You may be aware that I am not a huge fan of so called ‘progress’ moves that are just a blatant rip off. The obvious one is the bloody spare tyre on a brand new car, regardless of the wheel type or size you end up with something that looks like it came off the cover of a ‘build your own Morris 1000’ issue one (just £1.99) Seriously it is described as single use only and then you are left with the job of replacing it with another disposable wheel. What makes me so convinced this is pure rip off? The damn wheel well is apparantly too shallow for you to replace the ‘toy’ with a genuine wheel from a scrapyard at £5 including tyre.
So what has me all in a lather this time: the new gas cooker. From the outset I knew this would be trouble, as our old one was the standard 50cm width and all the stockists only had two or three of the flimsiest cookers I have ever seen in this width. Strangely the 55 to 60cm cookers were a lot strudier (and about three times the price). So it was clear that the sturdier built machine was more of the required variety, even though it meant having the gap in the worktop hacking back the extra 10cms.
In the course of internet searching, I discovered that there are several reasonable standard 50cms cookers out there but, not in any showrooms. Annette was therefore, hardly surprising, sold on the larger widths because she could examine these in store. Now it happens we are far from bankrupt so the extra couple hundred quid was not really an issue but, the fact that the majority of retailers wanted another £80 (after delivery charges) to connect the oven to the mains was. This, since the introduction of the standard bayonet quick release fitting, is a two to three minute job. Having connected the last four cookers to the mains myself from the dark days of threaded hose jointing, I considered this a bloody cheek.
So I told Annete I would fit it myself and then the traditional trouble started with the removal of the old cooker. The gap where the connector was is now too narrow for me to squueze in and disconnect the old hose pipe. Luckly Adam only lives 5 doors away so he disconnected it. I then had a sneaking suspicion that I ought to remove the old pipe from the back of the cooker to go on the new one, just in case it came without a hose. Surely not, I hear you cry in disbelief – how could they charge you over £400 for a cooker and be so damn tight as to ommit a £12 hose pipe?
If ever I wanted evidence that my strength is waining this was it. Twist and wrench as much as I liked, even to the point of bending the back of the old cooker, I could not get the blasted nut undone. I decided it was probably wiser to go with a new pipe anyway so left it. There was always an outside chance a new pipe was included with the new cooker.
Come what may, I knew I would need some gas sealant compound so I turned once more to the internet. Strangely most searching turned up a set of new hose and gas sealing tape. Now I know I can stop a water leak with sealing tape but, gas is another matter and I gave up on that idea deciding to tour the DIY stores if necessary.
So the new machine turned up and the delivery bloke commented that we needed a gas pipe to connect to the mains. He was kind enough to ask if we wanted the old one, at which point I wandered off for a quick hysterical laugh while Annette politley told him we were going to buy a new one. So where would we go? I was almost certain that the likes of B & Q etc. would be a waste of time so we gave Screwfix a try and they did have two pipes, neither of which had the standard connections, and we were told we would ned to buy an adaptor for one end from CHP(?) plumbers merchant round the corner. Well that was really helpfull and I decided I might as well go there and see if they had the stuff I needed. By the way, Screwfix thought I could use jointing tape as well. Strange the instruction book with the cooker told us not to use tape.
We are nearly there – the end of my tale of woe. So to our surprise the chap at the plumbers knew exactly what we were on about and had the hose in stock (no adaptor required) and even a largeer that required tub of gas sealant paste. We were in business. Back home I smeared a generous portion of paste around the threads and connected the hose to the back of the cooker. I knew I couldn’t get the other end back into the small space so I told Annette to arrrange for Adam to some round when I got back from work.
Adam did his magic and I put him on gas stop tap duty, Well you don’t think I was just going to leave everything connected to the mains without testing for leaks did you? With a wet T-towel close to hand I got Adam to turn on the gas and lit a match at the connection. No flames – the gas sealant had worked 🙂
I have to admit I did draw the line at chaining the cooker to the rear wall, which a fitter is legally required to do. For goodness sake it is .36 square metres of heavy metal on an even floor, wedged between thick worktop surfaces and cupboards. I have no intention of sailing the house across the Atlantic in a storm so I am pretty certain it will only shift if I want it to.
Well I don’t know about you but, I am damn certain the bandying of the term progress is aimed straight at clawing more money out of us.