My Father will be selling his house in a few years. Before that time comes there are things he would like to fix with the house so that he will not have a difficult time selling. One of the things he has decided to do was replace the electric stovetop with a new smooth stovetop.

If I wasn’t around he would pay some “professional” way too much money to do it. He is not very skilled in do-it-yourself stuff, plus he’s an old man. So, I volunteered.

Here is the stove I am replacing. This thing is begging to be put out of it’s misery. It’s like the old dog down the road with one leg and diarrhea you used to throw rocks at for fun when you were a kid. Ok, maybe that was just me.

It reminds me of the electric stovetops that was in the ghetto apartments I lived in when I was in college. It’s definitely time to get this thing replaced.

The old stovetop

Getting electrocuted is not fun, well, unless there’s nipple play involved. I first found and turned of the breaker. Stoves use 220v, so look for a double-breaker.

After looking around underneath the stovetop, I found two screws that held this thing in place. I removed the screws then pushed the unit out the top. I then disconnected the electrical wires from the bottom of the appliance.

The hole where the old stove was removed

I had Pops scrape off the 50 years of gooey grease and dirt that had found it’s way under the edge of the stovetop. We were sure to save it so we can make gravy later.

Removing many years of grime

Here are the installation instructions. No really. They are pretty useless. They might as well just said, “Just do it.”

Retarded installation instructions

Here is the new smooth top unit I will be installing. The front right burner can be either a small one or a big one. Options are good. I can’t wait for the model to come out that has the wipers on the headlights.

Smooth glass electric stovetop, $499

I had to modify the hole a bit to get the new unit in. I had to take my jigsaw and square up the round corners. I then set the new unit in. The new unit was to be wired a bit differently than the old one. With the old stovetop, the house power was attached directly to the unit. In this installation, the new stovetop came with an already attached power cable. This meant that I had to get a junction box installed so that I could wire them both together.

You don’t want to have electrical connections out in the open. It’s against code and you’d really hate to reach under there to get a pot and grab a wire by mistake! So I installed the junction box, wired it up, and put the cover on.

Because it is 220 volt, there are 2 positive wires (black and red) and a neutral/ground wire (white). I wired the red to red, black to black, and ground to ground and white.

Use a junction box to conceal electrical connections

There was no way that I could see to secure the new stovetop to the cabinet, so I guess it just sits in the hole. This makes getting the hole size very important. You don’t want the stovetop sliding from side to side. Below is the new electric smooth stovetop installed.

The new stovetop looks way better than that old crusty thing!

I flipped the circuit breaker back on and took it for a test drive. It worked great. Mission accomplished. Guiness time.

Caveman Conclusion: Cooking is for people that don’t have wives.

More gnarly posts by the Caveman:
• My House With Tornado Damage [PICS]
• The Future Of Information Technology
• My Visit To The Milk Farm
• Rockin’ Review Of Ozzfest 2007
• Link To Caveman Conclusion