I Broke The Washer

This morning I woke up to a clothesline full of sopping wet diapers from the storm we had last night. The baby didn't have enough dry ones to last the day at Grandma's, so I pulled the wet ones off the line and decided to run them through a spin cycle to get the water out, and then dry them in the dryer inside.
I put them in the washer, started the spin cycle... which lasted about two rotations before the washer just shut off. We fiddled with it and Seth called his mom and dad to see if they had any ideas as to what had happened. Meanwhile, I looked at prices of a new machine. I actually found a really cool small washing machine that would fit perfectly in our closet sized kitchen. And it is fairly inexpensive to boot. We have a line of credit with the store, so we knew if we had to buy a machine, we could. With cloth diapering our son, the laundromat is out of the question, and a month of laundromat trips would have bought the new washer anyway.

So, Seth takes the washer apart and finds that the off balanced drum smacked into a piece that allows the washer to activate the drum spinning and snapped it off. It engages the lid lock, which allows the drum to spin. The replacement part alone was $40, not including someone to install it because we lack the tools to do so. By the end of that, we're over halfway to the cost of a brand new machine. Add in the $20 a piece knobs that snapped off a while ago (I've been using a pair of pliers to work the settings), and we definitely would have just bought a new washer. Since our's is a stacked set that cannot be disconnected, we'd have just gone without a dryer until we could save for it, but a washer is not optional.

Due to my husband being awesome, lol, he just bypassed the part entirely and now the washer is working fine. We just have to remind Liam not to climb into the washing machine, and we're good to go. ;-)

However, come tax time, we will be purchasing a new machine. It'll either be the small washer and the matching dryer, both tiny, or a complete all-in-one machine (like you'd see in an RV). While expensive to purchase, we don't need the high capacity machines we currently have. I don't want piles of stinky laundry and diapers sitting around, so I do medium sized loads pretty frequently. The compact, energy efficient machines will absolutely serve our needs, while minimizing their footprint in our 8'x10' kitchen (of which 5'x8' is usable floor).

Yay for husbands saving the day!

It's gorgeous out, and my guys are at Grandma's, so I'm off to clean my house with nothing more than a broom, mop, some rags made from old t-shirts and sweatpants, and some vinegar and baking soda.