Adventure in Home Repair - The Double Wall Oven -

My wife and I were sitting in the family room, when she asked me do you smell something burning. How long has the chicken been in the oven? "I dunno know", which I found to be the best answer if I want my wife to get up and check on anything while I sit on my lazy butt. (TIP: The secret to a happy marriage is for a husband not to know anything).

She gave me that look as she walked by, you know the one where you just know she is thinking, how did I ever get stuck with such a useless man. "AHHHHH! its burning!" Here is where I offer my most helpful advice, "take it out and turn off the oven." I hear the oven door open and dinner slams on to the counter. Again, since she is already worked up over thinking I am useless, I try and redeem myself by offering a little helpful advice by shouting, "did you turn the oven off?" Good redemption, I thought, nice save, a return to marital bliss. Apparently, she did not exactly appreciate my assistance as I could hear mumbling, slamming and banging things in the kitchen.

"Hey, useless man of mine, (that's her pet name for me) something is wrong with the oven it won't turn off and it is getting really hot." Crap, it looks like I will have to get off my ass and once again rescue my beloved. I walk into the kitchen and there she is staring at me and then nodding towards the oven. My wife and I have been married for over twenty-five years so I intuitively know what she is thinking. "Well worthless man of mine do something." So just to make the situation a little better, I quickly step into action, look at the oven which is really getting hot and will not turn off and say, "did you try the off button?"

Now at this point I am not sure which was more red, the heating element in the oven or my wife's face. Uh oh this could be serious, I push the cancel button on the control panel and nothing, I mean nothing even the display panel went dark. Not good, nope not good at all.

"Well, genius what are you going to do now. And by the way, I did push the cancel button." Genius is another pet name I have earned over the years.

"I am going to turn the oven off."

"How the oven is broken?" She thought she had me, but I am a genius. "Watch and learn", I said as a turned around and left the kitchen. As I left the kitchen I could hear more banging, more sighs, and more mumbles about "useless man." I could not stick around I had a mission to save the day!

I ran down the basement steps and straight to the fuse box. I whipped open the panel and looked for the breaker for the oven. Oops forgot my glasses, back up the stairs to find them. Now where did I leave them, oh yea on the kitchen table. I walked into the kitchen to retrieve my glasses and was greeted with an update. "It's still on and its getting hotter."

I grabbed my glasses, and once again bounded down the stairs (its my story and I can still bound down stairs in my story) back to the fuse box and with glasses on found the oven circuit switch. With a small flick of my finger I cut the switch. See fixed I am a genius, I swagger back up the stairs, proud as a peacock. Not so useless now, am I. Sauntering back into the kitchen, I proudly proclaimed, "that should do it." What the useless man stare? What I fixed it?

"Its off but its not fixed." Dang, she has a point. "Well, what's wrong with it genius?" She is so cute when she calls me by my pet names. "I don't know but I will look it up on the internet." All answers are on the internet and every man is a genius with a good search engine. "Ok, why don't you boil the potatoes while I look up the problem." Always have a game plan with a good distraction. I sit down at the kitchen table to find a diagnosis on the internet. All was going great, she was cooking and I was looking.

"Um, the stovetop isn't working, its completely off, what's wrong with it." You would think that after all these years she would know better than to ask me. I could almost hear the "I dunno" rolling off my tongue, but something stopped me. Oh yea that self preservation thing about being a smart ass once too often to a hungry and agitated wife.

"I guess the oven and the stovetop are on the same circuit."

"No oven and no stove, great."

"Ok, we can just have a salad. I need to figure this out."

One search "oven will not turn off." Dozens of hits, in a single search, see I am a genius. Proudly I declare, "its a control panel and it looks easy to replace. I just have to find one." Apparently, our oven is very popular, because none of the online dealers had the replacement part.

"It looks easy enough and the part is not that expensive, just no one has it in stock. Tell you what we need to do just call the repairman and have him come out and replace it." See another easy plan, pay someone who knows and let them handle it. My wife looked relieved because apparently a useful man was going to repair the oven.

Everything was great, we had a plan, and best of all it would surely only cost a few hundred bucks. Double bonus, I could once again sit on my lazy butt, life is good.

The next day, I went to work satisfied that once again I had proven my true worth, until the phone call.

"Hey, is it fixed?"

"No, he showed up and said we needed a new control panel." See I am a genius, the exact same diagnosis as a paid professional.

"Why isn't it fixed?"

"He said that the oven is so old that they don't make the part anymore. But he did say that if we could find one he could put it in for us. If not, we would have to buy a new oven."

"How much did it cost for him to come out and tell us what we already knew?"

"$85.00"

"Great but I already knew what was wrong."

At this point I could tell my wife was already in the buy a new oven mode. So I agreed to meet here at the Home Appliance Center after work. We get to the show room floor and start to look at double wall ovens. Get this, a double oven, convection on top and standard below, costs WHAT!!!!! $3,300.00 plus installation. Both of us had that look of absolute sticker shock.

"We need to find this part."

Now this is where the true heroes in this saga enter, Circuit Board Medics, out of Greenville, SC. https://circuitboardmedics.com/. The only hitch is they don't have the part, they fix the old part. We had to remove not only the control panel, but both circuit boards and ship them to South Carolina. They would fix the boards and ship them back for us to reinstall. The total cost for repair and shipping was less than $200.00.

Knowing my own limitations, being a useless genius, I asked my wife, "Do you think we can do this? And when I ask that, I mean do you think we can do this without bloodshed and divorce lawyers?"

"For three thousand dollars, yes I can refrain from killing you." That's my girl. Now for me to prove I am not completely useless. I explained we have to take pictures, draw a diagram and label each wire as it is removed so we can it back together.

You get the picture. One control panel and two circuit boards removed, shipped and re-installed. No bloodshed and no divorce lawyers.

And so the question is, does it work?

One month on both ovens working just fine.

And now on to something I am absolutely great at.