appliance surgery

Today my girlfriend and I did a little surgery. Her kitchen range had two burners that weren't working and in a moment of daring we decided to fix them ourselves. Scary thought!



It actually turned out to be fairly easy though there were two episodes of minor fireworks during the troubleshooting session. The worse of the two left some scorch marks on the lip of the door from where a couple of wires fused in a moment of electrical ecstasy but all ended well. At least the house hasn't burned down. Yet.

The problem turned out to be that a wire that supplied power to the left side of her range had broken off right where it connected to the power source. We just needed to disconnect the other leads (there were a total of 5 and of course the one we needed to fix was on the bottom so they all needed to come off).

The only fly in the ointment was that we had a small arc when we reconnected everything for reasons that weren't clear. That arc fused two wires (and made me jump nearly 2 feet in the air!) and we had to go to a hardware store for new ring connectors. Once we had the right stuff to work with, the repair was a breeze and now all 4 burners are working.

The stove is quite old--say 35 years old--and the wiring is a bit fragile. I suspect the stove's not going to be with us a great deal longer so it's nice that it got a bit of attention before the end.

Comments

Carli N. Wendell said…
That's so brave of you. I try not to play with firey things. Glad it got fixed.
Here from Michele.
9:44 PM
carmilevy said…
You're my hero. I'd be too scared to even pop the access panel.

In an age where repair isn't even on most consumers' radar, it's refreshing to see something like this.

Even if you get just a little more time out of the appliance, it will have been worth it - if only for us to read about it and wonder at the coolness it took to execute.
10:35 PM
Anonymous said…
Impressed...my abilities would have offered no hope.

Clicked from Michele's tonight
10:56 PM
srp said…
We had the element in the oven do the arcing thing. It was quite exciting. The element got so hot in the area of the short, it finally broke. My dad is like you. He thinks he can fix anything. But at his age, I hold my breath, cross my fingers and thank God that I know CPR. ;)
11:13 AM
Anonymous said…
Yowser! with all the fusing and arcing I'd be standing well back. Like next door. You're a knowledgable fellow to tell what was going on and what to do.
1:42 PM
Anonymous said…
Stuff like that makes me glad J's an electrical engineer.

Michele sent me! :)
2:15 PM
Anonymous said…
You guys are awfully brave. One thing I can't even think about messing with is electricity. I once broke a flood light off in the socket in my single days and had to pay someone to come remove it. I was terrified of sticking anything in there even with the breaker off!
9:09 PM
SassyAssy said…
I don't think I will be calling you to fix my stove any time soon--sorry, but uh, I like my apt as is. You scare me sometimes.
3:54 PM
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