Failure is the Key to Success

A couple of days late, but I thought I’d update on the replacement oven situation.

On Monday we had a call to say that they would be coming to replace the oven and hob between 8 and 12 on Tuesday. I had Tuesday off work just in case anything unexpected happened, but expected to just do a bit of ‘overseeing’ and generally be nosey.

We had a call on Tuesday from the fitter at about quarter to ten to say that he would be with us in about 15 minutes, so it started well. However, when he arrived and looked at our existing hob and started to um and ah and then get his tape measure out, that quickly changed. It turns out that the old hob we had, fitted into a larger hole than modern hobs, and after measuring, it was confirmed that the new hob would actually drop straight through the hole in the worktop where the old hob was. Luckily, I’m a magpie and had kept the offcuts of worktop from when the kitchen was fitted 14 years ago and now they actually came in useful. I cut out two battens of worktop to pad out the hole by 30mm on back and side, while the fitters got on with disconnecting the existing appliances.

Each stage of the changeover went slower than it should have done, for no real reason other than it decided to be awkward. They were allocated 1.75 hours to do the job, so when they finally finished after 3.5 hours, I think they were glad to see the back of our kitchen.

After sealing along the join between the battens and the existing worktop, it doesn’t really show and the new hob and oven look great. For a couple of days we kept looking at them when we went into the kitchen, at it as it didn’t feel like our kitchen any more.

Another advantage of having Tuesday off, it seemed a very short week at work.

Tags:gas oven