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The stove has been delivered!

It's very funny. Right now I have two stoves and neither of them work. One is dead and the other, disconnected. This will resolve itself on Tuesday. In the interim, I have an exciting new piece of loungeroom furniture. The clever delivery person found a way of making it fit.

Life is definitely on the mend.

(no subject)

Now that my stove is sitting there, looking like a flat surface, I want to write about the amazing firm I bought it from. It ought not be an amazing firm. It ought to be a really ordinary white goods place. There really ought to be no post at all. Except... one thing the last few weeks have taught me is to really appreciate it when people get things right, and this business got everything right. I would be in a much worse place if they hadn't, too. So I'm going to tell you the story of the stove, because it's a happy one, and I'm going to suggest that if you are in Australia and you need whitegoods, there's this awesome online discount place in Queensland.

The friend who talked me into finally dealing with the stove issue took me round all the major shops in Canberra right at the beginning of the process. We found that there were only 2 models sold anywhere in this fair city that fitted the space in my kitchen, that they were variants on the same stove anyway (ceramic or electric top being the real difference) and that it all came down to price and delivery.

The cheapest place was Domayne (for the record), and I nearly signed up that day. I had already sussed out the lack of choice - Australia really only does have available one style of elevated stove for apartments built in the seventies. It was really just a matter of getting the cheapest price. They weren't sure about delivery, though, and printed me out some papers.

I looked at the papers and something niggled, so I said "I'll take this home and think about it." I decided to do the thinking extra-carefully when another $150 suddenly came off my quote. For the first time all day, the stove looked as if it would actually cost something close to my budget (if I went with the cheaper of the two possibilities). My excuse was that the stove was not something they kept in their warehouse and that they were going to order it in anyway so it was sensible for me to take due care.

My google-fu turned up the reason for that niggle fairly quickly. The guy had taken the product specifications from another website, even down to the delivery details (which is probably why he got all cautious about them). I looked up the prices on the other website (the Queensland electrical discounter) and sudednly even the ceramic cooktop was within my reach. I would have to extend, but I could do it. I decided to stop to think some more. That was months ago. Buying this stove meant taking from my superannuation and that wasn't something I was going to do lightly.

A few weeks ago I stopped the thinking and went back online to order from the discounter.

I am so glad I waited. They had a brand new ceramic top model (a third choice!) at the same price as the one I had envied just a bit earlier. The one I could just afford (because before then my emergenecies had not happened - only the stove was dead) because it was the same price as the less-desirable stove even on Domayne's cheapest quote.

I rang them and they advised me strongly not to buy the old model from anywhere, because the manufacturer would stop making spare parts for it soon. They said there were no supplies of the new stove in stock anywhere in Australia, though, but that if I ordered it they would kick rather hard and that I would get it within 10 working days (instead of the three if it had come from a warehouse). And that the new stove would have a nice warrantee. It had a better programmable function than the old model. Oh, and it wasn't a Chef (cheapest brand on the market) it was a Westinghouse. It would still cost the same as the model that wasn't being manufactured any more. Was there anything else?

This is when I ordered the stove. It was 4 working days before my delivery phonecall (they really *did* talk to the manufacturer and say "This stove is for now, not next year"). I arranged for delivery for that fabbo Friday.

Just before 5 pm on the Thursday the whole electrician and friend-support thing went disastrously wrong (and obviously I was really unwell and didn't yet realise it). I did a panicked phonecall to Amanda (the nice Queensland lady).

"Don't worry," she said, "This is really simple."

She rang the delivery people and said "I know the stove is loaded on the truck. Would you mind unloading it? She can't take delivery tomorrow after all. Deliver in a fortnight." The delivery people were also great and rang to check with me personally. Amanda rang me back to say "It has been done - now stop worrying."

Today the stove came at exactly the time they said it would, and the delivery guy, as you know, went out of his way to make sure it fitted into the small space I have. It turns out that the delivery people don't work for the discount place - they came directly from Electrolux (who make Westinghouse stoves). I so admire that Electrolux delivery team - at every point in my saga they've done things to suit my needs, not their convenience.

Now you know why the stove makes me so very happy. It's not just the joy it will give me in my kitchen, or the ease it will give to my food history. It's that there are actually businesses that run like this.

Just imagine how bad my August would have been if I was waiting for a stove to arrive that Friday, instead of ringing the HealthFirst number and getting to hospital.