Antique Stove Heaven

Description of Work: Repair my oven

Description of Work: Serviced kenmore stove from 1950s. I'd done some research and was expecting to pay up to $300 for a new thermostat. I was told this was likely by these guys as well, as they have to replace a lot of them. They were able to fix the stove and only charged the service fee instead of for installing a new thermostat, even though I wouldn't have known the difference. Honest, open and great to work with. I will return to them when the next issue arises in one of my apartments.

Description of Work: They fixed and adjusted my old Okeefe and Merritt stove. Replaced some broken springs and clogged gas lines.

Description of Work: Fix my stove

Description of Work: Responded quickly to my phone message and spent time discussing options for repairs of my antique oven.

Description of Work: We have a 1955 GE oven that was not heating. The technician replaced the heating element and it works like new.

Description of Work: Owner came over very quickly, within a day of scheduling appointment with his office. He replaced 2 of 4 burners on cook top with new, fixed the "simmer" burner that can't be replaced with new, and got all the pilot lights to work. He also fixed my stove, adjusted it's temperature and basically made two 1960s Wedgewood Holly items function like new. All this took about 15 minutes. I was so encouraged that I drove down a couple of weeks later to his store and bought some replacement splatter pans and plastic knobs. If you have an old fashioned stove and want to keep in working condition, call this guy.

Description of Work: so, i decided to check on angieslist before searching on yelp, because, well, i pay for the service, and also i get more detailed reviews here. but what i wanted was simple. i just needed someone to come to my house and take a look at my (low-end) 24" 1950s o'keefe and merritt stove. someone who could explain to me the few remaining mysteries of how it works. you see, i own a 1925 craftsman home, and try not to own vintage items that i cannot repair myself. so far, i've been able to open up the stove and make sense of it. it's not a complicated piece of machinery. nowhere near as complicated as a motorcycle. when i called, the woman who answered the phone flatly informed me that if my thermostat was faulty, it would be a minimum of $85 just to send someone to my house (we're talking THREE MILES (a five-minute drive) from the shop's location --- i intentionally chose a nearby place, because the closer your repair person to your dwelling, the lower the carbon footprint of having said repair completed). now, i'm fairly used to getting service people coming out and giving free estimates, and i understand that not everyone can do this. but between myself and my various DIYer acquaintances in the vintage and antique salvagery community (which i have long been affiliated with, once wrote an NPR article about, and for over a year worked directly in ), i am sure that we collectively could describe in detail everything that this little stove does. what i don't know about its few parts (none of which are moving parts) could easily be filled in by the kind of laid-back, friendly, community-oriented person who loves to meet a kindred DIYer who loves knowing how all things old and awesome work. this is the kind of community i'm used to dealing with. i'm a member of the LA Conservancy and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and a scholar of architecture. i'm not just a random lady off the street. but despite attempting to convey my above-consumer level of know-how, the woman on the phone was condescending and also raised her voice at me while repeating over and over again the same (word-for-word, i'm not exaggerating, either) three sentences. her attitude was more or less: pay us the prices we're charging or don't waste our time (they're way overcharging, and they're entitled to, if that's how they make ends meet, but i'm also entitled to ask for referrals to some slightly less consumer-oriented places). obviously they cater to wealthy people who buy fancy old stoves and are willing to pay through the nose for real estate, repairs, antiques, and all the rest. i've dealt with this demographic many times, and it's great they exist, because they are an important customer base for people like us who perform repairs, restorations, and invent adaptive reuse of old things and spaces. but we, ourselves, we aren't the ones who can afford the high markups. trying to convey this to her was like trying to tell a dog to sit while you wave a piece of bacon in the air. she interrupted me repeatedly saying, a repaired thermostat is $200 in addition to the $85 consultation fee. what??? the stove isn't worth $200, i explained to her. at which point she kept telling me to try buying a new one from "coast appliances" or something like that and then indicated it was exceptionally far away. when i asked her for a referral to the people who repair their thermostats, she implied there weren't ANY tinkerers in the L.A. area, let alone the state. she said, unless you expect the repair person to come all the way here from across the country, you're not going to get a repair person to your house to fix the thermostat. and if you you install it yourself, you'll void the warranty. tell me, if i buy a brand new thermostat for $150 to put on a $100 stove, why would i need a warranty? the replacement part costs more than the stove is worth. if the thermostat damages my stove, returning the thermostat gets me back more money than any warranty on the stove would be worth. not to mention, you can't really BREAK these stoves. there are just a few tubes connected in a few places, that gas flows through, with analogue knobs that turn on and off the flow of gas in the same way that the knob to your sink turns on and off the flow of water. there are no electronics inside, and it doesn't even have a pilot light for the oven (you have to manually light it every time you turn it on). it's about as unsophisticated as you can get, and it works wonderfully except that the oven gets too hot unless we leave it cracked open slightly, which is annoying, but certainly not fitting the category of a broken stove. the vast majority of this machine is enameled iron, with air gaps for insulation before another layer of enameled iron. if you don't know this, you pay the crazy costs these people are charging and think nothing of it. but when you're me, you don't do things this way. and the lady i spoke to thought that because i wanted to go about the repair in a different way that i was asking her to send a repair person out, pay no labor, and receive a free part. i did correct her repeatedly, but she wouldn't listen. earlier, i mentioned a motorcycle. that was for a reason. motorcycles are really simple machines compared to cars. most motorcycle owners (such as myself) end up knowing how to do a great deal of repairs themselves, because it just doesn't make sense to pay someone to do something as simple as changing a spark plug, for instance, when all you need is a $5 wrench made specifically for unscrewing a spark plug. the first time you go to your motorcycle mechanic, you'll know they're a good one when the following transpires: they tell you, hey, look here... this is all that was wrong. next time, you can bring it back to us and pay us our outrageous labor minimum (at my guys, minimum of 1 hr, which is $50) for this, or just do it yourself. it's that simple. if you see on your invoice that they changed the spark plug and no one bothered to tell you how easy it is to just do it yourself, then they're taking you for a sucker. the thing is, now i know when someone is seriously wrong with my bike (and i take it in, to these guys, who i trust , because they're always going to tell it to me straight), versus when it's something silly like a neighborhood kid came and messed with the throttle adjustment, and all i need is a flathead screwdriver to readjust it, which takes but a moment and saves me both the worry and the hassle. you have to know your customers. and when you're so obviously the kind of customer i am, you don't handle me in the way that she did. she was exceptionally unprofessional, quick to be angry and accusatory, and i kept trying to be calm and say, hey, i think you're misunderstanding me here. i'm trying to start on the road to the right people and resources so i can become better acquainted with my stove. she could have said, we're not equipped to do that, and why don't you try this repair guy named carlos who often did repairs on the stuff at silverlake salvage (back before they moved to pasadena). she could have said, our business is set up in a very strict no-sharing-industry-secrets manner, and therefore i cannot help you unless you're forking over $300 (in a more polite manner, of course). either of these would have been perfect responses to a customer like me. but she became so angry over the (false) premise that i wanted her company to give away (for free, she kept insisting) both labor and parts, that she talked over me in an angry manner. i never got around to telling her i own my own business in historic restoration & adaptive reuse, or that people frequently ask me and the folks i know for referrals. but i know that, and i know that i will NEVER recommend this company to anyone. if someone asks about them, i'll be prepared with an alternative company that i will recommend above this company. and all my industry friends will be hearing about this experience. this woman did her company a great disservice today the way she treated me. i recommend to all of you, fellow angieslist users, to steer clear. and if you must utilize them, avoid this woman who answers their phones (she has a slight southern drawl to her voice). if you've got a $5000 stove, then by all means, you may be the type of customer base they're targeting. but if you're lovingly restoring a teeny tiny 1920s craftsman bungalow to its former simple beauty (which means not using showy appliances, but small-scale, utilitarian ones), this place will just frustrate you. and remember, every salvage yard has a bunch of seldom-seen employees who can repair, modify, and hack anything old, working in the back somewhere. if you need the inner workings of your stove explained to you, go talk to them. they'll probably come over, demonstrate the adjustments to you while they perform them, and ask for a mere $50. they'll have to do it during their off hours, and they may not be insured, but you know where to find them if they do a shoddy job. just don't take this line of baloney from this woman that you'd have to find your repair person out of state. also, the Southern California Gas Company will always come out for a $50 stove service (they unclog all the lines and make sure you have not even the slightest gas leak---liability for them if you do!---and also fine-tune the burners for optimal performance). the only problem is, you usually have to wait about 2 weeks for someone to be available. (i don't know if DWP offers this or not, but i would assume so, since gas leaks are the last thing they want at any place they provide service). $85 just to drive five minutes to my house? no way! and with a rude person on the line? mega no way.