It’s strange walking through a grocery store thinking oh wait no not that no oven, oh wait not that…
I froze a half a pan’s worth of leftover berry crisp before going out of town a few weeks ago and it is silly and funny how important that crisp feels now: we will have it tomorrow morning for a special treat. I make crisp all the time, only, I can’t. So yeah. Treat. It’s like we’re hardwired to want right now what we have to wait for even if we wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise.
I called a number of companies yesterday, trying to find one, anyone, that had a Bosch double oven in stock, preferably an 800 series. The 27″ size I needed would have been nice but I gave up hope of that pretty quickly–30″ is the standard. The woman at a Sears store checked her computer to see if any of the other Sears in the entire San Francisco Bay area might have a floor model in either size, since they sell them. I got nowhere.
But I did get the curious bit of information from her that if I ordered online the company would charge me a hundred dollars less than if I went to the store to do so. And I thought, are they *trying* to kill off their physical stores? Wow. At that I wanted to go in to order from her personally in thanks for her considerable time she spent on the phone with me but I really did want to see what I was buying first.
After all, we went oven shopping a couple of years ago just to see what our options were if we were to get rid of the too-random-temp one with the broken lower oven. (The unit that just blew up.) There was one brand where the back of the handle on the door had sharp exposed upper and lower metal edges the length of it that you could easily cut your fingers on, and I did: the handle looked pretty in front but the manufacturer had skimped so that the metal wrapped around but didn’t actually meet much less get seamed at the back. I cannot begin to imagine how they thought that was okay. Maybe they assumed people would order online and then simply be stuck with it?
Bosch is a good brand. But I still wanted to see one first. Trust but verify.
I finally tried searching for ‘major appliances, (specifically) my town,’ and that brought up Davies Appliances in Redwood City.
I was intrigued. I’d forgotten about them. My contractor took me to their store when we were remodeling over twenty years ago–good to see the little guys still succeeding out there.
The thing you saw first walking in their door was a Bosch 800 series 30″ double oven. And it was beautiful.
They offered us a good price, they offered us a contractor whom they said knew their stuff on the installation–that this was all they did, and they would make it look like it was the oven the kitchen had been remodeled with in terms of fitting into the existing cut-out. Shipping was free. We wanted an extended warranty? Three years or five? Five? Sure.
Sears had offered none. That had been the deal breaker. Our then top-of-the-line Thermador double oven blew through an $800+labor motherboard in three years and the second one a few years after that and you bet I wanted to spend a few hundred not to have that problem again any time soon.
The amazing thing? None of this three-week-wait stuff. It will be picked up from the distributor Monday and they will call before they come. Which might not be Monday–but it might.
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I bought a Bosch frontliader washing macine when I moved here almost five years ago. I am told they are no longer made in Germany, but I am very happy with this. Fits well in my apartment bathroom, washes amazingly well, much better than a top loader andhas performed regularly without a hitch. My extended warranty is lmist up but there has been no problem.
I would buy other Bosch appliances in a flash.
Comment by Jan 01.31.16 @ 3:02 ami’m sorry to hear your oven has died, but am glad it died safely. In thinking about your adventures with appliances dying earlier than expected, I wonder if the power supply to your house experiences a lot of fluctuation and surges. if it does, that might explain the frying of electrical components. I don’t know how such a thing would be measured to find out, but know several people with whole-house surge suppressors installed at the electrical box.
i hope the new oven is exactly what you wish it to be and that it lives a good long time!
Comment by morenna 01.31.16 @ 3:27 amWell, I’m glad you’ll have your crisp! It’s frustrating to not have all your tools, no matter how long you have to wait. But, smart shopper that you are, I am sure your kitchen will be full and ship-shape again very soon! 🙂
Comment by Pam 01.31.16 @ 6:03 amAll that shopping sounds exhausting. I am so glad you knew EXACTLY what you wanted and were able to find it.
Comment by Sherry in Idaho 01.31.16 @ 8:20 amMy husband and I’ve been disappointed with Sears lately also. They had been our first thought when needing appliances, but keep not having exactly what we wanted or not timely. A local appliance store had all and more and would take away the existing appliances that Sears arrived at our door and then told us they would not take it away. Okay, deal lost, take your appliance back if you aren’t going to remove the old one. Their reliability has gone down hill for sure.
Comment by Helen 01.31.16 @ 11:47 amLeave a comment
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