Big, fancy, imported, stainless steel ovens look great but you may be in for a nasty shock if something goes wrong.

The kitchen magazines and TV renovation shows are full of sleek, modern and often imported ovens that look great in a designer kitchen.  They are often exotic European brands with a luxury look and feel, and a luxury price tag to match.

Problems can arise when spare parts are required.  If the parts are available they could be many times the cost of a similar part for an Australian made oven.

For example, we recently priced a door seal for an imported oven.  An equivalent door seal for an Austrlian oven would cost around $30.  The complete door seal for the imported oven was almost $200.

Even worse, if parts are not available it may not be possible to repair the oven at all.

The more luxurious ovens can have specialist parts such as multi-function switches or digital controllers that are specific to that particular brand or model.  If one of these parts breaks down you need to get the exact replacement part to repair the oven.

There is no way to substitute a switch or controller from another manufacturer.

We have seen clients forced to throw away an otherwise perfectly good and quite expensive oven because there was no replacement multi-function switch available for their Italian made oven.

The well known imported brands should have a good range of spare parts available – for a price.

The situation where most people run into trouble is with the lesser known imported brands.  An importer has brought a couple of containers of ovens into the country and sold them off to home builders and renovators.

After a couple of years the small stock of spares has been used and the brand and model of oven is no longer being imported.  The distributor is now pushing a different brand and isn’t much help to those people who bought their earlier product.

If you’re building a new home or updating your kitchen you should check out the local brands such as Chef and Westinghouse.  You may be surprised to find that they do make a range of modern ovens that look as good as the imported ovens, without the high price tag.  And spare parts will be available in the future at a reasonable price.

For advice, repairs and spare parts for all makes and models of oven, please phone your Launceston electrician, Mance Electrical on 6331 4711.