Thread: Oh Smeg !!!!

Unfortunately you can't legally fix it yourself. Being an electrical appliance, unless you either have a full or restricted electrical licence you can't even pop a screw on the thing. This rule applies not only to fixed items like an oven, but any and all appliances or items that run on mains power. Huge fines and even jail time apply nowdays for these things.

Sadly while it may be easy to fix, tradies have us by the short and curlies, that is why they charge like mad because they know they can.

Can you claim under your contents insurance? It would class as fusion if you have that kind of cover. Or maybe the house policy as sometimes they count a fixed oven as contents and sometimes as a fixture of the house. Good luck with it.

We have recently ordered various parts and had delivered to FNQ from this company. Very helpful, efficient, and reasonably priced. Good luck.
Welcome to Stokes (Australasia) Limited
They are based in Ringwood Vic.

Cheers,
Ken

Firstly do you or your wife use the auto on off function, if not just bypass the clock function. If your not happy doing this get an appliance technician to do it for you. Wiring diagram is available on the net. This is what I did with my smeg oven. Now it works all the time.
Secondly lots of people blame power surges for all electrical faults. I can tell you it usally stays on but sometimes goes off and sometime will be low (brown out) and never really surges. Sometimes 11000 volt cables will fall onto 415 mains it is very rare and when it does happen every thing blows up and power companies are keen to fix things. You will have a hard time proving a power surge cooked the clock to the power company, but many technicians will write a quote stating this to your insurance company if you have cover and will probably charge accordingly knowing that insurance may pay them.

Originally Posted by Treads

And the only difference being that one of those brands is

It's actually the four letter one !

Seriously, Smeg is ridiculously overpriced for what it is, very average whitegoods.

Your, sir a dead right !

Originally Posted by pfillery

[snip]

Sadly while it may be easy to fix, tradies have us by the short and curlies, that is why they charge like mad because they know they can.

[snip]

No, tradies charge what they charge just to try and make some money to cover bloody overheads and the increasing costs of compliance in this increasingly over-regulated country

The reason that by law only licensed contractors can service equipment is that the average Bruce or Beryl has no idea on working with electricity safely or what good work practices are, even when things should be just plug and play. (and yes, I've seen some atrocious things perfromed by supposedly qualified tradesmen too)

If you saw some of the home spun wiring and repairs I've seen you'd wonder how more people don't die from electrocution. (ELCB's are a good thing !)

6.5Kw of steam injected baking power.

Big enough to roast large animals.

Originally Posted by rick130

No, tradies charge what they charge just to try and make some money to cover bloody overheads and the increasing costs of compliance in this increasingly over-regulated country

The reason that by law only licensed contractors can service equipment is that the average Bruce or Beryl has no idea on working with electricity safely or what good work practices are, even when things should be just plug and play. (and yes, I've seen some atrocious things perfromed by supposedly qualified tradesmen too)

If you saw some of the home spun wiring and repairs I've seen you'd wonder how more people don't die from electrocution. (ELCB's are a good thing !)

As a part ime handyman doing most jobs I'm legally allowed to undertake, I charge $30 an hour. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but in the scheme of things, compared to a lot of other household jobs like tiling, brick laying, putting up a garage or plumbing in a water tank, none of which require any sort of licence, permit or qualification to perform, I would rate a fair bit of electrical work, such as swapping out a power point or light fitting, as pretty basic work, not requiring a great amount of skill to do safely (power goes off, wires come out of each slot, wires go back in each slot, power goes back on) and mostly can be done with just a screwdriver.

Why is it then, that an electrician wants $80 - $120 an hour to do even the basics? I can understand charging this for jobs that require the skill such as fitting a new installation where the whole thing has to be done from scratch, but changing a power point or light switch takes 5 minutes, last time we had this done at work, the total for the job was close to $160, at my rate that's over 5 hours of labour, and the switch is a $5 item at any Bunnings.

As stated, I'm not having a go at tradies, but see a lot of disparity with pricing and believe that some charge more simply because they can. With pushes by the do-gooders to regulate everything, soon you will need to call a plumber in to change a tap washer or an electrician to change a light bulb. Where will this put prices then? I know there are plenty of idiots out there but statistically more people die on the roads or of cancer and heart disease than are killed changing out their own light switch or whatever it may be. If it was that bad, they would stop hardware shops and electical suppliers from selling it to anyone who isn't licenced, yet Haymans, Ideal etc etc all sell to anyone with money. If there was really an issue they would crack down on this.

Down off the soap box now!