Hey stup - all I said was your helpfullness was confusing, and holly seemed to agree with me. Like I said , it's quite clear that you can save $$$ by wanting less. I.E. stick with the lower amp oven, that's obvious to everyone and didn't need pointing out. Your pointing it out is how you got misrepresented. for the record - and no irony included from last post : " toy - what guage wire is in your wall now, and how far is it to the electrical panel ?" If it's 8 gauge and less than 100 feet then you might consider just upping the breaker to 40 amps. If you have 10 gauge or the run is more than 100 feet, and you want a 40 amp oven - then you'll need a sparky to pull a new wire for you." And just to make it easier for some to follow: If your 40 amp oven restocking fee is less than $1050 , and a new 30 amp oven will cost the same or less than the orig. purchase price of the 40 amp oven , THEN returning the 40 amp oven will be CHEAPER than having all the work done. How's that for a run on sentence and a high school math problem ???

A non contact tester and even some digital volt meters are not all that reliable in crowded wiring. A DVM's input impedance is often so high it can pick up 'stray voltage' by capacitive coupling, the same 'trick' that non-contact testers use. Luckily the error is usually to indicate voltage is present when it is NOT actually there. It can make trouble shooting a PITA though when it says dead circuits are still live.

Lets hold on a second here. What do you mean "ampwise" it's maxed out. Have you done a real load calculation or are you just summing up the breakers in that panel? Even if you were "maxed out" what good would this "switch" do? Large double throw switches are availble, but the price will probably be scary to you. The cutoff is about 30A for the kind that mounts in a regular box versus the ones that come in their own NEMA enclosure (and the accompanying price jump). If you're really determined, your cheapest answer would be a 40A DPDT Intermatic timer (whether you chose to use the "timer" part of it or not).

So what was the outcome of all this? What kind of company did you hire to dig under the tiles to switch out the lines? We are having a similar issue... have a 36" gas cooktop on an island, had a gas leak and it wound up being under the island. We have quotes for getting the gas line redone, as well as for changing the amperage to be able to handle a 36" induction cooktop, but nobody seems to want to do the excavation part, or know anyone who would. I'd really like to know how much that's going to be, as we like the thought of getting rid of the gas line. Sorry to add on to the thread, I'll start another one if need be, but I'm hoping Kuyaariel will reply...