Rant about my stove
I went to cook on my new range the other day. 30 minutes later, my ground beef is done, I have my sauce simmering (just making speghetti) and NORMALLY, my water is boiling on the stove so I can dump the pasta in. Water- not boiling. Simmering? Barely. BARELY. But not boiling. Hm. Finally I realize what is happening. Since this is a glass top stove, the burners cycle on and off to maintain heat without breaking the glass (I assume). But my stove is cycling off for too long, the water loses its simmer, then the burners kicks back in and the simmer comes back up and then burner cycles off ad I lose my simmer- repeat. To cook the pasta I finally stuck a lid on the pot and it came up to a boil. But I can't rely on only being able to bring water to a boil when I put a lid on the pot. So we called a tech in. Here's my exchange:
Me: "My stove won't boil water"
Tech turns the burners on and sees no black spots and sees them heating up normally. "Looks like it is working to me. It's fine."
Me: "But it won't boil water. Yes. They all heat up evenly. But a stove needs to boil water."
Tech: "Well, see how there are no black spots. The burners are heating fine."
Me: "Isn't there like something you can check? Like whether or not they are getting hot enough or something? The burner seems to cycle off before the water boils"
Tech: "Get out a pot of water and boil it. Burners don't cycle off. They need to maintain their heat." For the remainder of our conversation he would correct me everytime I said the burner was cycling off. I don't care WHAT you call it, the burner turns OFF and then clicks back ON. He told me that was normal and that it wasn't turning off. I KNEW it was normal. My problem was that it was doing it too quickly and the water wouldn't BOIL. So frustrating. So I put the water in my pasta pot- It's all clad, copper layer, stainless flat bottoms. they are NOT cheap pots.
Tech: "Wow. That's a lot of water to boil! Use less water and it will come to a boil."
ME: "Um, That's BARELY enough to boil a package of pasta. A stove should be able to boil that much water with no problem. I haven't even tried to make stock, which uses twice as much water."
Tech: "Well, that much water will take a long time to come to a boil."
Me: "No, it won't. It won't come to a boil at all. That's my problem."
Tech: "Use less water."
Me: "I can't" I'm starting to get frustrated.
Tech: "Put a lid on the pot. There's not a problem with your stove. See? No black spots on the burners. You need to clean this burner off, though, or that burner won't cook."
Me: "That was from this morning when I cooked breakfast. That won't stop me from boiling water on THIS burner."
We watch the water a while. It comes to just barely a simmer.
Tech: "See? It's boiling. It's fine."
Me: smiling because at this point all I can think to do is laugh. "Um, that's not boiling. And see, it just cycled off and I lost my simmer. This is its problem"
Tech: "It's not cycling off. the range does not cycle off..... blah blah blah."
Me: "OK, well, whatever it is doing, it's NOT BOILING THE WATER. I need a ROLLING boil."
Tech: "Put a lid on the pot and it will boil. There is not a problem that I can see here."
OMFG. By the time he left I was so frustrated and close to tears. Here was a 500 dollar range and I couldn't boil water on it. And the tech had no clue what a rolling boil even was. Ray called up Best Buy and they took the range back! We found out later we were really really lucky to get someone who was nice because technically we bought the appliances more than 30 days ago and our return policy had run out, even if we had only been using them for a couple days. We ended up buying a 1000K range with a glass cooktop, warming burner, convection oven and burners than are bigger and with more wattage (which was my tech's word of the day because he also used that word at every opportunity. Basically saying "What can you expect, you bought a cheap range with low wattage." Since when is 500 bucks cheap for a range? I know it's not expensive, but it's not the cheapest I have seen, either). It is being delivered today. I am *so* glad we got an understanding Best Buy person. We had another tech out for our washer- which was bouncing across the room on spin cycle- turns out the manufacturers bolts were not removed when it was installed by the guys. He looked at our stove while he was there and saw no problem, too. He said according to Whirlpool, a boil is a boil and if the stove comes up to a very low boil, that's still a boil. He showed me that I can actually turn the stove up a bit higher than the "high" setting. So after he left I did that- 50 minutes later I had a slow boil and half the water was gone from my pot because it had slowly simmered its way out. So, if I had not been able to return this range, I would have had to fight tooth and nail for them to realize there is something wrong with it. I had a 300 dollar cheap coil burner range in our rental and it boiled water just fine. I still maintain that there is something fundamentally wrong with a range that cannot easily being a pot of water to a rolling boil.
Me: "My stove won't boil water"
Tech turns the burners on and sees no black spots and sees them heating up normally. "Looks like it is working to me. It's fine."
Me: "But it won't boil water. Yes. They all heat up evenly. But a stove needs to boil water."
Tech: "Well, see how there are no black spots. The burners are heating fine."
Me: "Isn't there like something you can check? Like whether or not they are getting hot enough or something? The burner seems to cycle off before the water boils"
Tech: "Get out a pot of water and boil it. Burners don't cycle off. They need to maintain their heat." For the remainder of our conversation he would correct me everytime I said the burner was cycling off. I don't care WHAT you call it, the burner turns OFF and then clicks back ON. He told me that was normal and that it wasn't turning off. I KNEW it was normal. My problem was that it was doing it too quickly and the water wouldn't BOIL. So frustrating. So I put the water in my pasta pot- It's all clad, copper layer, stainless flat bottoms. they are NOT cheap pots.
Tech: "Wow. That's a lot of water to boil! Use less water and it will come to a boil."
ME: "Um, That's BARELY enough to boil a package of pasta. A stove should be able to boil that much water with no problem. I haven't even tried to make stock, which uses twice as much water."
Tech: "Well, that much water will take a long time to come to a boil."
Me: "No, it won't. It won't come to a boil at all. That's my problem."
Tech: "Use less water."
Me: "I can't" I'm starting to get frustrated.
Tech: "Put a lid on the pot. There's not a problem with your stove. See? No black spots on the burners. You need to clean this burner off, though, or that burner won't cook."
Me: "That was from this morning when I cooked breakfast. That won't stop me from boiling water on THIS burner."
We watch the water a while. It comes to just barely a simmer.
Tech: "See? It's boiling. It's fine."
Me: smiling because at this point all I can think to do is laugh. "Um, that's not boiling. And see, it just cycled off and I lost my simmer. This is its problem"
Tech: "It's not cycling off. the range does not cycle off..... blah blah blah."
Me: "OK, well, whatever it is doing, it's NOT BOILING THE WATER. I need a ROLLING boil."
Tech: "Put a lid on the pot and it will boil. There is not a problem that I can see here."
OMFG. By the time he left I was so frustrated and close to tears. Here was a 500 dollar range and I couldn't boil water on it. And the tech had no clue what a rolling boil even was. Ray called up Best Buy and they took the range back! We found out later we were really really lucky to get someone who was nice because technically we bought the appliances more than 30 days ago and our return policy had run out, even if we had only been using them for a couple days. We ended up buying a 1000K range with a glass cooktop, warming burner, convection oven and burners than are bigger and with more wattage (which was my tech's word of the day because he also used that word at every opportunity. Basically saying "What can you expect, you bought a cheap range with low wattage." Since when is 500 bucks cheap for a range? I know it's not expensive, but it's not the cheapest I have seen, either). It is being delivered today. I am *so* glad we got an understanding Best Buy person. We had another tech out for our washer- which was bouncing across the room on spin cycle- turns out the manufacturers bolts were not removed when it was installed by the guys. He looked at our stove while he was there and saw no problem, too. He said according to Whirlpool, a boil is a boil and if the stove comes up to a very low boil, that's still a boil. He showed me that I can actually turn the stove up a bit higher than the "high" setting. So after he left I did that- 50 minutes later I had a slow boil and half the water was gone from my pot because it had slowly simmered its way out. So, if I had not been able to return this range, I would have had to fight tooth and nail for them to realize there is something wrong with it. I had a 300 dollar cheap coil burner range in our rental and it boiled water just fine. I still maintain that there is something fundamentally wrong with a range that cannot easily being a pot of water to a rolling boil.