New Stove

Well, several hours after the saga began, it is finally finished. Our new stove is installed, fully tested and adjusted. Read on for the gory details.

Things started off on a sour note this morning when I realized that we hadn’t received a call about delivery yesterday. I was working from home today specifically to be here for the stove’s arrival, so I decided to check on this as soon as possible. I seemed to remember telling the clerk when we ordered the stove that we wanted it delivered today (Thursday), and I thought she asked whether we wanted an afternoon or morning delivery. I went to find the receipt to see if it was listed on there. Jenny found the receipt, but nothing was listed there about the delivery date. There was, however, a web site where we could check the order status, so I did that. I figured that maybe the delivery information was stored with the order status.

I immediately saw a problem when the status indicated that the stove had arrived and was at the store, but it was scheduled for delivery tomorrow (Friday). Nobody was going to be home Friday, and it was too late to change my plans. I called Lowes to see if it could be put on the afternoon truck today, as the clerk had essentially verbally committed to delivery today, and I was mildly upset that it appears that she just guessed at the date. It turned out that the trucks had already left without our stove on them, and they wouldn’t be back until they were finished. They could still do the delivery on Friday (no good at all for me), or possibly Saturday, if they could get management override to do that. The next possible time after that was after Christmas, which was absolutely no good.

The guy I was speaking with offered that they have a truck available for $20 for 90 minutes, and all we have to do is replace the gas. This seemed like a possibility for getting it here today. I texted my Dad to see if he happened to be available. God must have been looking out for me and he said that he was at Duquesne for just a little bit, and would then be home, so he could help. I told the Lowes guy to go ahead and start things in motion to get the Saturday delivery to work if at all possible, and that I would try to pick it up in the meantime.

Jenny and I went to lunch, and I called my Dad when we got home. He was ready, so he came down to get me and we went up to Lowes. It turns out the truck is $20 + tax, and only available for 75 minutes with a $5 charge for every 15 minutes after that. We could still easily do this in 75 minutes, so I agreed. They work on getting our stove out front while my Dad and I go searching for new gas fittings. We get them back to the front and are standing there for just a few minutes when a guy wheels a huge box around on a dolly behind us–it’s our stove! My Dad sticks around the counter while the clerk there works on getting the delivery charge refunded, and I go with the dolly guy to get the stove onto the truck. The truck has no lift gate, so we just kinda get it onto the side of the flat bed and push it up and onto the bed. It was on its side, but I figured it would be OK until we got home with it. Unfortunately, I find out at this time that while the truck does have a set of ramps, they don’t have appliance dollies available. Uh, yeah. We now have a 300+ pound awkward box to move. Hooray.

I go back inside, and Dad has purchased the gas fittings for us. Yay Dad! You rock! The delivery charge is refunded, so Dad and I jump in the truck and head for home. On the way there, we’re talking about strategies for getting this off of the truck and into the house. I realize that the truck bed is just about the same height as the back wall of our property next to the alley, so I figured we could get close enough and open the side gate in order to slide the box into the yard. From there we could walk it to the back door, and then we’d only have a few steps to lift the behemoth.

We went with the plan, and it worked pretty well, until we got to the steps. It was just too much to lift in its awkward state, even with a bunch of the heavy accessories removed from the inside. Plan B was put into place, courtesy of another idea from my Dad. He suggested putting a blanket over the steps and sliding it up. I was worried about the lack of a solid surface underneath the blanket to actually support the thing. The modified idea was to take two of the corner cardboard “rails” that protected it in its shipping container, lay those down along the steps, then slide the stove up on those rails. That worked great, and the stove was quickly at the landing outside the back door. A few more cardboard-assisted sliding maneuvers, a little tilt-up maneuver, and it was inside and right-side up.

With the stove inside, we decided that the time and coincidence of having the truck were in our favor, and we took the old stove over to our ReStore as a donation. With that finished, we took the truck back to Lowes, and Dad drove me home. I had to get back to work after that, with the actually installation work still looming ahead for this evening.

More to come.. check back again later!

jonathan