Oh Boy, Do I Feel Stupid

Welcome to May! The month is already off to a good start for me. I finished up a ton of little, nagging items in the condo because the airbnb photographer came on Monday. That was awesome because now the airbnb listing will have professional photography (in about two weeks) for free! I'll post the pictures once they're available. The side effect of getting a bunch of little stuff done was really nice too.

In other good news, the washing machine works! So now Broken needs a new name. After my boyfriend installed the new switch assembly, it wouldn't work. Then I realized that the cold water wasn't turned on. Ha, ha. Oh, yeah, so funny. I felt stupid. But now I am happy! Happy and still stupid.

In case you are dying to know, or you have a GE Spacemaker laundry center that is about a bazillion years old like mine with a broken lid switch assembly (the latch thingy that tells your washer to agitate because it "knows" that you have the lid securely down so your sweet little hands won't turn into chomped up zombie bits), you need part WH12X955. That pasted all funky but I'm just gonna leave it. It's like, "Hey, I'm the PART NUMBER. HELLOOOOO I'M GOING TO RUIN A FEW MONTHS OF YOUR LIFFFFEEEE." (Just kidding. I don't take my laundry that seriously.)

My washer specifically is model # WSM2420TBAWW.

This is what my poor lid switch assembly looked like when I removed it:

The plastic part was all torn to pieces. There was even some missing plastic where the screw is supposed to sit so it can hold the assembly onto the side of the washer.

Besides the fact that the assembly wouldn't hook to the side of the washer due to the lack of screw "caves" (what the heck would you call them?), this spring thingy was also broken:

As best I could tell the spring activated some kind of electrical signal that sent a message to the washing machine saying, "Lid's closed! Let's dance!" I found that out because I actually put my fingers on it when the washing machine was plugged in MISTAKE and was shocked. All those warnings on washing machines that say "UNPLUG UNIT BEFORE SERVICING" or whatever? Yea. I don't pay attention.

Here's what our $60 lid switch assembly friend looks like:

Installation involves 3 main parts. Plugging in the assembly (the white part to the left in the picture), screwing in the plastic part (the gray part to the far right), and then installing the ground wire. (Of course you have to do all that backwards to remove the broken one first.)

I'm talking about items 72 and 71 in the illustration below:

The difficult part was installing the ground wire because the nut is awkwardly placed. You have to remove things and use lots of Arm Strength. But we've already established that I have T-Rex arms. So I'm grateful for my boyfriend.

Here he is working on the installation:

And now that the cold water's turned on, it actually works! I haven't told him yet, by the way. Heh heh! Now I'm making chili so I have to run. Here's to clean clothes and May flowers. Except it's like the inside of an oven outside so I'm not sure how well the flowers are doing.

And, oh my god. This is an afterthought. I was looking at that picture above and I think it indicates that you aren't supposed to remove the ground wire. You're probably supposed to cut the old one and reattach the new one...my boyfriend is going to keeeellll me when he sees this. Whoops. Time to buy him a present!

Broken is Still Broken

Broken, my washer/dryer unit, isn't going to be applying for a name change anytime soon. This weekend my boyfriend installed the new lid switch assembly, but now the washer seems to be broken for some other reason. It just makes a faint electrical noise when I turn it on. The dryer works fine. I would rather have the opposite situation on my hands. I could always hang my clothes over the bathtub, European style!

I would consider myself pretty resourceful, but I'm not sure what to do now. So I will continue washerless until I figure something out.

Introducing...Broken and Shiny

A few weekends ago, my boyfriend, myself, and our friend Patrick borrowed a truck to bring the old combo washer/dryer unit from my boyfriend's storage unit to the condo. We'll call him Shiny. (The washer/dryer unit, that is.) This trip was about a one and a half hour drive. Plus gas.

Sort of long story short, no one measured. So Shiny didn't fit in his closet. But the old washer/dryer unit (let's call him Broken) with the broken latch was already in the living room. So for a little while, I had two combo washer/dryer units in my living room. Shiny and Broken. We ate dinner together, watched Gossip Girl, and they sat there quietly while I did my homework. While Broken and Shiny made pretty good company, I was ready to give them the boot.

So I sold Shiny on Craigslist since, even though he worked really, really well and was all pretty and shiny, he just wouldn't fit. As in about four inches wouldn't fit through the threshold of the closet/laundry room. Whoops.

Now I'm left with Broken which was wedged back into his dark, cozy closet.

In case you're curious, the exact measurement of the door opening is 23.5 inches. Broken is 23.75 inches across and Shiny is 27 inches across. So yes, even moving Broken out and then back in again was a struggle. With a lot of chipped paint and dents. Broken is a little bit more broken now.

So now that Broken is back, I can just go back to holding the latch. Except, um, wrong! Somehow during his very short journeys, the latch further broke to the point that I can no longer hold it in place to get it to work. Not even with duct tape. Something about the electrical bit got messed up. So I've ordered a new latch off eBay. It's supposed to arrive later this week. I've never tried to fix a washing machine "for real" (i.e. not using duct tape, erasers, and clear packing tape), so I'll share with you how it goes and provide basic instructions next week. By the way, that latch cost $60. I KNOW! For a ridiculously small, simple piece of plastic and wires. Yuck. And for Broken, who is a VERY OLD washing machine. Very old!

Sorry, Broken. You are officially renamed Super Broken!