Our Jenn Air Cooktop Range Died

It seems that the demands on my wallet never cease.  Last week my wife decided to make something on the stove.  We have a Jenn Air stove that just sits in a hole on the kitchen island in our home.  Our oven is not connected to this and is on a wall   in the kitchen.  (It’s not a range/oven combo).  Anyway, when my wife turned the knob, a large spark came out of the burner and we heard a loud “pop”.  It was clear that something was wrong with it so we killed the circuit breaker in the garage.

Buying a new range was absolutely nowhere in my financial budget but luckily we do maintain a sizeable emergency fund for just this type of occasion.  Initially I thought I’d pull the entire unit out of the island and see if I could fix it.  Taking it out took about 10 minutes as all I had to do was disconnect the wiring, unscrew some retainer bolts that hold it in place and then disconnect the downdraft vent.  We have a Jenn Air c236b model in case anyone out there happens to be a Jenn Air “Rain man”.

Once I had the unit removed I started taking it apart.  I really had no idea how it was put together but it was pretty obvious which screws needed to be removed to get at various parts of the range.  I finally found a large wire that had broken off the receptacle where the burners plug in.  A neighbor and I soldered the wire back on to the connector and thought that might take care of it.  In the back of my mind I was questioning whether this would really fix it because it was acting like there was a short and a disconnected wire that wasn’t touching anything around it wouldn’t short out.

I carried the unit back in and set it in the hole on the island.  I reconnected the wires and made sure everything looked okay and then turned the breaker on.  When I came back in to the kitchen I noticed that one of the lights on the range was on.  This light normally tells you to be careful because one of the rings might still be hot.  I should have realized that, since the stove wasn’t hot there was still a problem.  I think part of me just had some hope that everything was fine now and we had fixed it without spending a dime.  I’m an idiot.

My wife was standing about 5 feet away from the stove and I was standing right in front of it.  You know when you aren’t sure what something is going to do, you kind of lean in so you can just barely reach the switch and then cringe a little when you turn the knob?  That was me.  As I tuned the burner switch on, one of the burners basically exploded and shot a shower of red hot sparks in about an 8 foot diameter.  In the matter of less than a second I had turned the burner back off as my wife screamed.  Thankfully neither of us was injured and the damage to the house seemed to just be a few etched burn marks on the tile counter of the island.  We were really lucky.

That’s all it took for me to decide enough was enough.  I turned off the circuit breaker, poured a nice stiff Vodka drink and called it a day.  I suppose I was both disappointed that we were now going to have to spend the money on a new range and at the same time felt like somehow my manly capabilities were now showing their limits.  Arrrghhh.

The next day we ventured out and did some shopping.  We went to Sears first because they have such a large selection of appliances.  The price on a replacement Jenn Air range that has the smooth glass top surface was $1389.  We had already identified that we were going to stick with Jenn Air because the old one had lasted 16 years and because the connections for wiring, venting etc were roughly in the same spot.  It also turns out that the hole in our kitchen island is perfect for the Jenn Air but is a bit too big for some of the other choices we had.  I wasn’t about to put a new countertop on there too.  Anyway, Sears’ price was $1389 but they had discounted it down to $1250.  Ugh.  The cheapskate in me really hated the idea of spending that much money on a range.  It was clear that we needed to do some more shopping to see if anyone else had a better deal. 

We left Sears and went to Albert Lee appliances, which is a local company in the greater Seattle area.  Their price was $1349.  I explained to my salesman that Sears had it for $1250 and asked whether he could beat that.  He disappeared for a few minutes and came back to say that he could sell it to me for $1075.  That price surprised me because I didn’t think he’d lower it that much.  As tempted as I was, I decided to think about it some more and we went home. 

After we had been home for awhile I decided that there was really no way around buying the new one.  I really didn’t want to have someone come out and look at the old one.  I’m sure we could have had it fixed for $300+ but then I’d still have the same range and wonder when the next part was ready to fail.  On top of that, my wife had been commenting that she really would like to have the glass top range so it was easier to keep clean.  I was planning on going back down to Albert Lee and when I was halfway there decided to run by Sears and give them one more shot at my business in hopes that they’d lower their price further.  My salesperson at Sears talked to her manager after I explained the situation and then she called Albert Lee Appliances to confirm the price.  I was surprised to find out that Albert Lee told the Sears salesperson the price they quoted me was $1029.  Gosh, $46 cheaper than they had actually told me.  My salesperson went back to her manager and they agreed to meet that price and beat it by 10% of the difference.  In the end I paid $996 or so for the unit.  I was very happy to have gotten a 29% discount.  While it took a little work, the payoff was very well worth it.  I almost feel sorry for the people that walk in and pay the price on the tag.

Unfortunately nobody has these in stock so we have to wait until Monday to pick it up at the distribution center.  The distribution center is only about ten minutes from our house so it’s no big deal to run down there on Monday.  Hopefully the installation will go much smoother than my moronic attempt to fix the old one.