I Will Never Understand

For the last several months, on top of me building my room and getting ready for MCG, I’ve been dealing with attempting to get a new stove. I say attempting, because, like everything I try to do it seems, it has been a bit of a cluster.

I currently have a dual fuel range that is a gas cook top with an electric oven. When we built our house and picked out our appliances, this was kind of my dream stove. I love cooking with gas, but hate it with a passion when it comes to baking, so finding a range that offered both was an amazing thing to discover (I never knew it was even a thing).

Sadly, the grates on my stove top have had some problems and are now entering into what I feel is unsafe territory. I tried to find them to order new, but they are no longer made and simply don’t exist. My options were to keep using what I had and hope that what may be unsafe doesn’t ever cause a disaster, or I get an entirely new range. Also sadly, what was a reasonable price at the time we built, is SO not reasonable now.

After doing a lot of research and talking with Hubby, we initially decided to switch to all electric. Both because of cost and because it is better for the environment (which made BG extremely happy). More research on specific models and retailers, we pick one we think we want and go try and get it.

Turns out, if you aren’t replacing a gas connected stove with another gas connected stove, no retailer’s installers want to touch it. Even though they have gas installers, they won’t schedule them with an electric stove delivery. We’d have to do a whole lot of juggling with our own plumber and installers and all kinds of mess just to get everything switched over. It seemed like way more headache and cost than it was worth.

Back to the drawing board, we again discuss options and just decide to go with what we already have, since it is still technically what I love, though way more than we really wanted to pay. Again, back to the store to purchase.

We opted for Lowes because they had it on sale and they said they could do the install. We double, triple and quadruple checked that we could get what we wanted, though we had to wait because it needed to be ordered, get it installed, and get our old one hauled off before we purchased. The wait was nearly 2 months and we were warned that even though they put in an appointment for an install date, that was just a place holder. We were instructed to ignore any installation reminders until we got a call from the store saying our stove was in and maybe call a week before to check on progress.

I called the week before and things looked to be on schedule, but the date listed wasn’t an “appliance delivery” day of the week and it wouldn’t actually be at the store until the following week. I was told we would be called when it came in with the new installation time.

So when that “place holder” day came and we starting getting the automated reminders of our appointment, we did as we were told and ignored them because we still hadn’t heard from the store. Well, we ended up with a Lowes truck pulled up to our driveway while I was in the middle of cooking dinner. A truck carrying our new stove.

I scramble to get things off the stove, clear out my pans from the drawer on the bottom and run out to talk to the guy. Turns out, he can’t actually install it. Why you ask? Because it is gas and he isn’t licensed. It also meant no unhooking the old and hauling it a way. We weren’t taking a chance that they would just drop this stove off and not come back and do the rest, so we denied the delivery and called the store.

Turns out the guy that sold us our stove in the first place no longer worked there, shocker! He also didn’t charge an installation fee, so that, apparently is why it wasn’t scheduled with an installer and only as a delivery. We paid that fee and rescheduled delivery. Again, conforming that it would be installed by someone that could work with the gas.

And here is a fun side note. Lowes contracts with a third party to do all of the deliveries and installations. That third party? Has absolutely atrocious reviews and ratings. Some of them seem utterly unbelievable when you read them. Stories like someone ordering something that needed to be installed on a second floor of the home, but the delivery guy said it couldn’t be done because? His arms were too short. I shit you not. That was a legit review. That and SO many that said they never showed up in the delivery time window, called and said they were there to deliver and the person had 15 minutes to show or they’d leave and the person showing up 5 minutes later and they were already gone (this being the delivery showing up well outside of their scheduled window mind you), and others where they simply NEVER showed up at all. This is a company that has an average rating of about 1.5 stars with hundreds of reviews, they are that consistently bad.

Of course, we had zero clue about any of this when we bought and had to find out after there were already problems. I spent an awful lot of time on the phone with a guy at our local store, who was amazing by the way, and not a single person that had to deal with this company was happy about it at all, but corporate still wanted to use them, so they were stuck dealing with pissed off customers. It is an attitude that I will never, ever understand. Why in the hell would a company the size of Lowes continue to work with a company that makes them look so horrifically bad and continues to piss off customers so consistently?!

Needless to say, I was excessively concerned by this point. Even with the assurances, I wasn’t so certain I could trust that the hook up would be done correctly or safely. We were scheduled for redelivery and installation yesterday. We were give a 4 hour window in the morning. They didn’t make it. I called the store and they had to jump through hoops just to try and find out where the driver was because they didn’t have a direct number for the driver and had to go through that third party’s corporate office to get any status at all.

While I was waiting to hear back from the store, I got called by the third party company to say that the delivery was running behind and I was given a new 2 hour window. I double checked with that person to yet again confirm that the person delivering was licensed to install gas and was, again, assured that they were.

Bet you can’t believe they didn’t make the second window? Oh, they so missed it! Hubby and I were at the point where we were ready to just say screw it and just have them leave the stove. I’d already called our plumber to get a cost to have them do the hook up and find out if they would do the haul off for us. This had been such a hassle, I wasn’t going to deal with it anymore. I just wanted it all done, however we needed to make that happen.

While I was on the phone with the guy at the store that was helping us, Hubby got a call from the driver saying he was 10 minutes out. Oh, and by the way! I am not licensed to install gas.

That sound you hear is me smashing my head into the wall. Repeatedly.

The poor guy I was talking to had to hear me break down in hysterical laughter at that point. It was that or bawling out my frustration. A big part of my reaction was because I recognized the voice on the phone with Hubby. It is the same guy that tried to deliver our stove the last time that gave us the exact same spiel the previous week.

Fine. It’s fine. We will just get the damn stove and get this mess over with. They show up about 45 minutes later (love that 10 minutes really, really isn’t) to deliver. I have them unbox it before it’s off the truck because the first thing I see is a big gouge in the box.

Yup. That stove has a massive dent in the back. You know, where all the really critical electrical and gas lines are? Big ole dent. One that prevented a small cover over some critical thing on the back from closing properly. It looks like someone stabbed the box with the tip of the fork lift prong.

Needless to say, I do not have a new stove. And we won’t be getting another one from Lowes. They guys at the store were great, but I will not put up with that BS from their third party contractor.

That nightmare put us back to square one. I really, really don’t want to deal with the headache of the gas issue ever again. With the way every single new thing on the market is absolutely loaded down with electronics, I don’t trust that the new appliances will last nearly as long as the old ones will and this was awful.

So I’m back at the original plan, with some modifications. We are going with all electric. We have to have our plumber come out and cap our gas line before a new stove can be delivered. That means we will be without the cook top, but can still use the oven since it is electric, until the new one is installed. The plan is to schedule the disconnect the day before delivery and hope like hell that there are no problems with the new range what would cause us to have to reject delivery.

You know, do all those things that I sought to avoid by just going with the same type of stove I already had.

We have been assured by the new retailer that they inspect things at the warehouse before it is loaded on the truck to make sure there is no damage, but that will happen the morning of and our old stove will be unhooked by then. They did say that if the issue is cosmetic, they may deliver anyway and allow us to use it as a temporary until a new one can come in. If there are problems, it is quite possible that I will be sans stove until October, though, as they only have the one in stock.

All of this nightmare and headache just because I wanted to have a stove that wasn’t a potential safety hazard.

I am grateful that I have a working, if questionable stove. I’m grateful that the new retailer had this in stock so I wasn’t pushed back another couple of months waiting for an order. I’m trying like hell not to be a massive grouch and I’m really proud of myself for not absolutely breaking down in a fit of rage after the never ending errors of this disaster.

I’m also so damn ready to be done. If my frickin’ dishwasher decides to finally go belly up right now, I just might figure out how to make if fly. Right after I have a mental breakdown from all the stress.