Buyer beware
A couple of weeks ago we had my family over for supper: spaghetti and meat sauce, caesar salad and garlic bread. I asked my mom if she would bring the garlic bread and, of course, she agreed. This was exciting! The inaugural use of our brand new gas oven! We put it inside, set the temperature and returned in 10 minutes to find it...cold; the oven hadn't turned on. Not daunted we read the instructions and determined that once you set the temperature you have to press "Start". So, with everyone crowded around the button was pushed and the oven began to make a loud whooshing noise. We all stared suspiciously at the appliance and I was thinking about taking a step back when I noticed a flash out of the corner of my eye and the smell of burnt something. After looking at each other in dismay I turned off the burners, removed the cold garlic toast from the oven and gave it to Peter to cook on the barbeque. We ate, drank and were merry and my family went home. The next day Peter pulled the stove out from the wall, removed the rear cover and figured out what was wrong. The orifice (where the gas enters the stove) and the burner (what accepts the gas from the orifice) don't line up. They have never lined up. And so, instead of gas going into our oven it was shooting into the cavity under and behind the stove where it somehow ignited and burned through the wiring. Lucky it did too since it cut the power to the oven and stopped the gas flow. Otherwise the oven would have exploded and we'd have all been killed. Shaken, I called the manufacturer to report the defect. They looked up the serial number and told me the stove was more than a year old and no longer covered by the warranty. I reasoned, argued and finally shouted, but it didn't help. We were going to have to pay for any repairs ourselves. Peter gave it a shot as well and he managed to get an address for the head of the service and warranty department. He wrote a slightly nasty and vaguely threatening letter asking for a response by the 25th. I'm not terribly hopeful; I think we're going to wind up buying a new oven and, frankly, I'm afraid of this one so that might be just as well. So let this be a warning to all. If an appliance in a house you're buying is brand new, check to make sure the people who put it together weren't both stupid to put it together properly and too lazy to make sure it worked properly before you waive the conditions of the offer. |