I have to admit, I’m feeling rather pleased with myself today, for last night I fixed my washing machine.
A couple of weeks ago, after going through a few days of various churning, grumbling and gravel-like sounds, the washer decided finally to refuse to drain any water from the wash. And let me tell you, it’s a bugger to drain manually!
This gave rise to a dilemma – I’m moving out in a couple of months, and won’t need the washing machine then anyway. Do I just put up with hand washing my clothes for two months, or pay out to have it repaired only to leave it behind soon anyway?
So, taking option #3, I thought I’d have a crack at it myself. I mean, what’s the worst I could do, break it?
First stop was the ominous outlet where there was a nice twist-lock plug. As it seemed quite accessible, it seemed to make sense to start there. This also happened to be the manual water drain point, so after a damp start and much emptying of liquid, I found myself presented with the pump filter.
My, what a treasure trove. Clogged up in the filter was a number of unused cigarette filters, a worryingly large shard of glass, and… and old condom wrapper. Lovely!
So, that was probably the problem I think to myself! Plugged everything back in, and started it up again. And found it stopping at the draining point AGAIN.
So, drain all the water out again. Ok, not the filter. Hmm. Time to delve in deeper. *tips washer on side*
I’ll spare you the full gory details as it’ll go on for some time. Suffice to say that I needed to re-drain the water at least 4 more times after false-starts and misdiagnoses. Success, however, was found after dismaltelling the pump impeller, to find a tight coil of my hair wound around the fan! Ha! Yes! Pulled out, plugged in, and she rides!
I feel rather like Mario now. Where’s my 1UP?!
