Our middle son — bless his heart — decided he had had enough of our wrestling with our temperamental old propane range and cooktop, and offered to get us a new one, because he made an extra $2,500 selling some "special edition" Playstation package he has access to but didn't actually want to keep.
At least the final result makes us happy!
So he and Mrs. Denmarkguy hit the after Christmas sales, and we bought a new range.
Everyone was happy.
Home Depot was supposed to deliver and install it on January 3rd, and all should (theoretically) be well.
Of course, it then turned out that — in spite of selling us the unit and insisting that a natural gas to propane conversion and installation would be no problem — Home Depot doesn't actually do propane installations. This we did not actually learn until two relatively clueless young men stood in our kitchen and declared "We're not authorized to do this!"
Much phone calling ensued, during which it was discovered that the ordered (and paid for) conversion kit wasn't even brought with the delivery.
It's difficult to cook much when all you have is a gaping hole!
It should be added, here, that there is no "city gas" — provided by Seattle-based PSE — to any of the areas on the west side of the Puget Sound, where we live. Never has been.
Eventually, it was determined that we needed to hire an independent appliance installer to do the installation, because Home Depot said they have never done propane installations around here... in spite of dozens of stores being located in — and delivering from — propane-only areas.
Of course, he couldn't get an installer without having the conversion kit, which it turned out Home Depot didn't even have, and would need to be shipped directly from the manufacturer.
Additional phone calling ensued, this time including a strange 3-way call with us, a Home Depot service technician and a manufacturer's parts rep. It was agreed that the manufacturer would "overnight" the required conversion kit on Home Depot's dime.
Fine.
So we finally found a highly recommended installer who would be able to come out last Thursday to do the conversion/installation. Which should be no problem, right? Because the parts were being overnighted on Monday.
By Thursday morning (of the installation day) there were still no parts delivered. So we had to cancel and postpone the installation (tentatively) till Monday. Thankfully, the installer is just a mom-and-pop one-man operation, so it wasn't a huge hassle. But still.
Not surprisingly, the overnight package had been "stuck" at some forwarding facility in the Mid-west "due to inclement weather" which was legitimate enough, given that the eastern half of the US just had their biggest snow event in a decade.
It was finally delivered on Friday afternoon.
Thankfully, when Nate the installer arrived earlier today, the final steps of the process were relatively painless, and we now have a new fully functional oven and stopetop that works on propane, like was originally intended.
Alas, we're $380 poorer for the experience... so it was a good thing the oven was on sale, to begin with.
Anyway, it was an object lesson in how things seldom are as simple as they are presented to be!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your day!
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Created at 2025.01.13 14:32 PST
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