they'd have to go together as it was a combo deal and no you can't keep the oven and call an electrician to get it wired up properly. So no new oven and gas cooktop for now.
Looking for a nice flame proof splash back to solve my back burner problem turned out to be an adventure too - after finding one locally for a great price that 'complied to Australian gas standards' (I figured 'Great! I'll just stick this to the tiles behind the cooktop and be done!') I rang up the manufacturer and discovered that no, I'd still need some kind of flame proof material behind the cooktop. Gah! (Why do they not write these things on the box?)
So at this stage we're waiting on the appliance company to apply credit to the account so we can spend it all on a 10 amp oven that I can swap over myself legally without having to entice my plumbing mate with a box of beer. The cooktop and splash back problem? That's a DIY night mare for another time. In the meantime if you need us we'll be in the lounge munching on salad, staying as far away from Kitchen updates as humanly possible...
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