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Our oven has gone bonky. The stove part works fine, but the oven itself doesn't want to light. It will, eventually, but I wouldn't stand in front of it when the gigantic *WOOF* happens, because one of these times it'll blow the door open and emit a fireball that'd make Smaug proud. So we aren't using the oven until it gets fixed.
Fifty dollars for the guy to walk in the door to tell us the oven is broken. And I've already done most of the diagnostic work for him, thanks to a friendly and experienced neighbor. Yesterday we checked the gas pressure in the house at the furnace and water heater (it's good), even did a little pre-winter maintenance on the appliances and they're all ok. I took the oven apart a little and made sure the glow plate is working and cleaned out the gas vents, which seem to be working just fine. So it's the thermocouple or a gas valve or something like that, and will probably be hideously expensive and rediculously easy to replace.
Like the old joke about the machine problem that no one on site could fix, so they called the vendor technician. He walked in, watched it for a few minutes, took out a screwdriver and turned a screw 1/4 turn, after which the machine ran perfectly. Then he presented a bill for $600.00. The plant manager threw a hissy fit and demanded an itemized bill, so the tech wrote:
"turn screw - $2.00"
"knowing which screw to turn - $598.00"
We'll find out thursday which screw to turn.
Posted by Ted at December 13, 2004 09:06 PM