We had our new cooker delivered yesterday… and now it is taking up space in the living room. I’m not entirely happy about this turn of events as we paid for the installation service from a major retailer who should have the, erm, knowhow to make these things go more smoothly.

Given that the wiring for our existing cooker was updated less than five years ago and that we had a switch on the wall that looked very much like the one in the little booklet we got, we blithely assumed that it would be straightforward. Apparently though we need an additional “isolation switch” as well as the “cooker control plate” and that, although the installers should be qualified electricians, they can’t fit one. When the image showed two switch plates side by side, I’d assumed (and the sales assistant hadn’t been trained to point out) that both were needed rather than just being different configuration options (cooker switch + regular plug or cooker switch only).

I’d call that a bit on the useless side, especially since it really is just installing an extra box on the wall and running some wires to it; I’m fairly confident that I could do it myself except that, not being a qualified electrician, I’m not allowed to. I’d quite like to keep the guarantee so now I need an electrician (can’t get one of those on a Saturday – we had the machine delivered yesterday but it didn’t arrive until after 7pm and I was already out at my gig by then) and then will have to take the old machine down to the local recyling centre myself.

Hopefully it won’t be too long until I can post a new cooker review. Meanwhile, it is back to the old one – on the same old (or, rather, newish) wiring.