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Retirement: What are we doing?
Chronologically…
Aurora Borealis – The Northern Lights
Big Drives
Canal Boating
Canoeing
- Canoeing Barker with Whitewater (2019-08)
Disc Golf
Formula 1
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Kayaking
- Kayaking Baja 2023
- Kayaking Thailand 2011
Mountain Biking
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Skiing
- Downhill Skiing
- Cross Country Skiing
Traveling By Air
Winter Activities

DIY 2020: New Stove

Our stove turned 20 years old and decided to slowly die. With multiple failures, it wasn’t worth trying to repair it. The replacement was an unexpected DIY adventure.

Our stove started failing about 6 months ago. First the convection failed, then the temperature for baking started drifting about 25 degrees too low. Finally, it locked itself into self cleaning mode. This meant that the oven door remained locked forever, and it ran a fan continuously. Repeated power cycling and resets changed nothing.

Eventually, we turned the oven breakers off, and relied on matches to ignite the stovetop burners. And ordered a new stove.

As we were touring a new demo house (1.8 million $), we saw our new stove in the kitchen!

On Friday, the new stove was going to arrive while I was at work. Apparently, I am allowed to disconnect the old one, but not reconnect the new one. Fittings looked simple and easy.

Old stove on its way out. It was nice to have 2 shutoff valves in the supply, so I was not too nervous about leaving the end up-capped for 24 hours.

In the evening, the plumber arrived and was ready to complete the installation. We started, and then discovered, that our new stove didn't fit. Stove come in 30" and 24" sizes. Our old one fitted into a 29 1/2" gap. New one was not going to fit. In the photo, it looks like only the top is too big. It is actually the same wide all the way down.

Cabinet had to be taken apart, and re-sized. Luckily, there was both space and an easy way to do it. Basically, that front vertical section is going to be 1/2" narrower when I am done. Then we get to think about the granite.

One side panel is off, ready to be cut down and moved over.

New bracing for the new support. Stronger and better than before.

Now narrower, and just need to cut the facade down to fit. Naturally, my clamps slipped and I had to build a new one from scratch. More luck as I had some maple lying around that was a perfect match.

Cabinetry is pretty much complete. Things are looking good.

At this point in time, I noticed that the new stove also required more depth. Our old one required 23". Apparently, the standard is 25". I build a new brace along the gap to provide support for the (future) much narrowed tongue of granite. The newly required anti-tip device has also been installed. We have to take 1/4" off the left side, 2" of the back and 5/8" off the right size. And the new cuts must be really accurate because unlike the old stove, there is no flange to cover the cap.

By some miracle, we found a company that was able to come by and do the work the next day. We prepared for the worst.

More dust shields.

Hopefully, most of the dust will remain on the other side of this barrier.

Hoodoo has found a place to watch the proceedings. And the big strong shop vac turned out to be just what was needed.

Lindsey arrived on time and ready to go. The overnight snow was unexpected.

My job was to hold the vacuum right in the flow of dust and debris as it came off the diamond saw. Having the vacuum right there meant that almost all of the dust never made it into the room air. I was stunned that these very accurate cuts were all done by hand. Multiple passes, slowly increasing in depth.

And the other side. We had the bigger shop vac stationed at the end of the cut, while a smaller shop vac was moved along the cut as it progressed.

This is a view of the right side, after making a little safety cut to remove the long dangly bit before starting work on the back cut.

The cutting of the corners was made safer by drilling holes in the corner, then trimming.

The last little bit is snapped out. It was suggested that we save this bit to be used for emergency repairs.

Many polishing passes, working with finer and finer grit. A spray bottle with water and a little dish soap greatly reduced the dust and improved the polishing.

And it fits! Now we just need a legal plumber!

The new stove looks good. It turns out that it was absolutely necessary to make the gap deeper: the drawers in the adjacent cabinet still just barely clear the front of the stove.

On Monday, our plumber made it out to help us. This is the final step, attaching the gas line. I love this photo.

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