Look out Mr. Repairman, Engineer at Work

Just in case my Mom is wondering, my Engineering Degree is still coming in handy. Some of our friends and family are aware that we've had some 'oven issues', as in anything that goes in doesn't quite come out right, or in the right amount of time.

About a month ago, I borrowed a handheld thermocouple/sensor and monitor from work to see what was happening with our oven. It confirmed what I thought, the brand new (expensive) oven was all jabberwonky. As in the temperature would swing as much as 40 F BELOW and 10-20 F ABOVE the setpoint and it was never consistent. So even if I could figure out an offset it would do no good the next time.

Act 1, I call in the repair man. It goes something like this:

-Stay home from work all day waiting... (ok, so I get to blog and watch TV, but still, waiting sucks, at least the cable company says AM or PM)
-repairman shows up, asks me the problem, I REPEAT what I said when I made the appointment.
-he calls the manufacturer hotline.
-they tell him to order 3 new parts, new sensor, new controller, etc.
-he leaves

I'm thinking, WTF, I mean we could have skipped the appointment and he could have listened to me on the phone. The parts come in. Note that at this point, the only trouble is with the baking unit, nothing else. I stay home from work again, it goes something like this:

-did you calibrate it?
-uhm, no, it's not an option for the owner.
-are you sure? Did you read the manual?
-(inner chuckle, note that I'm the kind of person who reads EVERYTHING before use)
-yeah, I read it, here it is.
-scratches head, proceeds to install parts.
-5 billion screws later he pushes the unit back, presses some buttons, says I should be good to go but I might want to calibrate it if I have problems (where was he for the conversation above?)

2 days pass, I've brought home the work hand held temperature sensor to see if theh oven is fixed but hadn't used it yet. We go to cook on the cooktop and well, the display doesn't work, it turns on the elements, BUT, you have no idea how hot as the digital display is black.

I call the repair place, explain that not only am I kind of tired of taking off work to be on call for someone to service THE CUSTOMER (that's us folks) but there's a coincidence that doesn't take long to figure out and that the cooktop now doesn't work right after another unrelated part was 'fixed'. He is not convinced his "best guy" made an error, me on the otherhand, looking at another appointment time, I'm thinking he's off his rocker.

E will be hanging out waiting for the next appointment, I've given up.

In the meantime, we decide to check the oven/baking unit, "just in case" it's not right. Note the chart to the right. The first chart, the oven was cold, the set point was 375F, the stove said it never went above 375 but the sensor hit 500 F(we stopped the test for fear of how high it would go, E asks where the fire extinguisher is and is convinced we're catching on fire soon). I do it again, in the back of my head I can hear the repairman blaming my handheld unit, I'm building an iron tight case folks.

This time, we bake a cake at the same time and set the oven to 350. E thinks this is totally unnecessary and will ruin a perfectly good cake mix. In the back of my head I'm thinking "for $1.75, I'm willing to ruin a cake just to prove to Mr. Repairman that it's NOT my thermocouple/monitor that's off, it's the freaking oven". In the second chart, the temp hits 350F and keeps right on going, when the oven says "hey I'm ready, put the cake in", it's actually at 470F, a full 120F ABOVE. I put the cake in, and it's done in under 30 minutes for a 38 min requirement (NOTE, I did not ruin the cake, I pulled it out early). We now have the opposite problem, an over achiever oven instead of a slow cold oven. Unfortunately, it cycle from 355F to 450F, staying at the set point for about 1 minute out of every 30.

Ah, joy. That engineering degree came in handy again and I'm sure the repairman will think I'm a fruitcake, but hell, in our oven, I'd be a WAAAAY overdone fruitcake. They have some explaining to do and I have a feeling we haven't reached the end on this story. But, at least we don't have to take any "I know better than you crap" from the repairman... I'm thinking he should have done this test to begin with.