Texas Toast!

What a difference a day/good referral/real plumber makes! I assume you can tell by the title that we have just used our new oven for the first time. Because of course you've been following this, right?

We had been told we needed to get our gas company out here to verify the soundness of, or replace our gas line. First thing this morning - not in Heather terms but in business terms, I contacted our gas company. The 35 minute wait for my callback lasted 55. After explaining what the previous would-be installer had said, the gas company said they didn't do that. They'll still check everything after we return from vacation and get gas turned on again. They'll check a gas leak as indicated by the lovely smell of mercaptan wafting through the house. Anything else, contact a plumber. They could make a referral? I agreed to be transferred to another line for that, and promptly got disconnected.

After everything else, I wasn't the least surprised.

I knew our homeowners association offers referrals to various people in trades useful for maintaining/improving our properties, so I called them. I was given two. The first got voicemail, with a call returned nearly two hours later. The second was immediately answered, an appointment set up for next Monday. As soon as I hung up, she called back and asked if I would rather have somebody immediately? Someone had just become available. 

Well hell yes! (More politely of course.) Joe duly arrived, got shown/told the issues, and hooked us up, tested the oven, and completed the installation other than the part where screws go into the wall. There were two issues. Because of course there were. First, the second nipple was the wrong kind, despite what we had been told by the most previous guy. Joe had the right part in his truck, and installed it. 

The second issue requires carpentry, but not enough to keep us from using the oven. It seems that the old stove had an open space at the bottom of the back panel. The gas piping extends from the wall out into the space the oven sits in, but that opening allowed the old oven to slide around it fully to the back of the opening. The new oven doesn't have that cutout, and thus sits an inch further forward into the kitchen. We will need a framework about an inch deep built around the opening, plus longer screws, so that the oven is firmly fastened to - eventually - something connected to the wall. It's not going anywhere where it sits, and was pronounced fully usable before Joe left.

Rich says no problem making a framework to fit. He's got a friend with the wood whom he swaps favors with, and Rich also happens to have a supply of much longer screws than came with the oven.

Meanwhile Steve's ears perked up with the news that we have an oven, and as soon as the kitchen cleared, started it up.

The toast is delicious. Maybe he'll also bake that cake from the box which has been sitting on the counter since last spring, today for Rich's birthday?

And Joe, plus his company, got high marks from us, including to the homeowners association. Wayfair, on the other hand, got a voicemail letting them know we'd gotten the job done without the company they hired down here to do the work, even though they "guarantee installation" at the extra cost we'd already paid for. I suspect the three visits that company paid us more than cost Wayfair that installation charge to us.