What a morning!!!

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Just had a bit of a morning! Our gas cooker has seen its last day so we've been looking around on ebay for an electric cooker with a fan oven. Found the perfect one not far from here and won the auction last night - due to pick-up this morning.

Went to take the gas cooker out - turned into a sod of a job...when I eventually got the bayonet fitting out we could smell gas...squirted some water with washing up liquid in over the fitting and it was frothing like nobody's business. I quickly turned the gas off! Luckily One of the dads at school is a gas engineer so i gave him a call - even more lucky was the fact that he said that he'd come straight over (what a guy!!!).

He checked and sorted the valve and did some more checks...turned out that the pipe that we'd fitted to the cooker was the wrong type...even more worrying was that we hadn't sealed it properly so it had been leaking since we fitted it...6 years ago :eek:

He said it was lucky that our kitchen was so well ventilated!!!

Anyway he was going to cap the supply to the kitchen when he asked how I was going to fit the electric cooker...I pointed out a switch that's used for the cooker hood and said that I'd just wire it into there...I'm sooo glad that he asked the question! He checked the fuse board and said that the supply wasn't powerful enough (it's just a spur from the sockets) and that if I'd have wired it in and used it it would have blown the fuse if not caught on fire!!! He charged us £50 which I didn't think was bad as I called him out on a Sunday morning and he with us for a good couple of hours.

I've contacted the ebay seller and they're happy to cancel the transaction (phew!!!)...I'll paypal them some money for the inconvenience.

So, although we don't have a new cooker, we're safe and have saved ourselves the cost of the cooker and the possibility of burning down the house!!!
 

Mo1959

Legendary Member
@Easytigers Glad it all ended up ok. I just don't touch electrics or gas. Too scary! Dead strength is wiring plugs or mending fuses.
 

rich p

ridiculous old lush
Location
Brighton
Yeah, I don't know enough so don't rely on a flake like me!
I do recall an electrician just plugging a new (single?) cooker straight into the mains socket whereas I have wired into a 30 amp specific outlet in the fuse box in the past.
 

sight-pin

Veteran
Yes. I'm not very up on it now days either. I think domestic ovens only have something like 2 or 3k elements and run off a standard ring main, where as the hob has 4...ish elements at a much higher kilowatt rating and needing it's own higher rated supply.
 
OP
OP
Easytigers

Easytigers

Guru
Unfortunately we don't have a cooker box so the guy said that we'd need new wiring from the distribution box. We're going to save the money and I've just got back from the Argos clearance place where I picked up a gas cooker. Has main oven and separate grill (as well of course as four burners)...£140 so quite chuffed (although I think I'll pay for the guy to come back and fit it...my diy days involving gas are over!!!)
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Some ovens do run off a 13 amp plug. Ours uses a seperate mains supply, and the plug powers the clock. When my brother moved into his house, we found the oven was plugged into an extension lead under the units. Bloody hell !!

You do have to be careful. I replaced our shower last year as part of re-doing the bathroom. I went from an 8.5kw shower to a 9.5kw. Double checked the wireing was thick enough for the load increase, then hoped the RCD was correctly rated (otherwise it would trip). Before I removed the old shower, flipped the circuit don the fuse board, only to find power still at the shower. Checked in the kitchen, and the oven was off. The builders had not labeled the switches correctly.

You've been lucky with the gas. My sister in law has recently been changing her kitchen. The old cooker was over 30 years old. Lets say, when her sister bought her a carbon monoxide sensor, it kept going off, so she took the bloody batteries out. My wife then phoned British Gas emergency number, and they went round and found a hole in the pipes some distance from the cooker, but likely caused by building works. It had been like that for months.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Unfortunately we don't have a cooker box so the guy said that we'd need new wiring from the distribution box. We're going to save the money and I've just got back from the Argos clearance place where I picked up a gas cooker. Has main oven and separate grill (as well of course as four burners)...£140 so quite chuffed (although I think I'll pay for the guy to come back and fit it...my diy days involving gas are over!!!)

Good stuff. Never mess with gas, you aren't supposed to anyway. The most I've done is lube the extractor fan on the boiler when it started making a terrible noise. Can't beat Finish Line Ceramic Oil for domestic fixes.
 
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