Cookers

[Bill]

Looking for a bit of guidance here, as I'm (hopefully temporarily) struck down and waiting the results of scans etc.

Two days ago, there was a spffffft, all the house lights dimmed and the cooker went off while heating a pie for our disabled "house guest".

I've checked everything to the power switch above the cooker - all OK. Nothing on the cooker comes on, though, so we will have to get a new one delivered and installed. Reluctantly, I've been browsing the Curry's website.

The old cooker has controls at the top of an upstand at the back, and is

55cm wide. Her indoors has put up with it (Tricity Bendix) for at least 20 years in spite of the poor design and construction, where bits kept falling off etc.

Curry's seem to do only one model the same size, it's unavailable and out of stock, and also very expensive(799).

It looks as though we will have to go down to a 50cm wide one to avoid the main switch coming over the LH hobs. We also, presumably, will have to invest in some sort of wall mounted splashback to protect the wallpaper behind the cooker or hide the lack of it.

I wonder if anyone knows of a 55cm wide cooker with high controls at the back, or can recommend a lowish cost 50cm wide one that is reasonably well built. High controls would be good.

I would have installed it myself up to a few weeks ago. But we will have to go for a supplier who will deliver and install.

[Tim+]

You seem to have discounted the ?repair? option.

Chances are the oven element has gone and tripped the circuit breaker or blown the fuse on the cooker circuit. It may well be of course that spares aren?t available due to its age but some components stay pretty constant over the years so you never know. Do you know the model name or number? It probably has an identity plate situated somewhere.

Tim

[Tim+]

New elements are available for the Tricity Bendix SB 431W (fan oven) and SB

412W (conventional oven) which match the description of your cooker.

Tim

[spuorgelgoog]

AO.com have 55 cookers less than 55cm wide, starting with an white Electra at £165.

Black Beko at £189 is cheapest for free next day delivery.

Amica AFS5500WH at £254 is cheapest for 2-year warranty.

Connection is £75.00 and disposal of the old one is £20.

"Get your new cooker fitted the same day it?s delivered. Our engineers will disconnect your old appliance before getting your new one set up. We'll give your new appliance a full health check to ensure it?s safe and ready to use straight away."

I can't see any cookers with high level controls at the back; I suspect they're no longer allowed due to the risks of reaching over hot pans.

Stainless steel splashback from £40 + £10 delivery, stick to the wall with silicone.

Owain

[Bob Eager]

Except that he has power all the way to the cooker switch.

I'd endorse ao.com - we have used them for a number of items.

[alan_m]

+1 I used them for the sixth time a few days ago. Competitive pricing plus excellent delivery. I selected a delivery day and got a text message and email at around 7am on the day of delivery giving a one hour delivery slot and a phone call from the delivery driver 10 minutes before he turned up.

[Fredxx]

<snip>

I was wondering the same. I have no idea why Bill wants one of this type.

[alan_m]

At least 10 @ 55cm which the OP was originally looking for and 4 of which are under £450

[Steve Walker]

I can see one reason.

Our gas cooker has the controls on the front, just below the top - likje many cookers these days. They splattered and are very difficult to clean. Over the years cleaning has pretty well eliminated the symbols and markings telling you what each control is and the setpoints.

I remember my parents' old cooker having the controls high at the back and they discoloured slightly with years of heat, but needed little cleaning and were still easy to read at twice the age of our cooker.

SteveW

[Fredxx]

I accept that may be a reason. But I also have had a cooker of 20 years or more and the symbols are indentations and enamelled paint that both survive the test of time and cleaning.

I also recall the unsightly looked of time and heat on dials and plastic at the back of a cooker.

As you may gather we each have our own experiences and are guided by them.

[John Rumm]

ao.com have 30 listed at that width, 17 in all electric:

[tabbypurr]

If that's correct, maybe a switch, connector etc in the oven. Usually fixable.

NT

[GB]

I have no idea if this is helpful, but we put in a new Hotpoint 50 cms wide cooker. Not the most expensive, but it seems okay.

[mechanic]

Last week we had a dead cooker with power apparently to the wall switch, turned out the switch had failed so replacing that got the cooker back working. At first I thought such switches didn't fail so discounted that. But no new cooker needed (expensive AEG model!).

[Bill]

In message <q8cdqn$auh$ [e-mail], GB [e-mail] writes

Thanks to everyone for the input, all of which is helpful.

On the subject of repairs to the present cooker, SWMBO has never liked it, and this was compounded by the faults - largely caused by the way handles and other parts were held on by self tappers into very thin blind behind metal. She is under huge strain nursing our domineering "house guest" so I have to sympathise with what she wants. At the moment I am also not up to dragging the cooker out to look at what may have gone wrong, but there is vague talk of a son appearing tomorrow, who I might be able to persuade to help. I have looked through AO.com and, ignoring different colours of the same beast, there seem to be 3, 55cm cookers under £500, which is our limit. At least one of these appears cheaper in Curry's, although there it is out of stock. I also see profit warnings and "sell" advice about AO.com.

SWMBO wants to see and feel things like the way the doors open and the knobs turn, so we will have a look tomorrow. She seems happy to go to a basic 50cm cooker if it feels right and holds together, and I might be up to hacking together a small shelf to fill in the gap.

The wall behind the upstand of the old cooker is papered, so I assume we can manage without a splashback at least in the short term.

[Bill]

In message [e-mail], mechanic [e-mail] writes

Thanks. I checked power up to the input to the switch, but not the output, so I will check this if and when I can get a helper here. The way the house lights flickered and dimmed when the failure occurred still leave me to believe it was a near short rather than just the single cooker oven supply (8A or so?) arcing over before failing.

[Roger Hayter]

The fact that the lights had time to flicker before the cooker MCB tripped suggests a relatively high resistance fault. The element will draw a lot more than 8A if there is an element wire to jacket fault near the live end. This is not uncommon.

However, if you want a new cooker anyway, this is a good time to get it, just an academic point about the fault.

[tabbypurr]

What you describe sounds like an arc-over failure. In which case the fault is likely to be visually spottable.

NT

[Bill Wright]

Take a look at AO

Bill

[Bob Eager]

A few of us have suggested that, but he seems to think they may be suspect in some way.