Repairing stuff

Sometimes I’m just freaking stubborn. I’ve had issues with a second hand washing machine I purchased. No matter how perfectly balanced it was the darn thing shook and rattled like crazy. 

Then I went down the Internet rabbit hole. Eventually I basically rebuilt the whole suspension system. It was better, but still not great. 

Back down the Internet rabbit hole. 

Eventually I discovered a video that showed how to get to a weird reverse thread nut located under the agitator. It was loose. Tightening that up appears to have done the job.  Usually I’m pretty good at figuring out how to fix things -even without Internet access. 

Without the video a certain part would have been destroyed. Most washers need that part part removed but my model did not. The guy who made the video did destroy that very same part before he figured out the right way. It’s nice to learn from other people’s mistakes. 

Now I know a lot more about washing machine repair than I ever wanted to know. These days it’s not what you know but how well you can search through information.

-Sixbears

Appliance Gambling

It’s no secret that most major appliances are no longer built to go the distance. The Maytag repairman is no longer a lonely bored guy. Actually, I bought a Maytag washing machine once and it was the worse I ever owned. Little did I know they were being made in China at the time and were coasting on their old reputation. This one’s big problem was a recurring transmission oil leak. The laundry room floor would get covered in sticky goo and heaven help you if it got on clothes. The repairman just topped off the oil then threw the empty jug in the woods. My woods. By the time I noticed what a crappy job he did the guy had moved out of town. 

So now my current front loader machine is on its way out. Over the years I’ve performed numerous repairs on it but eventually you reach a point of diminishing returns. On the bright side I was able to stretch its life beyond the 5 – 7 years of most washing machines. 

Unfortunately, I really didn’t have a new machine in this years budget. Next year we should be in much better shape. However, clothes have to get washed between now and then. The local dealer in used appliances had a few machines. For less than half the price of the cheapest new ones I got a clean used washing machine, delivery and installation, and removal of the old. 

If you really want a decent machine get the same brands your local laundromat uses. Of course, something like a Speed Queen will go for around $1200 or so. Ouch! Then again: quality only hurts once. 

-Sixbears

Me against the machines!

This time I was challenged to combat by my washing machine. The newer machines use less water but are worse in every other way. The are also a pain to repair. For years I’ve been doing repairs to major appliances and the washing machine is just another challenge. 

At least now there’s Google and YouTube university. Best I can tell from available evidence it’s a simple door switch. Of course, the switch isn’t simple at all. Anyway, I found one online and ordered it.  

There’s an easier repair hack that can be done if you have small hands and long skinny arms. Since I’ve got gorilla arms and hands I had to go in the hard way. Oh well. A man has got to know his limitations. I was able to get to the switch and tried a recommended temporary repair but that didn’t help. That’s when I ordered a new switch. 

I do miss simple mechanical controls. Once I had to pull the circuit board out of the washing machine and clean up some connections. Washing machines shouldn’t even have circuit boards -never mine ones exposed to damp conditions. 

Anyway . . . I could rage against the machines or learn how to fix the new ones. 

Grumble grumble. 

-Sixbears

Rainy Day Project

My lovely wife and I decided to work inside due to getting some much needed rain. We finished laying down flooring in one of our loft rooms. All the materials were salvaged. It was a bit more time consuming to reuse rather than buy new. However, we saved a bundle of money. The job would not have happened otherwise. All that's left is to install the baseboard.

My adult niece has already been using it as an art studio. She likes the space and it beats working in her room. Her art has started so sell, so that's a good thing. The space is big enough that we can still use it as a guest room.

We are making progress on reorganizing and clearing up clutter. That job is made a bit harder by the ongoing projects. Home improvements tend to make clutter of their own. In spite of that, things are starting to look better.

One of my next indoor projects will be moving the washing machine. It's in an addition of the house that extends past the basement. For years we've been dealing with freezing water lines. My “temporary” solution was to install a heater that could be turned on to thaw the lines. The solution worked well enough, but I was always bothered by having to use a heater. Plus, it was annoying. Our reorganizing has cleared out a space in the house where freezing won't be a problem. Of course, the supply lines and drain line will need to be redone. Such is life.

That will wait a bit, as some sunny days are in the forecast. Looking forward to wrapping up some outside chores.

-Sixbears

Generator laundry day

Nothing like waking up to fresh snow -in April. Sigh . . .

It was a good day to set up the generator for a test run. The generator fired right up and put a charge in the batteries. Normally I'd wait for a sunny day to do laundry, but might as well put that excess generator power to good use. Using a generator near its capacity is more efficient.

Then there was the darn washing machine. The “no water” alarm kept going off. That made no sense to me as there was plenty of water right up to the washing machine. I did some probing around and discovered flow restrictors in the water inlets. The flow restrictors had picked up a tiny bit of grit and plugged.

Why would there be flow restrictors on a washing machine in the first place? The machine needs a certain amount of water to function. All the flow restrictors did was to slow down the filling process. It used the same amount of water. Perhaps there was some sort of Federal law requiring flow restrictors?

I've got mixed feelings about having a generator in the first place, but northern NH has a lot of cloudy days. Right now I'm using up the left over gasoline from the sailboat outboard. Gasoline doesn't keep very long. It's tempting to convert the motor to run on propane. It would run cleaner, propane keeps a long time, and it's more economical.

Of course, ideally, I'd live within my solar budget. At least I've got the generator option.

-Sixbears

Craptastic tools

I own a pretty good caulk gun. Bought it years ago. It’s served me well, but I can’t find it. Perhaps it’s on loan to one of my friends. There’s a chance it’s here but well hidden. With all the people moving in and out of the house, stuff gets misplaced.

No problem, I thought, I’ve only got about 4 caulk tubes to apply. A medium duty one from Walmart should do the job. There was a nice recognizable name on the side: Stanley. How bad could it be?

Awful.

The first thing I discovered is that while it appeared to have a built in cutter for the tube tip, it really didn’t. Sure, there was a hole for the cutter in the right place, but no cutting blade inside. It only massaged the nozzle without cutting it. After cutting it with my pocket knife, I discovered the pin to break the seal was almost too short to do the job.

One tube of construction adhesive did get successfully applied. Right as the second one began to flow, the caulk gun came apart in my hand. That was the end of that. I wasn’t happy.

Now I didn’t have high expectations from a Walmart tool, but really. One tube of caulk? That’s it? Of course, while the brand name is familiar, it was made in China. That’s the last Stanley tool I’ll ever buy. The name no longer has any value for me.

This wasn’t really a tool. It was more like a stage prop, like using a convincing fake rubber knife instead of a real knife. This prop just had to look like caulk gun long enough for a fool like me to purchase it. No way could it actually perform the job of a real tool.

Stanley joins the long list of other companies that traded a good name for short term profit. At least it was an inexpensive item. The worse washing machine I ever owned was a Maytag. They used to be reliable and well built. Mine never worked right. My bad luck was to buy one on reputation just as they stopped giving a damn about quality.

How do they build anything in China? Not with Chinese tools -that’s impossible. They must import tools from Germany or something.

-Sixbears

Long term power outage

The grid came back reasonably quick here after the storm. I got lucky. The source of my power outage was caused by trees falling on a major feed line across the main street of the next town over. Those get fixed fairly quickly. That power line supplied a hospital. Had the lines come down on my little side road, our priority would have been quite low.

Power was out just long enough for me to think about how I’d deal with a long term outage. The first thing I did was turn off the power switch to the Internet cable modem and router. Unplugged my Roku device that allows me to stream Internet programming on my TV. No sense in sending power to things that can’t be used.

One of my major power draws is the well pump. Even though I have my own well, we are frugal water users. The only change I’d make is I’d be more aware to do dishes when the sun is shining instead of drawing down the batter bank.

Then there is the refrigerator. My plan involved eating all the refrigerated food first and then unplugging it. Most of my food storage is dry and canned foods, so we really could get by just fine without refrigeration.

The power saved would most likely allow enough energy to run my washing machine. By then, we’d be ready for some clean clothes.

We could have gone a very long time, in reasonable comfort, using only the solar electric system. If I really had to, I could have dragged out the generator a friend gave me and fired that up. That’s my last resort solution, as generators are noisy, smelly and burn my limited fuel supplies.

I had no idea how long the power outage was going to last. While it was less than a day, it’s nice to know my own power system would have done the job for a long long time. Nothing like a real world emergency to test a prepper’s plans.

-Sixbears

New washing machine

My lovely wife and I just picked out one of those high efficiency front loading washing machines. The old one developed a new glitch while we were away. It won't stop filling. To do a load of laundry, I've got to shut the water valve on and off by hand. It's a bit tedious.

If I was going the whole hippy route, we'd be washing clothes in a 5 gallon bucket. It can be done, but not by my lovely wife. There are limits. Besides, she's had surgeries on both shoulders and shouldn't do that sort of thing anyway. As for me, there are only so many hours in the day.

Now one of those high efficiency models makes a certain amount of sense to someone heading towards a lower energy lifestyle. Right off, it uses less electricity than the old style machines. It also uses a lot less water. Since my well pump runs off my solar electric system, less water usage leaves more energy for other things. Less water uses also means less stress on the septic system. They also use less soap, another plus.

They also cost a few bucks. We stretched our budget a bit and did the deal. We'll cut something else out. Another hand me down washing machine wasn't going to cut it. It's no longer worth the strain on my back to haul them around. The last one I put in only lasted a few months. Besides, it makes my wife very happy to have a new washing machine. If she ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

My dishwasher failed at about the same time. That won't get replaced. It's not all that hard to wash dishes by hand -unlike washing clothes by hand. A guy's got to pick his battles.

-Sixbears

Sometimes it comes together

The washing machine has washed its last. It came as no surprise. Most people would have thrown it out 5 years ago when the motor/transmission linkage fell apart. After that, it was the cranky drain pump -and so on. Lately, it was down to one wash cycle, heavy duty.

Today, the water fill would not shut off. In a panic, my wife started to bail out the water, only to realize it was still coming in. I reached behind the machine and closed the water valve.
I fished the clothes out of the machine and took it to my daughter's to finish washing.

In an e-mail to a friend, I mentioned the washer had finally died. As luck would have it, he'd been tapped to install a new washer at another friend's place. The old one worked just fine and they were looking for a good home for it.

Picking it up on Sunday.

It's good to have friends -especially when you don't have much money.

Got friends?

-Sixbears

Watching the machines fade away

It's no secret that funds in the Sixbears household have been pretty limited for some time now. We haven't missed any meals. Some of those meals have been pretty basic, but we certainly haven't gone hungry. A little food storage certainly does come in handy.

It's other things that slowly fall apart. When it became clear the car wouldn't pass state inspection without a lot of expensive work, we retired it. Since then, we've gotten by with just the old truck. Inconvenient at times, but not too hard to live with.

The washing machine is slowly dying. Over the years, I've taken it apart and put it back together quite a few times. Eventually, machines just wear out. It still washes the clothes, but everything is slowing down. The heavy duty cycle isn't working right. My guess is that the electric motor is wearing out. Doesn't quite seem to have the same power it once had. Laundry can still be done on the normal cycle, so we make do. Even there, it doesn't spin the drum as fast as it used to and the clothes are wetter than they should be. At least they are clean.

One solution is to just run the dryer a lot longer. Of course, that strains the dryer, which had a major rebuild itself last year. Also uses more energy. Good thing I put in nice long clothesline outside. Saves energy and extends the life of the dryer.

The machine I'm really going to miss is the dishwasher. It's one of my vices. Yes, I know it's possible to hand wash dishes using a lot less water and energy. There are only so many hours in the day, and I don't want to spend any more of them than I have to washing dishes. My wife hates this machine as the noise drives her crazy. For me, it's the restful sound of me not hand washing dishes. Anyway, this machine too is slowly fading away. The gasket around the door is starting to leak. The top rack fell out once, but repairs seem to be holding. Wheels occasionally fall off the bottom rack. When this machines goes, it will not be replaced, in spite of my hatred of hand washing dishes.

My household infrastructure is a bit like the national infrastructure. My appliances are like the nations, roads, bridges, canals, railroads -the machinery of a nation. It takes investment to keep everything running. Patch jobs only work so long. The nation has neglected investment in its "machinery." The infrastructure of the nation is slowly wearing down. Just like me, the nation is going to have to struggle along with things that aren't as good as they could be.

One thing that tough times does for me is it makes me focus on what's important. What things in my life are truly important and worth the effort. Maybe the nation as a whole, after going through a rough patch, will figure out what's important and what's not. What machinery is worth the trouble and what isn't.

I'll tell you guys one thing. If my wife won't let me replace the dishwasher when it finally dies, she's going to start washing a lot more dishes her own self.

-Sixbears

The old washing machine

As I write, my old washing machine is doing one more load. It's gone beyond its life expectancy. The beastly thing has been disassembled a number of times. I've pieced together shattered parts to get serial numbers to order replacements. When a friend of mine asked me to haul a washing machine to the dump for him, I salvaged some parts off of it.

Newer machines are a lot more energy efficient and use a lot less water. They also cost a lot of money. One thing that bothers me about the new machines is the amount of electronics in them. My house electric system runs on an old type modified sine wave inverter. Electronic timers don't work right with a modified sine wave. I can imagine buying a new machine and not having it function properly.

New front loading machines use a lot less water, but I'm not paying a utility for my water. It comes from my own well. The old washer does put a heavy draw on my solar electric system, but I've been able to work around that.

When the washer finally gives up the ghost for good, I'll have to figure something out. Perhaps I'll scour the alternative energy forums to discover any information on using new washers with old inverters. Maybe in a fit of disgust with the modern world I'll build a copy of a James washer. Those are old fashioned totally manually powered washing machines.

Next thing you know I'll be making soap from stove ashes and bear fat.

Here I go marching boldly into the 19th century.

Whoa! things aren't that bad yet. No sense borrowing trouble. In the mean time, I'll just hope and pray the old clunker keeps working.

-Sixbears