You Just Can't Get Good Stuff Anymore

Our washing machine died a couple of days ago. I spent a good part of Sunday trouble-shooting it.

Our Dead Machine

 First, I went online (as you do anymore) and sought help from an outfit that has worked for me before (justanswer.com) when I was having appliance problems. They suggested I start with part number forty-two. So, I did. I'm one of those people who keep and actually read owner's manuals for the stuff we buy. This made it easy to find out what number forty-two was. It was sort of a hose clamp, I think they're called spring clamps. There was supposed to be a filter somewhere behind it that might have become clogged. There was no filter.

The Suspected Culprit

I poked and prodded and stuck my finger into the orifice for the pump motor, looking the whole time for some sort of filter. No filter.

I emailed the help line again and advised of what I had done and what I found (or, more accurately, didn't find). Their only suggestion was to try something different. No mention of the filter again.

The Part On Its Own

Anyway, after making sure everything I could get to was clear and unobstructed, I reassembled the washer. It was a royal pain in the butt trying to put those clamps back in place. In fact, I used a screw-on hose clamp in place of one of the clamps.

I fired up the machine with high hopes of a successful repair job. When I turned it on, the door lock light lit and actually locked the door. The water filled the drum as far as it was supposed to go, and... well, nothing. Not a peep. No agitation or anything. Not even any noise of gears gnashing. So, that went less than spectacularly well.

So, what do we do now? I piddled around trying various other quests for a solution on the Web, all to no avail. Later in the afternoon, Elizabeth and David came over for swim-time to enjoy some of the 86-degree (f) water in the pool where we talked about washers, among other things. They offered us the use of their machine if we needed to use one before we got a working solution.

David reported he had been trying to find switches for their machine and that they were 1) Very expensive, and 2) Very hard to find. He also thought it time that we considered putting the old machine out to pasture. It is fifteen years old. We had bought it when we first moved into the house we built in Olympia in 1995 or so. Alright, I guess we did get our money's worth out of it in that time, so we decided a plan of action.

We decided we would head into downtown tomorrow and check at Courts to see what they have to offer in the way of washers. If we don't find anything there, this morning, tomorrow, we'll go with David and Elizabeth to Belize City and see what Benny's has to offer.

News Flash! - It's an appliance rebellion. Elizabeth just reported her and David's washing machine went out this morning as well. This was after they had offered us the use of theirs until we got ours repaired or replaced. Fine. Now what do we do? These damn machines are trying to force our hand. It's a conspiracy, I tell you!