When Other Things Break

My laundry had piled up for a bit so the first thing I did this morning was to start the load. I noticed the machine was a little noisier than before but I didn’t think much of it. Until the alarm chimes started to go off. This is not a noise you want to hear. Sometimes, it is something simple like the door not being closed all that way. Not the case this time.

At least some machines these days are smart enough to tell you what’s wrong. In this case, it was the water not draining. Of course, the machine can’t fix itself and the advice is limited to checking filters and then calling for help if the problem keeps happening. Went through the process of manually draining the water and tried to get it to spin hoping I had just a minor problem. Again, not the case.

A second alarm chime and a second manual draining of the water. Won’t go into detail but if you’ve ever had to do this in a front load washer, the tube at the bottom and I didn’t have anything big enough to hold lots of water so it was a back and forth of filling a bowl and emptying the bowl.

Not to mention that with the spin cycle non functional, my clothes were sitting in a pile of water. They’ve currently been in the dryer for an hour and more time is needed. They will actually need a second run through the wash because I’m pretty sure the rinse cycle didn’t work as intended so the detergent didn’t all get rinsed out.

So we have an appointment for tomorrow morning where hopefully it is an easy fix. Now I’m not really someone who follows a set schedule but I do like working out early in the morning and something like this does tend to throw the day out of whack. And tomorrow will be more of the same – waiting for the repair person and hoping he has the right parts and that it can be fixed.

I did think about whether it made sense to repair or replace. Strange that we’ve become such a throw away society that the question even comes up. I know there are charts and things that are supposed to guide you and if a machine is over a certain age, replacement is typically recommended. Of course, I totally forget how old the washer is. Does anyone really keep track of stuff like that?

But then I also thought about the retail landscape today. When we bought them, there were still several stores that specialized in appliances. Still have a few but the funny thing is that when I look it up online, the ones that pop up first are the big box hardware type stores. I could just pick one out right now from my computer which seems odd. Don’t have any idea if they would install and remove the other one or if I would need to contact a different place to do that. Guess we cross that bridge if we need to.

Actually, I did just check and they will install and haul away the old. Life would be easier if we didn’t have to do that. Have no idea about washers and the different price points and what really makes sense and I don’t really want to have to make that decision.

Well that’s how my day started. Guess it could have been worse.