Scantlings

It's been a day. We traipsed off to the boat this afternoon to do an oil change. Quick run off the dock, get the oil hot, etc.
Start the engine, it sounds strange, no water flow. I know this game, so I pulled the hose off the mixing elbow and blew out some crud, fired it up and lots of water. Started again, no flow. Plugged mixing elbow, been there.
So, I called our mechanic, and he called back that he had the parts and could do it in two weeks. Fine.

We get home and I investigate a weird noise in the dishwasher to find a shallow lake underneath. It's 22 years old, it's no surprise. Start looking at appliance catalogues.

Wonder why dinner is taking so long and discover oven isn't heating. Start talking about kitchen reno. Finish off dinner in the toaster oven. Start thinking about increasing wine supply.

Argh.

If it happens once, it happened.
If it happens twice, it’s circumstance.
If it happens three times, it’s enemy action.

Ish,

That bites!

Just a word of warning - we did our kitchen last fall. Appliances are the toilet paper of 2020-2021. Everything is backordered.

Joel

TheOffice wrote:Ish,

That bites!

Just a word of warning - we did our kitchen last fall. Appliances are the toilet paper of 2020-2021. Everything is backordered.

Joel

So true, we have been waiting for Susan's new Induction Range now for several months. They claim it will be here early April.....

kimbottles wrote:

TheOffice wrote:Ish,

That bites!

Just a word of warning - we did our kitchen last fall. Appliances are the toilet paper of 2020-2021. Everything is backordered.

Joel

So true, we have been waiting for Susan's new Induction Range now for several months. They claim it will be here early April.....

I'm sure it will arrive on the 1st.

Quick! Check the water heater!

SemiSalt wrote:Quick! Check the water heater!

We're living on borrowed time on that too. We bought a water heater with a ten-year warranty because the salesman told us they all die around 8 years. Which ours did, and we got a new one under warranty. That one is now nine...

I checked the oven this morning and it seems to be working fine. Maybe yesterday was just one of those days.

Don't forget the clothes washer, and the filtered water input thingy on the fridge...

Slick470 wrote:Don't forget the clothes washer, and the filtered water input thingy on the fridge...

The washer is a Maytag and came with the house over 25 years ago, as did the stove and fridge. We'll replace them at some point, but I'm not impressed with the longevity of the new stuff.

Ish wrote:

Slick470 wrote:Don't forget the clothes washer, and the filtered water input thingy on the fridge...

The washer is a Maytag and came with the house over 25 years ago, as did the stove and fridge. We'll replace them at some point, but I'm not impressed with the longevity of the new stuff.

I have a good friend. When his great-grandmother in Seattle died, I helped his family clear out her stuff so the house could be sold. There was a gas stove made in about 1900. The great-grandmother had been using it up to the day she died at well over 90. My friend said: "My wife will love this!" off it went in the back of my suburban to Palo Alto. That was about 1980. That stove is still in their kitchen and it has served me many dinners. My friend was right, his wife adores the stove. It will probably last forever. No one has had to do anything to it, the temperature control in the oven is working perfectly, there is nothing wrong with it.

The Stove looks a lot like this, although there are some minor differences. You get the idea. It puts our modern disposable appliances in perspective.

Usually it’s the new safety regulations that kill these old appliances.

Several wraps of Rescue Tape and we're back in business, at least momentarily.

There is a major kitchen upgrade coming, I just know it's going to be painful.

Slick470 wrote:Don't forget the clothes washer, and the filtered water input thingy on the fridge...

I think I pulled out the fridge and disassembled and thawed out the dumb ice maker tube 3 times before I was able to finally get and replace the tube defroster/heater...even though the bad heater measured within Samsung's specs on a meter. The floor under the fridge and the fridge coils have never been so clean!!!!

My dad had an old Wedgewood gas stove (probably '40s vintage) at his beach house on Fox Island. It lasted over 50 years there and was running great when we sold the house around 2008. I sold the stove to a guy who was refurbishing a large wooden tug into a yacht. Still going strong I'll bet.

I'd love to cook on gas, but we are halfway up a rocky slope so getting a gas line put in would probably not be a realistic goal. I should phone and ask, you never know.

On other fronts, we are going to buy a new dishwasher tomorrow. 22 years and still wheezing along is pretty good, time to retire.

I wish I only had to work for 22 years before I could retire.

The month after writing the last check for our bathroom remodel both the stove and the dishwasher died. Both may have been fixable, but since they were 8-10 years old the consensus was trying to repair them was not worth it. As best I can tell spending more on appliances does not get increased reliablity, at least until you get to the super high end stuff, so we got decent mid level GE replacements. I took a good look at both when they were delivered, and helped instal the dishwasher. They are very lightly constructed, thin metal, too many plastic parts in critical areas. It is too bad, I would be willing to pay an extra 25% or so for better quality, but as near as I can tell it is all the same stuff under the surface.

H B wrote:I wish I only had to work for 22 years before I could retire.

Yeah, and I'd love to get a new pump and brain while they're at it. Sometimes I question the output of the brainox.

A tenant tried to kill a Kitchenaid dishwasher by never cleaning the food trap and the fridge by never vacuuming the cat hair. Our laconic, and accidentally hilarious, Czech electrician "Libor" (he's touchy about his rates) says that anything else would have died and needed complete replacement.

Steele wrote:The month after writing the last check for our bathroom remodel both the stove and the dishwasher died. Both may have been fixable, but since they were 8-10 years old the consensus was trying to repair them was not worth it. As best I can tell spending more on appliances does not get increased reliablity, at least until you get to the super high end stuff, so we got decent mid level GE replacements. I took a good look at both when they were delivered, and helped instal the dishwasher. They are very lightly constructed, thin metal, too many plastic parts in critical areas. It is too bad, I would be willing to pay an extra 25% or so for better quality, but as near as I can tell it is all the same stuff under the surface.

We have purchased a GE dishwasher and a GE stove. They are not really GE products anymore. GE sold the business and the brand. They're fine, but not wonderful. We got a electric, glass cooktop model stove. From a cooking perspective, an inductive range would be better. They are faster heating, and changing temp than gas, and the burners remain cool. It turned out to be a good thing in the end that we didn't go inductive because I now have a pacemaker. The rules are to keep a pacemaker 2 ft from an inductive cooktop. Not good since I do most of the cooking.

Yesterday was a busy day. I took out the old Frigidaire Gallery dishwasher and installed the new Bosch. It's half the weight...and feels very flimsy. However, it just finished its first load of dishes and seems to be working fine. Halfway through the install, my mechanic called, and the mixing elbow on the boat has been replaced, 10 days ahead of schedule. Total cost for the mechanic and the dishwasher was almost equal. Read: painful.

Just to finish off this little story...we finally got out to the boat and did the oil change, I started the motor to circulate the new oil, and when I turned it off the key switch came apart in my hand.
$140 for a new switch and fifteen minutes to install it, we're functional again. All appliances at home still working, but a couple of cervical vertebrae at the top of my spine went on strike so now I have physio for a couple of weeks so I can look left again. Sigh.

Sorry to hear that. That's very painful.

In terms of the strike, did you consider moving to a "right-to-work" jurisdiction ?

Jamie wrote:Sorry to hear that. That's very painful.

In terms of the strike, did you consider moving to a "right-to-work" jurisdiction ?

I don't want them to quit, just work some of the time.

Love our Bosch dishwasher. Won’t buy anything else!
Joel

We have had an induction GE range on order for months now.....they keep moving the delivery date back.....

Ish wrote:

Jamie wrote:Sorry to hear that. That's very painful.

In terms of the strike, did you consider moving to a "right-to-work" jurisdiction ?

I don't want them to quit, just work some of the time.

Oh. I was figuring you could threaten them with being fired. Might be hard to outsource, though.

Jamie wrote:

Ish wrote:

Jamie wrote:Sorry to hear that. That's very painful.

In terms of the strike, did you consider moving to a "right-to-work" jurisdiction ?

I don't want them to quit, just work some of the time.

Oh. I was figuring you could threaten them with being fired. Might be hard to outsource, though.

Training the replacements would be hell.

Ish wrote:

Jamie wrote:

Ish wrote:

Jamie wrote:Sorry to hear that. That's very painful.

In terms of the strike, did you consider moving to a "right-to-work" jurisdiction ?

I don't want them to quit, just work some of the time.

Oh. I was figuring you could threaten them with being fired. Might be hard to outsource, though.

Training the replacements would be hell.

True. But training the existing slackers won't be easy either. Threaten them with a cage / fusion system. That will get then in-line.

Jamie wrote:

Ish wrote:

Jamie wrote:

Ish wrote:

Jamie wrote:Sorry to hear that. That's very painful.

In terms of the strike, did you consider moving to a "right-to-work" jurisdiction ?

I don't want them to quit, just work some of the time.

Oh. I was figuring you could threaten them with being fired. Might be hard to outsource, though.

Training the replacements would be hell.

True. But training the existing slackers won't be easy either. Threaten them with a cage / fusion system. That will get then in-line.

I prefer bribes to threats, but I'm running out of promises I won't keep.