On Thursday evening I removed our old set-in range and began some cleanup and prep making ready for the new one. On Friday evening, my neigbor Craig helped me carry it over to his house where we replaced his range with our old one. Theirs was the same unit but it wasn’t working properly and was extremely “un-clean”. It was an easy swap removing 4 screws and 3 wires. So basically they got a clean working hand-me-down and are very pleased. They said their dishwasher wasn’t working well either so if we ever got a new one they’d take ours! Anyway, I took their old stove with me when I picked up our new one on Saturday morning in Bellevue, and Albert Lee Appliance took it off our hands. Got home with it on a very windy morning(its been that way all weekend again, blowing like crazy) and Craig helped us get it out of the truck and into the house. No way Wendy and I could have done that on our own, it was 250 lbs and no handles on the box. I had brought home a huge appliance dolly from work which we used to get it up the front steps into the house, Craig and Wendy pushed from below and I pulled and guided. We cut the box top off so Craig could see it. Then Wendy went to work and Craig walked home.
Then it was time to begin the install process. I had to trim approx 3/4″ of countertop from each side to widen it to just a hair over 30″. I used my rotozip with a very carefully measured guide clamped down on the front of the counter and held in place in back by another carefully measured stick perpendicular to the guide and parallel to the wall. The right side went first and I thought I’d messed it up but it turned out great. The rotozip would only go to the last 2″ and I had to finish that with a hand saw. The left side was faster and it all turned out perfect(I really expected something to be off so I was very pleased when it slid in snugly later on).
The existing electrical box and faceplate were too high for the back of the new range, they’d have been in the way, so I had to install another box near the floor, then string the new 40 amp power cable up thru the new box into the old box and wireclamp all the connections together. The range didn’t come with any cable or cord so I had to run to Home Depot in Issaquah to get what I needed. Local codes for new construction requires an outlet and plug instead of hardwiring the range. But ours isn’t new so the easiest thing to do was hardwire it the same way the old one was. Easy. It all just took time. Still needed some more parts so another trip to Ace Hardware in NB.
Wendy got home at 8:30 and I had just finished all the work. Now I needed her help to get it out of the box bottom it was sitting in and hooked up and moved into place. By the time we were done setting the height and levelling it, it was about 9pm. We turned on the power and voila’- everything works! Wendy then went to bed and read her new user manual, and I ran both ovens up to 350 to burn off any fresh oily smell(book says the racks are oiled lightly from the factory and should be oiled again with veg oil after each oven self-clean). Wendy had me put a separate oven thermometer inside each oven to verify the accuracy.
BEFORE 
AFTER 
By the time I was mostly cleaned up I was ready for a snack and then bed. It was almost midnight. Today, Sunday, I got up and hauled the appliance dolly back to work along with some of the various garbages leftover. Got back home in time for Wendy to take the truck to work. Now to finish up putting everything back in place including the baseboard trim underneath the counter and general cleaning. Looks nice.