Allow me to regale you with the tale of my past week as we've finally reached the end of what became a saga.

Wednesday of the week before last we placed an order for a new range/oven from Costco. The one we have came with our house when we moved in more than a decade ago and we already had to do a repair on one of the burners. But the oven has been annoyingly cool (as in temperature) and it was time for an upgrade. So we shopped online and found a deal for one that has a double oven. A feature that I and my mother-in-law are quite excited for.

And so begins our story.

Day 0

The new oven was delivered last Saturday and sat in its box in our living room. It should have been a one-day event with them removing the old one and installing the new one. Nice and easy.

Nope. This house is a continuous example of "it's always more complicated than it should be."

When the installers started to remove the old stove we discovered that it was directly wired in to the house. Which is a no-no. But it meant the installers couldn't actually remove the old one and install the new one. They assured us that we could schedule them to come back out without any additional charge to finish the install after an electrician fixed the wiring. Yep, makes sense, fair enough.

So we had to call a local company for an electrician, and they scheduled one to come out last Monday. Which, unfortunately, was while I was sick. I was fighting a weird bug. I was extremely exhausted on Sunday such that I felt it was the first sign of oncoming sickness, but no other symptoms were really present. I ended up sleeping the majority of Monday except when I had to deal with this electrician.

Day 2

So the electrician arrived, ready to install a normal, modern, 4 prong outlet for stoves. When he disconnected the old stove, he discovered even more complexity. Since the house is from the 1960s it has 3-wire wiring, which is not how it is done in modern housing and is grandfathered in for older homes like ours - so he had to go get an outlet for it.

Okay fine. So far everything is "normal."

He ran to a store or supplier and came back with a new outlet. Installed it. And then charged us an arm and a leg for the work. Granted every electrical service we've had for this house has cost a lot so I don't really question it.

This is where things started going wrong, though we had no idea yet.

I didn't have the 'whip' (the cord that connects the stove to the outlet), because the one they brought was four-pronged. With our shiny new power outlet installed I scheduled Costco to come back out.

Day 4

Costco couldn't have the installers out again until Wednesday. So now we were five days without a working stove, which honestly was a big impact for us - I cook dinner most nights of the week. I stressed to Costco that they needed to bring a three-prong whip when I made the appointment.

... Except their whip did not match the outlet configuration electrician installed. Like, at all. So they still couldn't install the new one, but at this point I had them take the old one away since it was disconnected and unusable. Again they reminded me they would come out and install it once we got it fixed.

Day 6

I called the electricians and they could send the same guy out again on Friday. The call made clear they weren't going to easily accept they made a mistake, but I was fairly sure they had. So yesterday was six days without a stove.

He came out, and when he saw the whip they brought, he was perplexed and said what we had was from somewhere in Asia and not normal. He could find the right outlet, but then he tried to sell me on paying him to fix the outlet. I told him not a chance. Either he screwed up and needed to fix it, or if he didn't screw up I would go get the right connector for our new stove.

At this point he sort of hems and haws and said here is what he'd need to look for, etc. Which, even though I am far from an electrician, set off alarms in my head. He made a show of trying to cut me a deal and I said, "Either fix it or free or we're done." He refused and I sent him on his way.

So now I needed to get a definitive answer on this. Did they screw up and I needed to push it, or could I find the whip? I asked the Internet. I turned to Google and Claude and got the "no, they screwed up" - but it's an old house, and I needed to be sure. So I reached out to my nephew who does commercial electrical stuff and share all the relevant details and he checked into it and confirms they screwed up. I also went the true Millennial solution of posting to Reddit about it.

Every avenue said the same thing: they screwed up. The subreddit also informed me I got taken for a ride on the price and was an idiot for just paying it and not price shopping, which is fair and good to know.

So I called the company back and said they needed to come fix this. The dispatcher was nice and efficient, but she said she couldn't get someone out the same day again. I get it. This wasn't an emergency and it was already Friday afternoon, but I did note that it had been a week since we'd had a working oven. She said they'd get someone out on Saturday.

Day 7

So, as I started writing this, the electrician was on the way to the house for the third (and hopefully final) time. The first two appointments were with the same guy. This was a different guy

The new electrician was no-nonsense. He walked in and said, "Yup, that's the wrong plug." And then he had one in the van and he swapped out the outlets, before then also helping me slide the new range into position. All told, he took about 45 minutes (including deciding to rotate the outlet after trying to connect the new stove and determining it was needed.)

And now our new range and oven is finally installed.

My charitable belief is that the first guy made an honest mistake. He probably hadn't ever done a three wire range wiring install before and he went with the outlet he uses much more these days which is used for EVs. But when he was called to come out again, he didn't do research and he either doubled down on being right or the uncharitable framing is that he realized he screwed up but didn't want to take the financial hit and so he tried to double down and charge me for it.

Whatever the truth is, I'm glad this is done. It was definitely an annoying week between being sick and not having a stove or oven for a week while this got sorted.

Knowledge for Others

So, here is what he installed originally. It's called a 6-50R and is a 3-wire outlet for houses, but it is meant to be used for things like welders or charging EV outlets, etc.

What should have been installed: 10-50R:

In case someone lands here searching for their own answers: These are 3-wire outlets. Modern US houses (ones built after 1996) use 4-wire wiring for stoves in kitchens.

What Did I Learn

Do more research. - I should have better educated myself on these things once it was clear something was going wrong. I waited too long to really engage rather than just expect the professionals involved to solve it.

Always get multiple quotes for house projects. - The cost of the outlet was far above what I was expecting and we really got taken advantage of by not looking for competitive bids.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice and I'm never working with your business again. - I won't be recommending the electrician business to others. The final guy would have changed my entire outlook had he been here for the first or even second visit. Going through this and having the added indignity of the first one trying to charge me to fix it really soured me on working with them again.

Costco continues to be great. - Their delivery folks were great and easy to work with, zero frustrations were caused by them.