Giving away a £1,000 range cooker - any recommendations for local homeless charities?

krappyrubsnif

This is a long story, but I have a very good double oven / six burner range cooker to give away. It’s an insurance replacement job so we are getting a brand new one. I know it will only be dumped in landfill if it is taken away by the insurers and as it is almost fully functional I’d rather give it away to a charity for the homeless - any suggestions, people?

The only thing wrong with the old one is that one of the gas burners doesn’t work properly - otherwise it’s fully functional and indeed top quality, six years old but in reasonable condition and all but the ring works. The same model is still being sold in the shops, selling price £1,178 at John Lewis. (The model number is Cannon By Hotpoint CH10456GF S). Colour black.

If I can’t get a charity to take it, I’ll be open to offers from anyone local prepared to pay for disconnection and removal.

Hope to get this sorted by Wednesday.

vetski

Try British Heart Foundation? They collect, but I don't know if they disconnect. Gas disconnection is easy and DIYable, electrical may need a professional if it's wired into the mains rather than just has a plug which routes through a fused switch.

krappyrubsnif

Thanks @vetski .... I thought the gas might be the hard / dangerous bit!

krappyrubsnif

....British Heart Foundation won’t take it because ‘they have no means of testing that it works’. (This rule of theirs applies only to computer printers and cookers).

Nuts! They could come round and cook lunch on it if they wish.........

vetski

No - gas connections changed some years ago to make them safer. If you look behind your cooker, you should see a flexible black tube coming out of it, with a brass connector at the end. That connects to another brass connector on most likely a rigid pipe, and separating the 2 connectors is well within the ability of a lay person. However, when you get your new cooker, you are not supposed to connect it yourself (says my Gas Safe friend) - that should be done by a fitter so they can check the connection.

krappyrubsnif

Thumbs up emoticon

HolbornFox

You cannot install faulty second hand gas appliances so i am not sure of the commercial value to a charity.

krappyrubsnif

I would not say this is faulty.

HolbornFox

One of the gas burners does not run properly?

Not pissing on your chips, it's the regs.

harpistic

How much would it cost to get it fixed so that it's fully-functional? If that's the hurdle (potentially) preventing it from going to a worthy home such as a homeless charity or soup kitchen...

HolbornFox

The problem would occur when the commercial outfit had the yearly gas inspection undertaken as the issue might be At Risk or worse Immediately Dangerous and capped off.

May just need a good clean, who knows.

krappyrubsnif

It's a long, long story @HolbornFox. A fable for our times of consumerism, corporate culture, bureaucratic inefficiency, the wacky world of insurance and hours of elevator music.

krappyrubsnif

@vetski not sure I agree with you about the gas. I can see a black tube and some connectors to twist, but nothing to shut off the gas. I can feel a call to N4 Gas coming on.

HolbornFox

A gas bayonet is self closing, you do not need to shut off the gas, just push and twist.

@vetski is correct.

conformable_kate

Try freecycle? (Very tempting but sadly I don't think I have the space.)

vetski

Krappy, the best analogy I can come up with is a coffee filter machine. If the jug is in the right place, the dome of the lid presses up against the non-return valve and the coffee drips into the pot. If there is no pot, then the non-return valve is not activated, so the coffee will not drip out (for this purpose, we can ignore the fact that the coffee will overflow from the filter itself!). The gas cannot escape through the bayonet unless the other bayonet is attached.

Papa

This is up there with great DIY gambles you consider taking.

Do I work on the basis that my gas pipe is set up properly and will do what it's meant to and close itself off...

Or will I create a homemade gas leak.

I remember a similar gamble backfiring for my dad when I was a kid involving some DIY plumbing.

krappyrubsnif

How long was your dad in hospital for?

krappyrubsnif

Stand down - N4 Gas on the way.

HolbornFox

Fairy liquid.

Why don't you ask them to look at the burner at the same time?

krappyrubsnif

Quite so

krappyrubsnif

The catalogue of bureaucratic error and inefficiency that masquerades as Hotpoint customer service continues. No point in going into detail (and I do realise we are all just munchkins trapped in a world run by big bad corporate behemoths) - but I'd advise anyone to keep well clear of Hotpoint if they can. Unless of course you enjoy being held under virtual house imprisonment and subjected to hours of elevator music down the phone. Over and out

Papa

My dad's incident involved water not gas Krappy, fortunately no hospital, just a lot of water, coming out very fast, a minor flooding incident upstairs in the house, and a very angry wife.

Ali

Hotpoint has quite a history. I don't normally read wiki pages on washing machines but was interested to see they invented the toaster and called it the EL Tosto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotpoint#Grenfell_Tower_fire

Seems like it was one of their Fridges that may have started the Grenfell Tower fire.

krappyrubsnif

Well Hotpoint is toast as far as I'm concerned.