BZZZZZZTTTT

Thats the noise I heard one night. NOT a good noise to hear!

Let me start at the beginning. Our old stove (and I DO mean old) finally died. It was well over 20 years old.

unfortunately, at the time it died, we didn't have a lot of spare cash to buy a new one. So we went shopping for a good cheap stove.

Enter the Hot Point. We were at Home depot and looking when we saw the Hot Point. It had all the things the more expensive brands had, but at a cheaper price. So, we bought it.

Now, we loved it when we got it. The oven was a decent size, with removable racks. We could take one rack out and move the other lower to cook a big turkey. It had the timer/clock so that we could set it and when the time was up it would buzz to let you know. It had a light so you could turn it on and look in the window to see how far along the cake (or whatever you were cooking)was.

The burners were easily removed so that you could clean the "drip pans" underneath. there was the "surface light" which let you know that a burner was on.

The bottom drawer held all the odd size pans that we had. It was easily pulled open and we used it for the pans that we didnt use that often.

It had a 2 year warrenty. well, that is something that I will talk about. It seems that any major appliance we buy, if it comes with a "2 year warrenty" thats just about how long it will last.

Ok, so now let me tell you about the night we heard the BZZZZZTTTTT noise.

My husband was cooking a small chicken in the oven. The Hotpoint at this time was just over 2 years old. He went into the bathroom, I was in the living room with the kids. Suddenly I heard "BZZZZTTTTTTTT from the kitchen. I yelled out to my husband "What was that noise?" he went into the kitchen and yelled "Come out here! QUICKLY!"

I ran into the kitchen to see flames coming out of the clock area of the stove! Thank God my husband was home, because he yanked the cord from the outlet and pulled the stove from the wall and had me get the fire extinguisher. He was able to put the fire out,and the only thing we lost was that stove.

That was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me, just thinking "what if I was home and hubby wasn't?" I know that I panic (as it was I was yelling at him "Should I get the kids out? Should I call the fire dept? We should leave NOW!") He kept a calm head and kept the fire from spreading.

Now, When he pulled the "motherboard" out he saw that it was all melted, I did a search on the stove and found that the clock area on many of them short out and/or "just stop working". Unfortunately, we wound up with a tad more then "stop working" of the clock.

While the first two years of this stove it was great, what happened after the warranty expired has turned me OFF from the Hotpoint stoves. I did major research before we bought another stove and will never own a Hot point again.

Now, others may have had no problems, but my advice to all is NEVER walk too far from this stove while it is on, because God only knows what couldve happened if we weren't so close that we heard the stove/clock short out.