Every so often I have an experience that for the greater good and to educate the masses I should probably share with the wider world. Last night was just such an occasion.
The time was around 11:30. I walked into the kitchen and noticed that the washing machine wasn't functioning properly. Over the previous 3-4 days it had been slowly dawning on me that the washing machine wasn't right, but I hadn't paid enough attention to really see what the problem was. Now, with 30 minutes left in the day, I had seen the light.
So, using my ingenuity, I turned off the machine and opened the drain at the bottom. Tip 1 - get a big bucket before you try this. I was using a small tray, which for all the good it did, I could have just cupped my hands.
After I cleaned up the gallons of water on the kitchen floor, I found a few items in the filter, took them out, thought to myself, "that wasn't so bad" and turned the machine on again.
30 minutes later I could see that I hadn't solved anything. So, this time, I got out the manual that came with my Whirlpool and looked for some advice. I decided to follow the manual to the letter. Tip 2 - think about what you're reading before following instructions too closely.
The manual called for the machine to be unplugged, then drained (got a big bucket this time). But, unplugging my washing machine isn't so easy. As in many Irish houses, our washing machine resides in the kitchen, under the counter. This means that in order to unplug it, you have to wriggle it out of its position.
The space the machine is in affords an extra half inch on each side, so the wriggling can take quite a while. Eventually, after almost breaking my back and nearly dropping the machine on my foot I had it out and unplugged. This is when I realized how much easier it would have been to have simply gone to the fuse box and turned off all the sockets in the kitchen. (NOTE to Whirlpool, you might want to offer this alternative to unplugging when you're selling these front-loading machines.)
I followed the rest of the steps in the manual, nearly broke my back again pushing the machine into position, turned it on and it still doesn't work.
Now it was past 1am and the machine still didn't work. So, Tip 3 - don't start these projects at 11:30pm. Start early in the day when you can think clearly and when you have time to keep trying until you get it right.
There you have three valuable pieces of advice all for free.
UPDATE 9:15pm: Twenty minutes at a reasonable hour and the washing machine was as good as new. Well, it's working anyway.
Amazing what things fall out of children's pockets. The offending piece of junk was a hair clip blocking the pump, but I also found 5 elasticky hair thingies, a toy credit card - shredded and US$0.11. Why any of my children would have a dime and penny from America is beyond me.
