Saturday, August 25, 2012

Dry Me A River

The repairman showed up bright and early on Thursday and spent a good 45 minutes making productive-sounding clanking and banging noises down in the utility room where my broken dryer resides.  Then I heard him coming up the stairs and saying, "Well, I'm done!"

"That's great!" I said, running for the nearest basket of wet laundry.

"Oh, it's not fixed yet," he said.

I'm thinking that repairmen need to be trained in their bedside manner, as it were.  For example, don't use the word "DONE" unless it's "FIXED."  Is that asking too much?

Next time, I'm buying an OLD one of these.
Turns out we need a new igniter.  Because, after all, the dryer is 5 years old already (or, to be fair, it is 12 years old in appliance years, due to the volume of laundry in this house).  12 years? 

You know, at my father's house (where we stopped on our way home from our vacation), I did our leftover camping laundry in the washer/dryer he and my mom bought while I was in high school, over 30 years ago. 


Yup, that washer/dryer set has lasted more than  3 decades.  Which is WAY LONGER than 12 years.  Trust me - I did the math on this one.

So for appliance manufacturers everywhere, I have only one question:  

WTF?

12 comments:

  1. No kidding! "Done" means finished, completed, and ready to roll (literally). I hope he looked appropriately ashamed when he saw your crestfallen expression upon hearing the verdict.

    But thanks for reminding me... I still have laundry out on the line... in the dark... and the skunks have been out in the park behind our yard.

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  2. My husband's learned to fix our dryer. Several times, but it's only been rollers and belts. Igniters on the other hand? Say hello to my stove, which eats igniters on a regular basis.

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  3. If they make the appliances to last that long, they wouldn't be able to sell new ones as often. I think they are designed to die right after the warranty runs out.
    It works the same way for vacuums.
    My mom used the same Kirby vacuum for over 30 years when it finally stopped working. Instead of getting it fixed she decided that she could just get a new one.
    Since then, she has averaged a new vacuum every two years.

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  4. I am pretty sure my father is still using the Maytag washer that he and my mom bought in 1972. It was certainly still in use as late as the year 2000. Meanwhile, the motor in my GE dryer burned out after only a couple of years of use, and my LG washer broke 7 months after purchase--although that was because a quarter fell out of one of our pockets and jammed the motor. Still, why was this even possible? We dropped gallons of change into my old washer--a Maytag that lasted 18 years-- and it never caused a problem.

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  5. Welcome to planned obsolescence hell.

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  6. Clearly, repair people who say that something is DONE when it's not are men. Women wouldn't say something so foolish.

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  7. I believe the saying is, "They don't make 'em like they used to."

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  8. Exactly. What they all said...

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  9. My in laws have a fridge in their garage from the 60's. Older than me. I'm sure that's why their electric bill is so high (you know, keeping all those waters cold) but hey we're on our 2nd fridge we've bought new and we've been married 19 years.

    Oh and I got an old dryer off Craigslist. Works great :)

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  10. My parents have had their original Kirby vacuum cleaner, purchased in 1962, rebuilt a few times. It still works great

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  11. Not quite in the same league, but we still use a GE refrigerator from the 60s that came with our first house in 1976 and a Kenmore microwave from 1981 (tho. it's a little slow popping popcorn!). However, after our original washer/dryer (Kenmore) and an Electrolux cannister vac that we had for 20+ years, we seem to go through washers, driers and vacuums like crazy! (And I don't do that much washing/cleaning :)

    Great post!

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  12. Your "trust me I did the math" line cracked me up. :)

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