The Shed

I bought an oven on 6th Jan that was faulty.

The manufacturer got a local repair company to fix it. The repairman couldn’t come for 2 weeks!! When he finally arrived all he did was check that what I had described was in fact the problem, EVEN THOUGH HE HAD THE REPLACEMENT PART WITH HIM. I rang the repair company 2 days later to see what was happening and they hadn’t even booked me in for further visits!

They booked me in and the repairman came back a WEEK LATER and fiddled around with no result. I complained vigorously to the company about the incredible delays and lack of repair, and the NEXT WEEK he fitted the part and it didn’t fix the problem.

I made a video complaint and put it on youtube, with plenty of text references to the product name in title and description as well as in the video. The next morning the company called me to say they would give me a refund on the oven AND on the installation costs – IF I WOULD REMOVE THE VIDEO.
I got the refund 3 days ago 🙂

Obviously I won’t name the product, which was a Gas Oven, because the Manufacturer has done the right thing. I am not out of pocket but I have been without an oven for eight weeks.

The problem that at its lowest setting , which was 120C, the oven temps would slowly rise to 200+C making it impossible to slow cook or know what time to cook, also plenty of potential for over cooking.

After a new thermostat was fitted, the problem remained. I looked at the design and decided it was faulty. When the thermostat reached the set temperature, it turned the gas to low, but there were around 40 of these little flames, and obviously they were enough to continue heating the oven.
Perhaps if tested in a cold climate the result would be different, but when the ambient air temp in the kitchen is 30+C the oven temps continued to rise. If instead of turning all the gas jets down, there was one small pilot light and all the gas jets went off, then I’m sure the system would work.

There were lots of good things about the oven, such as simple lighting by Piezo Ignition or match, meaning one part less to go wrong. I had done my research and chosen carefully, but of course you can’t test an oven in the shop!

It seems that mere written or verbal complaints have lost their power. Social Media is the way to go if you have a legitimate complaint and you have patiently tried to resolve the problem.

Although I didn’t mention it, if the company had not refunded me, I planned to visit all the review websites and give an honest, bad review, stating what was happening to me, with a link to the video. Plus post on facebook, twitter and so on, all with the video link. I was very mad that I was getting such poor service. The fault should have been rectified soon after my warranty claim, because the product was BRAND NEW. Waiting two weeks for the first service call is one week too long for me, and then it wasn’t fixed.

I shot the video in one take, no editing except to add some text overlays. I had THREE thermometers in the oven and a timer, all of which appeared in the video and I described the problem and what the camera was looking at while filming – just about anyone can do that with their phone these days!