Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Fixed my stove

I haven't been able to make homemade bread for a couple of months now, and only non-tempermental oven items for dinner. You see, my stove has been acting funky. I looked at online forums for Whirlpool stoves and figured it was the fuse in the back because the oven completely turns off when you heat it above 350 degrees, or it just gets tired of cooking your stuff.

If I was baking anything, I pretty much had to plant myself in the kitchen and watch the stove, to make sure it didn't go off. Soooooo Annoying! When ordering the fuse, I found that it was discontinued by the manufacturer. nice. The only other option was that it was the $200 control panel. For that price, I'd rather apply it to a new stove- maybe even a gas range with continuous grates and convection heating.

So on to range shopping. I picked out the perfect gas range and was getting a spankin' deal since it was before Thanksgiving. I got the specs to Dear Hubby and wouldn't you know it, the gas range would be too much for our gas line given the gas furnace and water heater. To expand the line would require a ditch and something about ripping into the sheetrock of our newly-remodeled basement. ugh.

So I was back to a new stove, or fixing the stove. I got a new control panel from my favorite fix-it-yourself online store.

The instructions on the panel said to touch metal while handling the part to avoid static electricity and ruining the shock-sensitive part. Both hands were busy, so this is how I grounded myself. Here is the back opened and the finished product. As you can see, the old control panel was black, and the new white one is funky. The manufacturer has discontinued the black control panel for this stove, but not the white one which is insane to me.

The price of the part was more of a headache than the labor.
But my stove works and I can cook without babysitting the stove too. As a matter of fact, my cookies are done. Gotta run.

1 comment:

Tobi said...

I would have bought a new stove...but your industry and skill (including toe-grounding) can't be beat!