Previous ||| Next
Gumming Up The Works
By moving in with someone I have inherited a number of long-term problems that my beloved has never before really had to deal with. First there was the fridge with broken icebox door. I would spend the occasional Sunday morning using a kitchen knife as stress relief on the overgrown stalactites and stalagmites that had bonded the few frozen foods together in the darkest icy depths, until I finally bought a new fridge.
Then there was the dishwasher which was used beyond the point of endurance and signalled it was giving up on us by emitting a small cloud of smoke from the control panel in a Disney-esque robotic death (ie; no screaming and no blood) I spent every other night washing dishes by hand until I finally bought a new dishwasher.
Then the hot water combo boiler stopped working and I think you, as clever readers who are able to spot patterns as they appear, will be able to guess what happened next.
So, this week the washing machine gave up. Refused to drain. Hoarded our soggy clothes and the dirty water it had just extracted from them together inside the drum. We had to crack the door open just a millimetre with a square bucket (now how fortunate was it that we had a bucket with a straight edge, eh?) held underneath to catch the water and then rinsed all the clothes by hand, wringing them out. Very Little House on the Prairie if you ask me.
I've spent the morning looking at new washing machines. 1200 rpm, 1400 rpm, 1600 rpm. 5kg loads, 7 kgs loads, 10.4 kg loads (for people with very fat clothes) Energy efficiency ratings, washing efficiency, centrifugal efficiency, and of course the most important aspect for all household appliances that I buy; that it be in silver of aluminium.
Being completely lost about whether these ratings would be an improvement upon our existing washing machine I looked up the web about our current model and found the following piece of advice across numerous messageboards;
blow down evacuation hose, empty machine then remove front cover (4 screws along the bottom of the panel) pump is located in the bottom right corner, inside that you will find a plastic filter, remove sock from filter, clean under the tap and re-assemble everything
Moral of the story; invest in a good screwdriver and wear thick socks
Nov.16.2006