Your cooker complaints – give your oven a scolding

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Under the Consumer Rights Act or earlier Sale of Goods Act, it is the retailer rather than the manufacturer who is responsible for dealing with faults. Manufacturers are often helpful but don’t have any legal responsibility unless there is a recall.

Here is a document intended for business rather than consumers: https://www.businesscompanion.info/sites/default/files/The%20sale%20and%20supply%20of%20goods_ALL_BIS_GOODS_GUIDANCE_SEP15.pdf This explains that the customer does not have to accept a second repair. The relevant information starts on page 45.

Ovens and cookers must comply with standards regarding how hot exposed parts can become if the appliance is used correctly. I suspect that your problem could be due to a faulty door seal and the escaping heat is damaging the knobs. It’s worth checking to see if this is the problem.

I see that there is a Safety Notice for your cooker, Adrian: http://www.belling.co.uk/safety-notice/

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As wavechange says, there are temperature limits on the parts that could normally be accessed (clearly not hotplates though!). From memory, for metal parts this is around 65⁰C, but I can’t check the standard at the moment as the site is under maintenance. So if the surface temperature exceeds that it probably indicates a fault as wavechange suggests; it might be a general design issue, but I’d hope that was unlikely.

With regard to paint, most finishes these days are not the true “stove enamel” which I remember as effectively a fused glass-like material. They will be polymer paints that are formulated in different ways to deal with a range of temperatures and heat-cured, so should not deteriorate functionally, although they might locally discolour. The certainly should not melt.

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I had a Belling cooker for 34 years and the enamel surface remained perfect and white. There was one very small chip mark, a weakness of enamelled surfaces. When I moved home I inherited a Bosch hob and ovens. The hob is enamelled and has remained white, but the ovens are painted and have yellowed, particularly the handles. Sometimes I could live without innovation.

duncan, I am simply speaking from my experience in manufacturing, where we used a range of heat-cured wet and powder paints to withstand different temperatures.

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all things that are made today are made so that they will have to be replaced in certain time Older products were made too last not to be changed when fashion changes or a new product is introduced by the maker Why do we get “improved” mobile phones every few months It always seems a few months since the ” now outdated” version came out They just want your money nothing more

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As Bob Monkhouse used to say “People used to laugh at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian……..they aren’t laughing now..” I’ve a 24 year old car and no one laughs at it. It is true that some – perhaps many- people feel the need to keep up with their peers; perhaps the best example is fashion in clothing where we have far more clothes than we ever need to wear; most are for decoration not protection. However, I also believe many do not follow this philosophy excessively. Our cooker, as with most products (including a car!) was a jointly-agreed purchase, made many years ago; its surfaces are in excellent condition, with a painted coating.

As for Adrian’s comment on paint “melting” I am intrigued. It needs a high temperature as most such paints “cure” with heat and, unlike thermoplastic, do not just soften when reheated. As for dials (controls?) shedding paint, this can also be down to poor surface preparation before painting, giving lack of adhesion.

I have now looked at the standards for allowable temperature rises of touchable surfaces – BS EN 60335-2-6. Depending on the material and function, these are generally within the range 40-65⁰C. If such surfaces on Adrian’s cooker melt paint, there is a fault.

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Adrian, I had a similar problem with a Belling cooker. The socket on the moulded knob fractured easlly on the metal control shaft. I pointed this out to Belling as a design fault (probably wrong plastic/blend used and they replaced the whole set – twice as it happens. The new ones have worked perfectly ever since – now many years.

Maybe if you point this out to Indesit and quote the Consumer Rights Act 2015 they will be more helpful. They will also be under guarantee. So you should certainly not have to pay for replacements.

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I wonder it Adrian was referring to the shaft socket moulded as part of the knob? That was the weakness on my cooker. There are plastics perfectly capable of acting as shafts though.

You might be in looking up some standards, Duncan: http://www.manchester.gov.uk/directory_record/162241/british_standards_online/category/1216/business_and_careers

Plastic shafts might have been chosen for reasons of electrical and heat insulation or because they are cheaper. Replacing the switches is not as simple as swapping knobs.

Malcolm – Adrian referred to the need to replace switches, so it’s not the knobs that are the problem.

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I assume that Adrian is using pliers to turn the stub of the broken shaft. As Malcolm says, the problem was probably the use of the wrong plastic, not an uncommon problem with consumer goods.

Maybe Adrian would clarify. Nonetheless it should still be a guarantee issue. They should, if they are indeed the switches, be replaced professionally presumably if the remainder of the guarantee is to be preserved.

duncan, your comment-1530976 “can you quote me the “standard ” on this ?“. This seems to be IEC 61058-1. A quick glance at BS EN 61058-1-1 gives tests under different conditions of use for mechanical switches for appliances and deals with functionality after endurance testing.

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It’s absurd that information relevant to domestic products used by citizens of this country is not freely available. If you have a look at the link I’ve provided you will find the relevant document, Duncan.

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It is more absurd that legal aid has been decimated.

Standards organisations are private companies that work in cooperation to develop, issue and update international standards for the benefit of us all – manufacturers, public organisations, charities, local authorities, healthcare……… That work costs money and has to be recouped somehow. Much of it will be from those organisations that use the standards by paying for them. The organisations that sit on the working parties and committees who do this work are normally unpaid, so is an additional cost to their employers. If you want free standards for all then, as we have discussed at length elsewhere, all countries will need to find ways of funding them presumably from taxation. Personally I would not want to see standards organisations finances dependent upon government support.

If you click the button ‘Go to British Standards Online’ and enter the BS number in the search box that will take you to the relevant document. Some features are disabled and the only way I know of saving documents is to make screen captures. You can search within documents.

Malcolm – I have suggested how a different funding model could be used to make BS Online available to everyone. One option would be to levy charges on those companies whose goods and services must comply with particular standards.

duncan, if you use the link http://www.manchester.gov.uk/directory_record/162241/british_standards_online/category/1216/business_and_careers quoted and click the British standards online button, that will take you to the home page. Put in the number of the standard you wish to look at in the search box at the top right.

I would much prefer that Which? offered a link to standards for those who wish to view them.

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You may need to enable cookies, Duncan. After each visit I start seeing marketing from BSI, which reminds me to clear my browsing history.

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I’ve got a cookie from bsigroup.com, or did have.

Malcolm suggested that Which? provided a link to British Standards, presumably so that users of Which? Convo could look up standards relating to cookers and ovens, and the other topics we discuss in the Conversations. What’s the difference between Which? providing a link and BSI doing this?

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Have a look at some standards and I expect you will pick up a cookie.

BSI is a private company, as I’ve explained before, that sells international standards which are subject to the international terms; not something, I presume, within BSI’s remit to vary. As I said above, the lost revenue would need to be made up from somewhere else. Perhaps they could offer a pay per view service?

My suggestion in the past was that Which? allow named people with an interest in standards access through their own online access – if they have one.

Alternatively BSI do offer a list of organisations that have online access available to the public – some libraries for instance. So anyone interested could ask them and see if they can register with an appropriate library.

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I believe in freedom of information Malcolm and so do many academics. That’s why an increasing number of journals are freely available worldwide.

Why should certain people have access because they are interested? Perhaps books should be hidden from the public unless they declare an interest. 🙁

Libraries that provide access are few and far between. I remember you telling me that you don’t live near one.

I open it on Google. What screen do you get when you click on the “go to British Standards online” button?

Books aren’t free either.

Tell me how you would like to see International Standards funded so everyone can see them for nothing.

We have had this conversation before and we simply differ. If you are so minded, I’d suggest you ask Which? (as I did, but no response) and ask BSI. I cannot help you except by pointing out that access is available. I have it and I don’t subscribe.

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I can’t help any further as I’m a PC dummy, duncan, sorry.

wavechange – thanks for the link – it worked for me 😀

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Gentlemen – shall we move this discussion about standards to The Lobby? I feel sorry for Adrian Hook, who asked an innocent question about his oven controls.