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It's a sad day when things wear out. The pictures below were taken with
my iPod so the resolution and quality aren't the best. Phillip and I
hauled our old clothes washer to the dump today. This old washer was purchased back in July 1995. We came home from a family vacation to Bar Harbor to discover that our washer at the time had died. Its tub had developed a slow leak many months previous to that. I had put a bucket under the tub on the floor inside the washer. From time to time I would slide a hose into the bucket and pump out the collected water. The timer knob had also become intermittent. I had taken it apart a few times and cleaned the contacts, but that only helped for a little while. So, when it finally just quit working that July 1995, we decided it was time to buy a new one. I went to Sears that very day and bought one on sale for about $460. That Kenmore washer lasted 17 years. Several weeks ago the washer started some strange behavior, but it seemed only to afflict Heather with this behavior. The washer would move part way through a cycle and then just stop. We had to fiddle with the knobs, spinning the timer knob around and around, and then the washer would start. It never seemed to be a problem for Joyce or Phillip. This went on for several weeks and Heather was getting quite upset. I told her she could always go to a laundromat if this free laundry facility wasn't up to her standards. The washer finally started giving Joyce problems too. I figured that I could take the timer mechanism apart like I had done 18 years ago, and clean the contacts to get a few more months life out of it. So, on a Saturday I disassembled the control panel and tried to figure out how to get the switch out. My enthusiasm level was very low. I really didn't want to be spending my time on a washer. I kept at it, but couldn't figure out how to get the switch out of the washer. I then noticed that the back of the timer mechanism was held in place by two metal tabs that had been twisted to keep them from sliding back through slots in the panel. Thinking I could get at the switch by removing the back panel I straightened out the tabs and pulled the back part way off. Unfortunately when I pulled the back off the switch fell apart. Oops. That's when I lost motivation and started looking online at the cost of a replacement washer. I didn't want to put any money into repairing a 17 year old machine. A knew timer mechanism was about $120 at the Sears part store. That didn't seem like a wise thing to do. I ordered a new Whirlpool washer online for $403 and Phillip and I picked it up on Wednesday evening from the Sears warehouse. We swung by Home Depot and got new hoses for the water supply, then went home and installed the new machine. We put the old washer in the van that night and this morning dropped the old one off at the dump in the scrap metal dumpster. Current washer design is very different than from 20 years ago. This new Whirlpool is pretty much the bottom of the line top load washer. It has a capacity of 3.4 cubic feet. Instead of the tried and true mechanical timer turning a plastic cylindar closing switches in various wash cycles, current washers use a microprocessor to control valves and relays. This provides much greater flexibility in wash cycles. Current washers seem to take much longer to do a load. It used to be that the dryer was the long pole in the tent. Now the washer is the long pole. It takes longer to wash a load than it does to dry a load. |
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