Take a seat in my dream kitchen

[venta]

When we moved into our flat we bought a lot of fixtures and fittings, including all the kitchen appliances, from the previous resident. I was delighted to find out we'd inherited a dual-fuel cooker (i.e. gas hob, electric oven).

I've grown up with dual-fuel cookers, and always assumed that in the heady future of having my own kitchen, rather than the get-what-you're-given of shared houses, it's what I would choose. People with modern induction hobs tell me they're great, but I'm still pinning my money on gas. Our current cooker even has a monster rocket burner in one corner for stir frying. I like it.

Not long after moving in, we discovered that our oven was scared of high temperatures. Fine for most things, but if you put it up to pastry temperature it turns itself off. Which is annoying, but work-roundable.   (The work-around is to get it up to temperature, get your pie in asap, and then keep the door shut. It is obviously not to stop making pies.)

The electric ignition for the gas hobs is a bit capricious and regularly spits away to itself when the cooker is not in use.

Some vital and terribly custom bit is missing from the inside of the oven, which makes the shelves wonky.

All of which we've got used to. The chap who came to fix the dishwasher diagnosed the problem with high temperatures: the oven's cooling fan is broken. So it overheats, panics, and the safety shut off kicks in. This also explains why the control dials get too hot to touch, and probably also why it's a bit fast. He also reckoned on £100 for a new fan, plus fitting, and suggested a new cooker.

We've been muddling along. Except now our oven has got a TARDIS. We're not really sure how or why, but whenever it's on, a TARDIS intermittently arrives and departs. We can hear it. The risk of dimensional rifts in our pies is great. Possibly also oven explosions.

So we've decided to replace the cooker.

So, the shopping list didn't seem complicated. 60cm wide dual-fuel cooker. With wok-burner. And programmable timer. Double oven.

That turns out to be complicated enough. If you add in details like wanting it to look nice, and an integrated ignition rather than a separate button, and for the dials to be labelled in such a way that you can read them... it's impossible.

Firstly, most dual-fuel cookers are huge range affairs with four ovens and upwards of six burners. Which is lovely, but the kitchen ain't that big. Of the 60cm free standing cookers, most don't have wok burners. Very few have programmable timers The chap in John Lewis tells me that manufacturers are going off programmable timers. He had no idea why, given that they are incredibly useful and have existed in ovens at least since I was little.

Sensibly, all UK kitchen units and cookers are a standard height (900mm). However! The person who fitted out our flat had... interesting ideas. If you are a skilled tradesperson coming to repair or replace something for us, the first thing you will say is "I've never seen one like that before" or "that's not a standard model/type/connection". The last plumber was defeated in turn by our shower, our bathroom tap and our kitchen tap (though I suspect he might have been a bit rubbish).

Against all probability, our cooker is a standard width. Are it and our worktops the standard height? Of course not. They are taller. So any cooker we buy will sit lower than the worktop, offering attractive corners for grot and gribble to collect in. We did find one cooker the right height, but buying that would commit us to high work surfaces if we ever redo the kitchen.

We do plan to redo the kitchen. Just not now, and probably not in the next few years. In fact we probably expect to do it in a window which falls after the expiration of our existing cooker, and a while before the expiration of any replacement. A redone kitchen might want a built-in oven and separate hob but there's no way we can realistically incorporate such a thing into what's there now.

So, the probable plan is: buy a too-short cooker, which probably doesn't have all the features we want, and quit whinging :)

If anyone has any good recommendations for cooker browsing, please shout up. We ran out of ideas after John Lewis and PCWorldKitchen Currys. That's browsing in the real, for preference, since all online specs seem to be full of lies, and don't tend to say things like "incredibly flimsy dials that will clearly break in under a year".

Comments

[shermarama]

I'd assume there is somewhere independent in the area - in Brighton this is a place called Carters, for example - that will also be a member of Euronics? It's an independents' association, so they're individual traders getting bulk-supply discounts / a centralised website and stuff.

I used to have a stand-alone single induction ring, which did a pretty nifty wok-burner impression in a house that otherwise only had slow ceramic hobs. It does need an induction-friendly / slightly flat-bottomed wok, though.

[shermarama]

And also for me, for the amount a cooker costs, I'd be happy that that was the price for access to a properly usable cooker of the right height for however many years it is until you redo the kitchen, and if it's not knackered at the end of that time you could probably sell it second hand. It doesn't always have to be the right thing for ever more.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'd also assume that, but have not yet managed to locate such a thing. Possibly my Google-fu is weak this week.

[shermarama]

Euronics.co.uk? They have a store locator.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Can the cooker not be installed up on bricks, as it were, to raise it (reversibly, even?) to the right height?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup, I thought of that just after I commented, thanks for the suggestion!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Apparently not; I mean one coulddo that, but apparently chocking up gas cookers is thoroughly dis-advised (mostly in case you open the door too violently, pull it off, and rip the connector off the gas pipe).

The height difference isn't great - less than a brick - so it really is just worrying about grot collecting in corners. But at present we have a 3-4mm gap each side if the cooker, and I dread to think what's gone down there!

On the other hand, it maybe explains why I always struggle to rub up pastry in my kitchen and end up putting the bowl on a lower stool!

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

I was of the impression that these things have screw-in feet which are adjustable by 1 or 2cm - precisely for this reason, and to permit the unit to be properly levelled.

[venta.livejournal.com]

So was I! Mr John Lewis said that they're only for levelling, though, and that they don't alter the height more than a few mm.

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

If Molesey is within casting distance for you, try Molesey Refrigeration Centre -- the name notwithstanding, they do all sorts of appliances. They sold us most of what currently resides in our kitchen -- which is likely higher-end than you're after (in particular our cooker is a double-oven-and-six-rings job) -- but they did have smaller/cheaper stuff as well as far as I remember. www.mrcentre.co.uk is their site.

You may wind up needing a wok rest rather than a wok burner, I fear.

[venta.livejournal.com]

What on earth is a wok rest? We've not hitherto needed one!

Thanks for the suggestion - Molesey is not terribly near us, but I could always give them a call and see if they have any products which actually tick all the boxes.

[venta.livejournal.com]

To be honest, it's more the waste than the expense that worries me - I was under the impression that there wasn't much of a second-hand cooker market. If there is, then getting something to "do" for a few years is less of a worry. The right height is only a matter of around 30mm - so not a massive deal. And thus far the only 930mm cooker located has a bevelled edge, which will also be delightful for catching bits of food, etc, when wedged into the gap. It's almost like freestanding cookers are not designed to be wedged into gaps ;)

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

On my cooker it is... how to describe this, let me think. It's a separate piece that sits on the flat pan rests round the gas ring and allows a round-bottomed wok to sit on that -- a little bit like a egg-cup in concept, although much shallower in comparison to the depth of the wok (maybe 1 - 1.5"). As it happens we've never used it since our wok has a flat base. It's sized for one of the two large rings on the end of the range but could also probably work with the largest of the four central rings.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ok. Woks round these parts also have flat bases... So I'm happy with what cooker salespeople call a wok burner, i.e. a chuffing big gas ring like we have on our existing hob.

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Right -- well, the standard config for a four-ring hob would usually be one small, one large, two medium, so that ought not to be that hard to find... you'd hope.

[uitlander]

I suspect others have already said this, but I'm on a mobile device in f'rgn parts, so... Could the cooker not just be raised?

I ok cook on gas and bake with electric. The cooker ignition system started pining for the fjords some years ago.I now hav a lucky-lighter-thing that does the job.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think the short answer is "yes, but not in compliance with whatever Corgi is called these days". Hope you're enjoying your foreign!

[venta.livejournal.com]

That is standard (ish). But what I want is small, medium and massive. They seem to measure ring output in kW, weirdly (I suppose it's electrical equivalent) - wok burners are 4, while most cookers' large rings are 3 or even 2.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I remember that we had terrible trouble replacing our cooker. In our case this was because it was a non-standard width. I'll poke bateleur and see if he remembers any useful places to shop.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

We eventually got ours from Appliances Direct, which isn't much help for venta since it's very much online only.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

There definitely is a market for second-hand white goods, yes. Freecycle is also an option though that would depend on how much value you thought you'd had from it by then, I guess.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

In case you pull a full-size cooker off four bricks just by opening the door? This seems a bit unlikely unless you're secretly the She-Hulk or something. (If you are secretly the She-Hulk, please tell me, you're really cool.)