Dear GE Café Induction Range
I ordered you my dear GE Café Induction Range during the pandemic in matte white with brushed bronze hardware to match the white cabinets and gold polka dot tile in our beach kitchen. I was excited about double ovens and looking forward to cooking with induction. After all, that was a reason to buy new pots and pans. My husband wanted an all-electric house and no propane tank in the yard. You ended up arriving much sooner than our house was ready. I’m sorry you had to sit in the dark and lonely warehouse waiting for me. Alas, on September 22, 2022, you were delivered and installed. Ready to go.
Or so I thought.
My double-oven GE Café Range with an induction stovetop.
*Note: Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent (and perhaps not-so-innocent).
The Stove Saga
I admit that I demanded more of you than many people might. I figured you liked the love. Me cooking every day and baking more than the sane person. You had to endure several power outages the winter of 2022. During an outage over the Christmas holidays of 2023 you started acting up. The dials on your shiny stovetop were flashing, trying to tell me something. Maybe you didn’t like my husband’s fancy new generator? But once the power was back, you recovered nicely. Only if you could talk. Afterall, you are connected to WiFi.
Throughout all this time, my husband kept saying that your ovens, particularly the bottom one, still smelled – like rubber burning. I would assure him there was nothing in there and just ignored it. You waited until I had a lot of cooking and baking to do leading up to our annual July fourth holiday get together with friends, and on June 25 you turned your induction stovetop off. I thought it was only one burner, but no, it was all.
Thankfully I had purchased an extended warranty. I entered the phone game and filed a claim with the warranty company whom I’ll call Mother Warranty*. They sent me to an appliance repair shop whom I’ll call FixUup*, about 30 miles south – who ordered a completely new motherboard (not inexpensive) and said the earliest they could come to see you was July 29.
Overcome and adapt
Five weeks without a stovetop. I overcame and adapted. Hubby graciously grilled more than usual. I roasted veggies in the oven vs. sautéing. Used the microwave for more than just reheating. I even got creative with boiling pasta in my Instant Pot (which worked surprisingly well). My husband eventually went into the crawl space under the house and brought me a hotplate to use that he had purchased for canning tuna in the garage years ago because I did not want all that stinky tuna in my house. (I’m reminded of when my husband, brother and dad went crabbing a million years ago and my mom made them cook the crab in the motorhome in the driveway. Like mother, like daughter I suppose.)
This is the single burner that I limped along with. I used it so much that I wore off the low-med-high markings on the dial.
We found the humor throughout, and I kept your induction top shiny and dust-free. My husband would sing to me, “Hot plate wo-man, check it and see” to the tune of Foreigner’s Hot Blooded from 1978, and we both agreed that we were hilarious if nothing else.
The first repair
The FixUup team came on July 29 with a new motherboard. I even got an unsolicited little lecture on how to use induction. They even had the nerve to tell me not to put my induction pans in the dishwasher. I thought, “Do I look like someone who would put their nice pots and pans in the dishwasher?” Puleese, give me some credit. Only you knew better. We also asked them to check your ovens since you were still stinky. As they buttoned everything up, they said everything’s working! (Exhibit A and the only exhibit: Water was boiling on multiple burners). I asked about your ovens again. The response was, “All the wiring checked out! Nothing more than a “normal dirty oven smell.” Ouch. I was offended. I tried to cover your ears, as I’m sure you were equally offended.
No matter, I went along my merry way, firing up your induction plates daily. Fast forward exactly four weeks and one day. It was a Sunday morning, August 25. I was sautéing shallots on the stove top for a Smitten Kitchen Slumped Frittata and had scones in the oven. It was the first time I’d made these scones – Flaky Raspberry Scones from Sarah Kieffer. When my timer went off for the scones, I opened your top oven and you had not done your job baking and browning. In retrospect, I thought you were taking your sweet time cooking the shallots, cause normally I look away and burn them. Trying to remain calm, I then turned on the bottom oven. I swapped the oven thermometer back and forth to test both your ovens, but your top was now 230 degrees and your bottom was cold as ice. I frantically tried all the burners on your induction top and you immediately started flashing me. ARGHHHH. The stovetop was no longer hot.
I am sorry for what I said to you when I was hangry.
Luckily, I have wonderful neighbors and a couple in particular who saved the day. I texted them frantically and they said I’ll preheat my ovens, come on over! I added the soft-enough shallots to the frittata and carefully transported the warm baking sheets over in my car. She offered me a barstool and tea or coffee, and in turn I paid a few scones and the frittata recipe.
These lovely people sent me home with their Wolf Gourmet Convection Oven, ripped from their camper van to reside on my kitchen island for the next almost seven weeks. I grew to love that Wolf oven but didn’t want to make you jealous. She made me feel like a gourmet chef using an adult-sized Easy Bake Oven on steroids. She saw me through two birthday cakes, zucchini bread, blueberry crisp, maple-cinnamon scones, and several Dutch babies, not to mention daily dinner specials.
The Wolf Gourmet that saw me through a tough time.
Round two with the warranty company
On Monday I called FixUup. They sent me back to Mother Warranty, mind you with instructions to tell them it was a different problem this time or they wouldn’t get paid. I called Mother Warranty again. They filed the claim and referred me back to FixUup for repairs. I’ll spare you most of this part of the story, but over a week or so, my husband and I both talked multiple times to all parties involved: the warranty company, the store where we purchased the oven and who installed our appliances, the appliance repair shop who came out in July, our builders and the electrician who worked on our home. Somewhere along the line, it was suggested that we flip the breaker.
When we did, you finally spoke:
Seemed like a rather ominous warning. Hmm.
Strange that you’d never told us this before, even when the power was out. With no one agreeing to come look at you anytime soon, my handyman husband pulled you out from the wall and here’s what we found. Yep. You were not happy. Your terminal block and wires were fried.
The wire on the left should look like the black wire on the right, but apparently it had been slowly frying for a long time.
I immediately texted a photo to the folks at FixUup, who responded with, and I quote, “Good catch!” Ya think? Oh, they also said the part was on indefinite back order.
Was it a slow burn?
Be calm I told you, or really myself. Had you been slowly burning the entire two years? Were you trying to tell us with your smell? Or had something changed since the repair folks came out four weeks, now closer to six weeks, earlier? Did they really look at your wiring?
I’ll skip the part about my hubby maybe sorta losing his temper a bit (remember we’d made umpteen phone calls to try to get resolution), and FixUup saying, “We will no longer service you” and abruptly hanging up. Seriously? They were the ones who said they’d checked the wiring. The question remained. If one had checked your wiring, how did one miss your fried wires?
Back to Mother Warranty I went. They tried for two weeks to find another company to service you. Remember, we are in a small community at the beach. I had googled “appliance repair near me” and there were a couple more choices within an hour’s distance. But it’s not that simple. It turns out most repair shops don’t like to work with the cumbersome processes of warranty companies. They apparently fear they won’t get paid. Finally, the warranty company said if I could find someone to repair you and pay out of my own pocket, then they’d reimburse me. Believe me, this offer didn’t come without its own process on how I would need to get this approved ahead of time, fill out specific paperwork, and so on.
Here to Save the Day!
We turned to our good friends who have a house at a nearby beach town, and they referred us to an appliance repair store north of us, whom I’ll call Appliance Superhero*. You and I anxiously awaited September 23; the day Appliance Superhero was going to come to our house. Believe me, I was over the hot plate that took 20-30 minutes to boil water. I wanted you back.
I saw you perk up when the doorbell rang and the shadow of a cape blowing in the wind was spotted through the window. The first thing Appliance Superhero said when he pulled out the range was:
#1 - You were never installed properly. Apparently, appliances and ranges like you naturally vibrate over time and because your terminal block was never secured, you slowly and quietly simmered for two years.
#2 - There’s no way the first company checked your wiring. (I know, you tried to tell me.)
We both had tears in our eyes. I finally had resolution. And you felt seen.
Reunited and it feels so good
Miraculously, the parts arrived and as of October 11, we are reunited. And it feels so good. Our 13-week saga was over, granted four of those weeks we were in ignorant bliss as you slowly burned.
You’ve never boiled water faster. I am in full fall-baking mode – and you are no longer smelly. I’m sorry you had to go through this and perhaps your motherboard was fine all along. I know, I know. You were just trying to tell us you were simmering from behind.
The first day I baked Maple Glazed Blondies from Sweet Tooth to show you my gratitude.
Of course, I’m still waiting to be reimbursed from Mother Warranty. And did I mention that Appliance Superhero had never heard of this warranty company?
Should I be worried?