Cooker Conclusion and Thanks

[Maria]

Finally got cooker installed - many thanks for all your help. The best bit of advice was to play with a thin bendy piece of wire to see where it was supposed to go ended up being a sort of hockey stick shape. Works fine but very disappointed with build quality. It's a Leisure mini-range thing - looks great, but the metal is really thin, the back is badly fitting, none of the screw holes line up so it's been bent into shape to fit. On the inside the wires are thin and cheaply soldered to this awful connection box. The grill elements are thin. The cooker it replaces was only five years old - grill elements cracked, oven fan broke, and it used to overheat as mentioned before, but it was heavier-built and much more substantial than this one. Can't see it even lasting five years, but that's the way it is these days I guess. Thanks again anyway.

[NT]

Most people just dont want to pay for something well built, so they get something that dies after a while. Then buy another, then another, then another... OTOH I know someone that finally had the 1930s cooker replaced not long ago. Still worked perfectly, but lacked a flame failure device and insulation. And looked... different.

NT

[PeterC]

The last cooker that I connected in was the same. My Belling, about 50 years old at a guess, is robust. When some elements packed up some years ago, a local shop advised me to repair it as it was far better made than a modern one. As I use it rarely and then only one ring it should last for ever.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You get what you pay for..

we have one bolted on the normal aga so we dont waste oil cooking in the summer*.

Cast iron shithouse as one says.

Think they are about - gasp 1500 notes. It seems to me that GOOD white goods start at the 400 mark..below that its bent tin and three years if you are lucky.

*it is a common myth to regard a traditional Aga as a cooker. Its not. It's a very efficient space heater that has many uses, one of them being cooking, but only one.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I went as far as buying a second hand belling for spares as the one I had was suffering.

In the end the second hand one was in better shape, after I pulled the dead mouse out from behind the front panel and scraped off the burnt fat..

Score one for DIY

Then the Kenwood chef gifted from the inlaws, now re capacitored and still going for anther 30 years we hoe..

Old kit that CAN be refurbed is so much better..

In laws remarked how 'our first fridge lasted 27 years, they don't make them like that...blah blah.

We pointed out that their first fridge was a couple of months salary in

1955 or whatever..today that would be around £8000

[Chris J Dixon]

Glad to hear that you were able to get it sorted in the end.

It is a bit disappointing to find that, despite technological advances, penny-pinching (value engineering to its advocates) results in products with a short life.

Chris

[Maria]

I'm not sure how much a decent cooker is meant to cost - it was £450, not one of the cheaper types, but I can't afford a top of the range brand. Maybe a cheapo Beko would have been better built - I don't know! This one was built in Turkey.

That was before built-in obsolescense - most of my family's electrical goods in the 1980's were old 1940's/50's things that were still going strong! Probably ate up the electrickery though.

[Maria]

This one was £450, but I guess they are trading it on looks rather than anything else. And there was me thinking that I was the type of girl that was not swayed by looks, lol. I bought it off the internet, so didn't get a chance to see the back bits. Next time, I will go around the shops and inspect before I buy off the net!

I would love an Aga. Actually I would love a kitchen big enough to put an Aga in! :)

[Charles]

Ehhhm, Beko are built in Turkey too :-)

[Steve Walker]

The trouble is that many people do know that going for the good quality version will save money in the long run, but they need a replacement now and can't afford the good one.

There is a similar problem for those on very low incomes, in that they can save money by buying in bulk, but they can't wait until they've built up enough funds to afford the bulk buy and so are trapped into buying the overpriced small packs.

SteveW

[jgharston]

My local Netto has just reopened as Asda. They are currently running a special: SPEND =A340 GET xxx OFF NEXT TIME. When the hell do I as a single person spend fourty quid on groceries? That's almost three weeks' food!

JGH

[Tony Bryer]

Ah, but if you read the Daily Mail you'd know that it's only 'hard working families' that are struggling and need help. Singles and idle feckless families apparently have no problems!

[ARWadsworth]

You could buy two greedy cats and spend the £40 on cat food.

[NT]

A non-expensive way to get stuff that lasts well is to buy old. I don't mean 5 yrs old, I mean genuinely old. You've got to accept first that you wont be keeping up with fashion, and that's a second place where most people baulk. Long lived appliances and the latest looks are simply inherently incompatible.

NT

[PeterC]

Same here - Tescrot keep giving vouchers for e.g. £5 off £50. Occasionally there's a 4-off30 one that I can use for the 'hard' stuff (cans and the like) so they're OK about 5 times a year and t'other day there was a

3-off-20 which was useful and a good %age.