When Your Wall Oven Dies

When I was in Germany last week, my wall oven/microwave combination decided to give up the ghost.

It’s been on its last legs for quite some time. Two or three years ago, a repairman came out to work on the wonky control panel. I paid a ridiculous amount of money to regain the use of all of my microwave buttons for approximately six months. Since then, I’ve been operating with nothing but the 1, 3 and 9 buttons on the microwave side, and an oven side that required me to repeatedly press “Broil” in order to activate the circuit that allowed me to activate the “Bake” button. Even then, there was no guarantee that I’d be able to adjust the temperature above or below 350 degrees.

But I’d made do for quite some time. Until it started giving the mystery error message. I was going to live with that, but then it started chirping at random intervals, like a smoke detector with a dying battery.

The Husband made a valiant effort to rewire the thing, and his wiring was successful… except for the fact that the real issue was a short circuit (or several) wedged deep inside the panel itself. Replacement panels aren’t available from Whirlpool, so oven shopping was my only option.

Do you know how hard it is to shop for an oven online? For example, the Lowe’s website let’s you buy the wall oven, but won’t let you set up installation. For that you have to call the store. As I hate calling anywhere about anything, I tried to use the Live Chat to determine how much the installation would cost. “It’s usually between $99 and $199, but it could be more.” Thanks. Super helpful.

Sears claimed that the oven was in stock, but it’s actually in a warehouse somewhere and won’t be available until the end of the month. (Here’s a hint, Sears: that’s not “in stock.”)

Home Depot was useless.

In the end, The Husband went to Best Buy — yes, Best Buy — where they claim to be able to deliver and install an oven within a week. Fingers crossed that my kitchen will soon be back to normal.

Tags: appliance shopping, best buy, customer disservice, home depot, lowe's, oven, sears

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