Have you looked at the cost of a washer/dryer set lately?
It's Sunday afternoon and the washer is on the fritz. Yeah, it's been having 'issues'
for a few years now. First the stupid little tab that is supposed to lock the front-loading
door broke off. Who designed that piece of garbage? If you are going to put something
on a door that can be hooked and broken off by clothes while loading, at least make it of
Delrin or some similar high impact, less breakable plastic. But whatever, we found the
door would still stay shut without it so I guess it wasn't all THAT important. After a
while the little buzzer that told you the door was not locked died, so it was almost as
if it had been designed that way to begin with...
Then the door started to sag. What's up with that? It doesn't weigh much, and the kids
certainly haven't been hanging off it. Lord knows the kids wouldn't go NEAR the washer
for fear of being put to work in the laundry room.. I mean, can't the manufacturer figure
out a way for what looks like a 6-8 lb. door to stay true for 6-8 years? But whatever
(again), the thing still seemed to work if you just made sure to push the door closed all
the way.
Not long after the the door started to sag, the knob came off. Not one of those simple
affairs, this is the kind that acts as a switch. Push in to disconnect the circuit,
pull out to start the machine. That made things a bit more interesting, but we worked
around it by grabbing the still attached plastic collar and using that to set the cycles.
Of course the machine was always in the 'on' mode, but so long as you kept the door open
when you chose your cycle, it all seemed to work out fine (sorta). At least you wouldn't
hear the machine chunking and grinding to keep up with your hand-spin of the perpetually
'on' settings wheel. Some engineer must have recieved an award for the design of this
partiular wheel, with the company knowing it would sell a fortune in replacements some
years down the line.
But it didn't stop there. After several years, the no-longer-locking-and-now-sagging door
stopped tripping some sort of internal safety that would tell the washer the door was
closed and it was time to get to work. Maybe the thing was just tired and didn't want
to work so hard anymore, so like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey it fried it's own internals.
Who knows. BUT, we outsmatrted the thing by using a chunk of PVC tube to put a brace
against the door when closed. It gave the door that little bit of extra closure to
re-engage the switch and allow the washer to work again. Really, all you had to do was
peek into the laundry room and you'd see that lovely three feet of plastic pipe wedged
between the washer door and the closet door opposite to know the machine was still full
of sopping wet clothes.
Oh, did I forget to mention that the machine seemed to have stopped draining? Yup, it
appeared to think once it had run a wash and rinse cycle it was too tired to pump itself
out anymore. For a while I would run it thru the spin cycle to get it to pump twice each
load and get the clothes at least marginally wrung before they headed off to the dryer that
squeaks when it spins. Howeven, I think the washer finally got my number and stopped
pumping much of anything as of yesterday.
Well, after all the 'fun times' we have spent together, I am getting the hint that maybe
our washer is looking into retirement before all the Social Security money is gone. It
has reached the ripe old age of 8 years now, which, having worked like a dog, in dog years
would make it somewhere in it's late 50's -- maybe a little young for retirement, but
like it's owners certainly getting a little longer in the tooth. So when the spousal
unit said "Time to get a new washer", I figured "why not?". Sure we would miss the
missing knob, and the plastic pipe would also be retired. And no more sagging door,
we could get a hot new model not in need fo a 'face lift' and some 'internal surgery'
to keep it healthy.
Hello CraigsList!
Having haunted the aisles of Home Depot for years, ever in search of the copper plumbing
fitting, the sheets of drywall, nails for the nailgun, etc. I knew laundry appliances had
certainly gone through a facelift in recent years. It was hard to miss the 'designer
colors' and the fact they were growing taller like my children. Yet, as sleek as they
looked, they never really garnered any attention from me as our trusty ol' washer at
home still worked fine -- plastic pipe and all. So why look at a new model? I wasn't
going to throw my wife away for getting older, why do the same to my washer? We had
'history' together. Now it looked like our time had come to split up and there was no
turning back.
So here I am, letting my fingers do the walking on the 'Net. Did you know you can get
matching sets in red,white, and blue (how American -- even if they say LG on the front)
as well as green, black and who knows what else. Did you know those 'designer' washer/dryer
sets start around $1500 for a 'good" set? WOW. So that got me to thinking...
Does anyone really know, or for that matter care, if my clothes got washed by a $1800 set
of laundry machines? Would the neighbors ask me, the man of 'plastic pipe' ingenuity to
move if I brought home a new washer (no matching set -- GASP!) that didn't look like it
stepped off the pages of Architectural Digest? Would I have to sneak it in at night under
cover? Would my clothes tell the other clothes they ran into on the street they had been
shaped up at the discount wash center off the kitchen? Or was I just being paranoid
about all this?
Then I remembered -- this is the 'newfound age of frugality'! It's cool to be cheap!
Saving money is 'in' again, even if it had never been 'out' in our household.
I think I'll see what kind of deal I can get off Craigslist. I am sure someone went a
little 'charge-happy' in the last year or two. And the best part is that in today's economy,
I can even feel proud of the 'deal' I will get on that "Like New, year old washer"
being sold because someone is moving or downsizing. Now if only I could get a new back,
and a few joints the same way...
Recent items picked up for free off the curb: almost-new 3-gallon propane tank, empty but
still valuable, and a large suitcase (with broken pocket zipper, otherwise OK) filled with clean
bedding of various sheet sizes.
The flood of slightly used goods available for free or a few dollars is just beginning....
Dan's story also suggests the possibility that either planned obsolescence or poor quality
will cause many recently manufactured goods to end up either in the county dump/landfill or
being scavanged for parts.
