New Grump of the Day

[Feltwell]

Halfway through cooking Sunday roast, Mrs F says "The oven's stopped working". Sure enough, hob is OK, grill is OK, but will either of the ovens light? Will they hell.

Praise be to Google and the Interweb. 25 minutes of disassembling later and one wire pulled off the timer, the oven is coaxed back into life and the Sunday roast is saved, albeit delayed and finished off in a partially disassembled cooker!

I've got a new timer now, just need to reassemble the cooker. Grump. After a long day at work it's the last thing I want to do.

 

[Penners]

I've already got my coat........

It's no good trying to put a gloss on that, Feltwell. We can't just brush it aside.

 

[Penners]

cooker. Grump.

Don't talk to me about cooker grumps! It's all I've heard from Mrs P since the day (seven years ago) when we moved into this house, with its already-installed electric range cooker.

"The thermostat is inaccurate". "The clock doesn't work properly". "The grill doesn't get hot enough". "The oven lining panels are warped". "The main oven isn't big enough".

However, in the best interests of my stomach I have decided it's time to give in and spring for a new cooker, so the cheque book and the heart pills are packed for an outing to look at new ones today.

Despite this, I do feel a certain sense of achievement at having managed to put off this expenditure for seven years. When it comes to prevarication I have few equals.

 

[Flyfisher]

Surely seven years is just the start? You've yet to decide on the replacement appliance yet. :wink:

 

[Penners]

Surely seven years is just the start? You've yet to decide on the replacement appliance yet. :wink:

Just back from our scouting expedition to Norwich, and yes - I think I have managed to extend the prevarication period.

"Yes, that one's very nice, dear, but what if it's much cheaper in the January sales?"

I didn't specify which January sales. 8)

 

[malcolm]

I think I managed to get away with an eBay range cooker for £50. It's only temporary I said 2 years ago. It did have a gas hob until we moved it into a temporary kitchen in the barn a year ago. Now it has an Argos electric hob. I have recently been instructed by management to create a timing plan which says the cooker will make it's way back towards the kitchen in February. Mrs M would probably regard Mrs P as very lucky or at least a better influencer. What make of cooker are you thinking about?

Can't think of any grumps to report. The advantage of having ridiculous management at work is that everything else seems brilliant.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Dear Me Penners and Mrs P, I now have to hesitate before adding my latest grump since it is directly related to the subject of Range Cookers--before I start and on a positive note, there is an awfully good and reliable company called Classy Cookers--they have excellent second hand cookers of all shapes , sizes , prices and brands--in fact, I sold a cooker through them when we did our move back to Bedfordshire. Please don't raise your eyebrows until you have had a look to see what they offer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My grump is related to my City 60-- electric only) the simmering oven has been below its required temperature so I phoned Aga----the earliest they can get somebody to me is Saturday with an upfront call out fee of £150 ---- when I had unstuck myself from the ceiling and asked them to check their records they acknowledged that I had already paid the £58.00 annual call out protection. Fine, sorted, hunt out the bumph ---- only to find that the original installation paper work refers to a faulty simmering oven thermostat, which was replaced after 3 weeks in Feb. last year, and , that they were supposed to come out to inspect a fault in the welding of the adjustable foot at the front. Needless to say I have just realised that they never did follow that up! My only excuse is that the City 60 was delivered 3 weeks after we moved here and things were chaotic! I am actually very pleased with that little Aga and am getting used to it being sooo small!!

My other grump is that we have leaking rise and fall shower, which was installed in June 2014--, I chose an Aqualisia and have already had a replacement cartridge under guarantee 6 months on and its leaking again------what is the matter with things? You pays yer money and yer gets nowt but bother-------- !!!

ps my my builder has conveniently got flue so he's going to be a few days away from coming to look at my kitchen tiles grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 

[Feltwell]

Surely seven years is just the start? You've yet to decide on the replacement appliance yet. :wink:

Absolutely - much research, seeking out bargains and KitKat consumption to go yet.

I've fixed mine. New timer for £50, typically not the same as the old one, it fits the space and looks fine but the wiring connections were all different, and of course no wiring diagram :roll: Much head scratching ensued but it is now working beautifully, I can have hot food once again that doesn't have to be microwaveable.

The cooker is a Rangemaster and I have to admit it's been pretty good. We bought it off the people who were here before us, I think it was about 5 years old then and we've been here 10 years now. In that time the flame failure device went on one oven - which was an easy fix - and that's been it until the timer died. It's quite a simple beast really, not hard to fix, just rather large and heavy to move out of the chimney breast it sits in in order to do so!

 

[MatthewC]

the cheque book and the heart pills are packed for an outing to look at new ones today.

Despite this, I do feel a certain sense of achievement at having managed to put off this expenditure for seven years. When it comes to prevarication I have few equals.

Is it possible that the prevarication contributed to the need for the heart pills? I find giving in early is so much more relaxing! 8)

 

[philpjuk100]

Visitors expected,a brace of ducklings in the oven,swmbo tells me the oven does not work,oven emptied,oven removed from hole in the wall,sides removed from oven,insulation removed,no volts on the element,no volts at the thermostat,no volts on timer,no volts on one side of switch but volts on the other side,look at the front panel to find it turned OFF.

 

[JanJonWestWales]

Visitors expected,a brace of ducklings in the oven,swmbo tells me the oven does not work,oven emptied,oven removed from hole in the wall,sides removed from oven,insulation removed,no volts on the element,no volts at the thermostat,no volts on timer,no volts on one side of switch but volts on the other side,look at the front panel to find it turned OFF.

Epic post.... :lol:

 

[Feltwell]

I've already got my coat........

It's no good trying to put a gloss on that, Feltwell. We can't just brush it aside.

I was just Lining you up for the next awful decorating pun Penners. Think of that as an en-tray.

There's no masking the quality of these puns. Not exactly out-sanding I know.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Update on my Aga City 60-----just awaiting written confirmation ---it appears that I am to be given a replacement City 60 ---more on this in the week !

 

[Feltwell]

Non-PP grump.......

Went to a car auction this week, a long way away, to try to get a specific car (a 1937 Riley - if anyone's interested. For my Dad, not me, retirement project). Hired a car trailer to take with us just in case - which of course ensured that the bidding went daft and it sold to someone else for well above the market rate.

Got home and noticed that the bracket the detachable towball goes into on my car is loose. Turns out the bolts that hold the cross member that goes across the back of the car onto the rails that project forward into the chassis are loose - not good. Maybe not tightened up properly when it was fitted, who knows, that was a while ago and not done by me.

Can I see the bolts from under the car? Yes! Can I get my hand in enough to feel they are loose? Yes! Can I get enough access without taking half the bl@@dy car apart to tighten them up? Yes! - For 3 out of the 4 bolts. :evil:

So guess what today's unplanned activity has been, out in the cold. New split washers, lots of Loctite and some torque later, damn things aren't coming loose again in a hurry!

Time taken to take half the back of the car to bits - lots.

Time taken to sort loose bolts out - ohh, 2, maybe 3 minutes.

Time taken to put half the back of the car back together again - lots.

:evil: :evil: :evil:

 

[Flyfisher]

Bet you wouldn't have had that problem with a 1937 Riley :wink:

 

[Feltwell]

:lol:

True!

 

[Zebra]

Friend asked me to take a look at her tumble dryer as it had stopped working. No functions worked at all, so I thought it had to be a simple power fault, fuse or suchlike, easy.
Went there, couldn't fix it, so went home and bought her a second hand one on eBay for a fiver, which was also in need of repair. Got that one back to my house, couldn't fix it so got Giraffe to take a look. He ordered parts on eBay for £15, and when parts arrived, fixed it. I took it to friend's house and brought her original tumble dryer back to my house. However, she can't open the drawer on replacement tumble dryer because of her cupboard layout, so she would prefer her old one back, if it's repairable.
The fault with that one is not a fuse or suchlike, it's something in the circuit board. I don't do electronickery, so got Giraffe to take a look. He brought over multimeter, found the fault, went and got replacement 12v and 24v transformers, fit them. Still doesn't work. Have ordered replacement circuit board on eBay for £30. Hopefully, when that arrives I can fit it, take the original tumble dryer back to friend's house, bring the replacement back here, sell it on eBay, and, for the first time in about three weeks, not have a broken tumble dryer in my living room.

 

[Flyfisher]

Well done for going to the trouble of repairing it (them) though. We have a dishwasher that needs repairing because of a slight leak. A 'feature' of this particular model (a Bosch something-or-other) is that it has an undertray to catch any such leaks and prevent damage to expensive flooring plus a water detector that stops the dishwasher should the level in the undertry exceed a certain level. All very clever and Germanically thorough, though I can't help feeling that it would have been better to concentrate on better leak prevention than clever leak detection, after all it's only three years old!

Unfortunately, I have discovered that a J-cloth placed in the undertray will absorb enough leaked water to prevent the leak detector triggering and shutting down the cycle. I say 'unfortunately' because it is quicker and easier to rinse out the J-cloth before each wash than to extract the machine, strip it down, find the leak, order the replacement part, fit the replacement part, reassemble the machine and reinstall it. On the two occasions I have steeled myself for such a project, they coincided with a small mountain of dishes to clean and I confess to opting for the J-cloth fix instead - and the last occasion was about four months ago!

 

[a twig]

plus a water detector that stops the dishwasher should the level in the undertry exceed a certain level. All very clever and Germanically thorough, though I can't help feeling that it would have been better to concentrate on better leak prevention than clever leak detection, after all it's only three years old!

If you are flooding fairly frequently, you need to be careful that the water detector doesn't get stuck - its a bugger to get properly sorted out.

 

[a twig]

When what should be a one hour job to add another light fitting to your landing lights takes an entire afternoon due to the shonky work done by the "Part P qualified" sparky who re-wired your house two years ago.

Spent two hours deciphering the cack handed way the upstairs had been wired - nothing correctly labelled/coloured and removing all the extraneous wiring, which was still wired in place in various junction boxes despite the other ends no longer being connected to anything. Then another hour correcting the remaining circuitry - before I could finally wire in the additional light.

Worst bodge (in the modern sense) I found was where he couldn't be arsed to replace some old (and fairly knackered) red and black wire running through a stud wall, so just used blue crimps to attach 4" section of new T+E cable onto the end and pushed in all back behind the pattress, so that if anyone took the light switch off to check, they would see only new cable (blue and brown) and assume the whole run had been replaced. I just cut the offending section out for now and wired the old cable straight back into the switch - another job to add to The List...