A Lot of Trouble to Replace

Bent out of shape: I did that without help.

The best $150 I ever spent was in 2008.

Our 20-year-old dryer was irredeemably broken, and the new dryers at the time were too wide and cost at least $500, not including tax, installation, and hauling the old one out. On Craigslist the ideal replacement miraculously appeared. It was narrow enough, and the door hinge was at the bottom which was a "try-for" specification from the household CEO.

The seller, a lady in Palo Alto, had bought a new laundry pair and thought she could find a use for her old dryer but had given up trying. Her Kenmore had been sitting on the back patio for a year, covered with a tarpaulin. Before taking it, I asked her to plug it in to prove that it worked. It did.

The dryer easily fit in the 11-year-old Dodge Grand Caravan. (I always use an old car--for different reasons, of course--when I have to negotiate a purchase, do charity work, or go to crime-ridden areas like San Francisco.) The used dryer worked like a champ, and the garbage haulers took the old dryer on one of the two annual bulk-disposal days.

[Note: I forgot that I had blogged about the purchase in 2009. Most of the details are still clear in my memory. I'm not that far gone....yet.]

This week the dryer that had served us for 13 years finally failed. The drum turns but doesn't heat; the problem was likely due to one of three parts, said the Internet, each of which costs less than $50. But first the bottom cover plate has to be opened. It had never been removed by myself, nor likely the original owner, too, so I'm using brute strength and WD-40 against the rusty metal. So I can't even get to step 2: testing the continuity on the three parts to see which of them is busted. So I'll be spending a bit more time, probably through New Year's weekend, working the problem before giving up.

Fortunately for me the household CEO did not act disappointed though I bent the bottom plate out of shape. She knows that the hired help doesn't respond well to criticism and will be a lot of trouble to replace.