Oven bought in March, arrived in July
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The docket said "ETA 3 weeks". It took 106 days.
Back in March we went shopping for the last gas appliance in our house. Our Smeg was a split personality — electric oven underneath, gas burners on top — and those burners were the only thing here still burning gas.
Why bother? A gas flame heats your kitchen more than your dinner: only about 40% of the energy reaches the food. Induction makes the pan itself the heating element and delivers 85–90%. It boils faster, responds just as instantly, and the glass beside the pan stays cool enough to rest your hand on.
Then there's the air. A gas burner is an unflued combustion appliance producing nitrogen dioxide and fine particulates while you lean over it stirring. Having spent three years taking gas out of our heating and our hot water, stopping at one last open flame seemed a strange place to draw the line. Especially when that flame is inside the house.
There's money in it too. Our gas supply charge alone runs to 91 cents a day — about $333 a year for the privilege of having a pipe connected, before burning a single megajoule. Cutting the connection ends that, and cooking on 13 kW of solar and three Powerwalls costs us nothing we weren't already generating.
We also knew we liked induction, because we already had some. A portable Westinghouse hotplate has been our spare kitchen for years — on the bench at home, and off the back of the car on road trips.
We chose a 90 cm Westinghouse — induction cooktop, pyrolytic oven, one freestanding unit that drops straight into the Smeg's gap. $4,032 at The Good Guys in Narre Warren, discounted to $3,628.80, plus $59 delivery.
Then we waited.
The oven reached the store in June and sat there, while we made a few failed attempts to book the installation through The Good Guys system, with confusion between them, us, and two allocated installers.
Reconstructed from the emails and the phone calls, it went something like this, over eight weeks.
Retailer: The installer arrives tomorrow.
Installer: We can't tomorrow. We need to see your house first.
Retailer: Then we'll allocate a second installer as well.
Us: Does either of them know what the job is?
Retailer: One will come out and quote. In about six weeks.
Retailer: (by email) We're all done, enjoy! Here's your tax invoice.
Us: Nobody came. Nothing was installed.
Us: Let's forget the installation entirely. Please just deliver the oven.
Us: Hello?
Retailer: Thank you for calling. We are experiencing higher than normal call volumes. It may be easier to come into the shop.
Us: It says that every single time I ring. When is it ever normal?
Retailer: Your oven seems to have been picked up.
Us: Picked up by whom? We are standing here without an oven.
Retailer: Let me transfer you to the national sales hub.
Us: They just transferred me back to you.
Retailer: Let me transfer you to the store.
Us: You are the store.
Retailer: I've emailed instructions to our staff: hold this oven, send it out to them.
Us: Thank you.
Retailer: Oops. They didn't read my instructions, and have sent your oven back to the warehouse with the surplus stock.
Us: Where is it now?
Retailer: Airport West. Other side of Melbourne.
Us: That's further away than when we started.
Us: And the $280 we paid for the installation that never happened?
Retailer: Ah. That one can't be refunded electronically. You'll need to come into the shop.
Retailer: And it will be $339, not $280. The system won't produce the smaller number.
Us: You're refunding me more than I paid because your computer can't subtract?
Retailer: Covers your petrol from Emerald.
Us: The drive in our EV will only cost a few cents, but we'll take the win.
By this point we had started calling them The Goof Guys, which felt unkind right up until the next phone call.
He tracked the oven down at a warehouse in Airport West, on the far side of Melbourne, and got it onto a truck. It arrived on a Sunday evening, 106 days after we bought it.
Everyone we spoke to was apologetic and visibly worn down by the same system that was wearing us down. Somebody just needed to read an email. If anyone had read mine, I'd have saved hours on the phone. If anyone had read their own manager's, our oven would never have gone back to the warehouse.
Coming up: five companies quoted us to install the oven and a new circuit, more than $1,000 apart.
Related Posts
- The Smeg we were replacing Our last gas appliance 30 May 2026
- Earlier — getting gas out of our heating Goodbye gas — disconnecting the ducted heating 4 Feb 2026
- Earlier — the heat pump that replaced gas hot water Heat pump installation 3 Dec 2025
- Boiling water on the portable induction stove, camped in the Snowy Mountains Breakfast and a free shower in Tubbut 31 Dec 2025
- Wishing the car could power it — the case for V2L I wish my Model Y had V2L 30 Dec 2025
- Next — five quotes to install it Quotes to install an oven and induction cooktop 20 Jul 2026
- Installation day Installing our induction stove 27 Jul 2026
Links
- The oven on the Westinghouse site Westinghouse WFEP9757DD
- Where we bought it The Good Guys — WFEP9757DD
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Congrats on completing the journey albeit seem to have had a rediculous journey with not working Powerwalls of two generations, two cars, two houses.
It's been alot for us too.
Bee excited to see you get back to tripping.
Our electrification savings just paid for our honeymoon and my 50th birthday (had to call it a few things as it was best part of $20k).
https://youtu.be/TidwOi0NMI0?si=5NAU8jjMkI1q1XP-
Last year all electric saved us
$13,000 petrol (65,000kms between 3 Tesla's)
Vs neighbours
$3000 in fossil street gas
$2000 in electricity
7 services @$300 each $2100
+ $2000 referral credits.
$23k
Costs $6000 in interest on the money it took for solar and battery.
$13,000 in car repayments
$1400 front suspension parts at 100,000kms model 3P Lower control arm spherical bearings and radius arms spherical bearings ~$1000 parts $400 fitting and wheel alignment
2 sets of 245/45R 18 at ~$1000 a pop both EOFY/ black friday sales.
$22400
Got back another
$9000 from tax-man
Work use of my car 37,000kms
Up $9600 or thereabouts.
- doesn't include any capital / interest / depreciation or other two Tesla's.
- doesn't include capital/ interest etc on other things like Heatpumps Aircons EVSEs.
Now Lilly D'Ambrosio is out....
State of Victoria's electrification hangs in the air
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