Don't Get Mad, Get Oven

[madbaker]

Our oven was a cheap but new base Home Despot model when we moved in. That was over 15 years ago. It has been declining for a while: one burner doesn't consistently light and the plastic over the "set the temperature/time" arrows broke. The up arrow, a couple years back. The down arrow, just recently. We bypassed those mostly-minor issues by 1) having a set of matches nearby (which we almost never have to use) and 2) ripping out the plastic and touching the sensors directly. (Which does mean you have to make sure your finger isn't wet.)

However, the motherboard has been sporadically going haywire. Saturday it just went on the fritz completely for about five minutes and then recovered. We took that as a final warning and are looking to replace the entire oven before Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, we have very specific space requirements. The width is standard but the depth is problematic; our largest kitchen cabinet won't open if the oven is too deep. This could have been addressed with better design by the guy who redid and sold us our place, but we're not ripping out and replacing all the cabinets.

The wife has been researching. Sunday we went to an appliance store to look at a few of the models. What we found:

• She would like to get away from the "controls on the back" style. I don't care as much but am fine with that.
• Neither of us care about connecting the oven to our phones, and in fact would prefer to not have one that does.
• We're interested in upgrading the quality, but the one we really like best is a chef-quality one that is significantly more than double my mental maximum budget.  I suppose we could afford it, but I'd rather spend the extra money on the Europe trip we want to take next year for our 20th anniversary.
• Dammit, this is apparently a mutually exclusive set of options.

So the search continues.

Comments

Things that make me go hm.

[beanolc]

Phones? Ovens talk to phones? I never would have guessed but yeah, I suppose I see the point— though in truth I’d never run the oven if I weren’t home and can’t logically imagine any other time I’d want to remotely control my oven...

*completely* facetious, but ...

[psybelle]

Oh, come on. Which would you rather have, the bother of setting a timer and then making sure you're within earshot/continually monitoring the temperature probe on the roast ... or being able to roam the whole of the house and yard or sit at the computer with headphones on, secure in the knowledge that the oven will ping/buzz your phone when the cookies are done/ the roast has come to the appropriate temperature?


(Yeahnope - I'm not a fan of the networked house/"smart home" either.)

Re: *completely* facetious, but ...

[beanolc]

lol! The only "smart" I like about my home is a speaker I can command to play whatever music I wish for me.

Re: *completely* facetious, but ...

[threadwalker]

I see how that would be appealing. On the other hand, I have more fear for the future smart house that decides to drown me in my own pool and make it look like an accident.

Re: *completely* facetious, but ...

[psybelle]

*shudder* ... I've never trusted those pool-sweeper things ... and I have even less reason to trust a mechanized tentacular thing when even the fleshly version makes art projects out of corpses...

Re: *completely* facetious, but ...

[threadwalker]

I read that synopsis ... I thought it was a joke, but it's not, is it?

That is fascinating and scary all at once.

Re: *completely* facetious, but ...

[psybelle]

First thing I did was check the date - not April 1st. And Mount Holyoke looks distinguished....

The idea that cephalopods were making art out of corpses 100 million years or so before primates differentiated from mammals in general? Yeah, terrifying. But it makes me wonder what sort of "Golden Age" stories current kraken might tell each other...

Re: well....

[psybelle]

Did some more poking around, because I wanted to see pictures... and while the presentation might not have been a joke, there's a lot of joking about it - National Geographic was almost kind in comparison to some of the other stuff I found:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2011/10/10/the-giant-prehistoric-squid-that-ate-common-sense/

(on the other hand, if you live underwater, what might your version of the Lascaux cave paintings look like? Arranging the bodies of your enemies in self-representation might be less art, and more ritual... know anybody looking for a plot for NanoWriMo?)

[threadwalker]

good luck. Maybe you should also ponder, "How long will I live in this house and be annoyed that I didn't get the better oven?" If it's 5 years of torture, then maybe the cheaper model is more ideal. But if you're thinking this is the status quo for the next 15+ years...

Just saying, it's something to think about.

[madbaker]

That did go into the calculations. We don't know - it's not our forever house. Then again, (barring weirdnesses) we probably can't afford to move anywhere we want to live anytime soon.

[threadwalker]

I feel you.