Our New Stove

We got a new kitchen range this week. Our house is 34 years old, but the range was at least 10 years older than that. We bought our house from my aunt and uncle who were in their late 70’s when the built it. They brought the range from their previous house, and they had lived there for many years before.

The old range was a “modern” wonder. It was a Frigidaire Flair range. It sat on top of built in cabinets. The top part had two ovens whose doors opened up rather than out. And the bottom part of the range was a drawer in which the cook top was located. You pushed a button and pulled it out from under the ovens. I guess you would call it a cook under.

It dominated our kitchen’s decor, and we received many comments on this marvel of 1950’s kitsch. But Frigidaire, in its wisdom, decided to stop making the Flair in the early 1980’s, and soon thereafter stopped making replacement parts. For those of us lucky to have these things, the net result of the company’s business acumen was we couldn’t replace the range without tearing out half of the kitchen. There are whole websites dedicated to swapping everything related to the Flair from replacement parts to the whole range itself.

And here is the kicker. It is 40” wide. No company anywhere or anyplace in this world makes a 40” wide slide in range, with the exception of Frigidaire and Kenmore made by Frigidaire. So if you have a 40” hole in your cabinetry resulting from the moving of a Flair oven, you have a choice of one to replace it. All other ovens are either 30”, 36”, or 48”. Not even the “You Pay We Redesign For Things In The Kitchen You Don’t Really Need Because You Eat Out 5 Nights Per Week Store” could believe it. And the 40 inches isn’t really 40 inches. It is more like 40 and ¼ inches, necessitating the shaving of the cabinetry on either side so the new range could fit.

Oh yes, the hood for the old range extended out too far for the new range because the old one accommodated the drawer pull out cook under which extended half way into the kitchen when pulled. Not that it made any difference anyway because the cook under still extended out farther than the protruding range hood, making all of the grease and goop fly over the top of the wooden hood rather than under it making it somewhat nasty. Of course, it wouldn’t have made any difference anyway as the old hood wasn’t vented anywhere. The groaning fan mostly just made noise, which is why our smoke alarm went off every time we cooked.

After 5 days of work, our new range is now proudly installed. It is duel fuel; electric oven underneath and gas range on top. The hood is recessed and vented to the outside. It has two super burners, two regular burners and a simmer burner which acts like a crock pot allowing us to dump our 34 year old crock pot complete with the 34 year old stew that is still in it. It really was a slow cooker. The only problem is the new range is digital, AND convection, whatever that means.

If it is anything like the clock in my car, I think it means we will continue to eat out 5 nights per week until we can figure out how to use the damn thing without blowing ourselves up. Let’s hear it for progress.