The Drain Pump Filter Needs Clearing
Home repair continues to be a fascinating journey.
This weekend we've been dealing with our washing machine giving an OE error and not draining. Online research revealed it was likely something to do with the drain pump, or possibly a clog relating to the drainage system.
Howver, as I've been a bit under the weather, it didn't really get addressed until today. I was finally able to finish draining the washer and get access to the drain pump filter, where we discovered it was indeed very very clogged. (No pictures, but imagine enough lint and dog fur that had accumulated to simulate a dead rodent.)
(It wasn't a dead rodent. It was just gunk.)
So I got it cleaned out and back in place and we're running the machine again, hopefully, without issue now that I've cleaned that filter. (Again, not a dead rodent, that was a bad analogy.)
Last year I did a minor repair to our dryer, and between these two events - I have come to believe that of most household devices, the washer and dryer remain simple enough that many people can manage to repair them on their own if they have the desire. Online tutorials have truly become amazing.
I yearn for more home appliances to stay in that level of complexity, rather than unnecessarily adding more computerized controls which remove the layperson's ability to repair their own equipment.
Now, here's hoping that cycle finishes without issue.
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Dryer Repair is shockingly easy
The dryer began making a weird noise last week. Katie and I did some research and determined we think we could save some money on a repairman and try to fix it ourselves. Shout out to the guy in the embedded video, showing how straightforward it is.
We ordered a repair kit on Amazon and tonight I began disassembling the dryer.
However, before I even get the drum out, I noticed there was something weird sticking out of the side of the blower. I give it a tug and sure enough, out comes a dryer sheet.
I decide, you know what? I'm going to gamble. I bet that was the noise and I don't need to replace all the rollers etc.
We get the vacuum and I clean everything I can get to, remove extra lent from the blower channel, etc. And then I reassemble the dryer and sure enough, it works like a charm.
$0 spent. (I mean, aside from the repair kit we bought. But we can return it. Or hold onto it for when we really do need to replace parts for the dryer.)
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A beautiful documentary video on a man's work renovating two stone cabins in the alps. Stunning vistas. It's slow, so highly recommend it for background viewing, but still inspirational.
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I wish I had saved it, because I can't find it now, but there was a post on Twitter which highlighted that the simple act of relying on friends is a small way to push back the forces of capitalism. Being willing to ask for help with tasks rather than simply paying someone reclaims an element of our livelihood from what has often become an act of capitalism to pay someone else to do it.
This evening I was able to act on this. Rather than pay an electrician to fix a mounting box which failed in our entryway light, I put out a call for a friend to help me in what I knew was ultimately a simple task but which required getting in the attic and is not something I was able to do easily given my size.
Thanks to him, it took us less than an hour to replace the container. And so for maybe the cost of dinner and hanging out with him and his wife, we did what an electrician would have charged me at least a few hundred dollars for.
I call that a good evening. Now I just need to finish re-hanging our light fixture.
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Had a re-run of the La-Z-Boy chair breakage from a few months ago. The peg used to connect the rocker base to the chair failed. Thankfully this time I knew what to do. So I made a quick trip to the hardware store to get a carriage bolt, washer and nut. Came home and in ten minutes had it repaired.
$1.80 + 20 minutes of time to fix it. Much cheaper and faster than if I had tried to get a repair guy from the chair company to come out for it.
And, given that I've had 2x failure on one side, later this week I'll go back and get 2 more sets of these parts to upgrade / pre-emptively fix the other side of my chair.
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