Lessons I Learned Over The Weekend....

Lesson #1: Fixing a dryer is not that difficult. (Once you figure out what you're doing.)

A little more than a month ago our gas laundry dryer stopped drying. Everything else worked. The lights would go on, the drum would spin, the clothes would tumble. But there was no heat. Meaning that either the gas was shut off (not the case) or something inside wasn't feeding the gas or burning it to create heat. A pretty common problem but one I had never tackled before so I called one of the manufacturer's authorized service dealers. I told them the problem over the phone and the servicemen showed up at 9:30 the day they were supposed to. That's where it all went wrong....

I brought the guys downstairs to the basement where the laundry room is. The first thing the main guy did was turn on the washing machine. It took only 2 or 3 seconds to realize his mistake but in my amazed stupor it felt like 2 or 3 minutes. Granted the two machines look alike, but there is a door on the top of the laundry machine that covers the inlets for the soap, softener, bleach - and this is a guy who works on these brands all the time. WTF?

So after turning on the dryer and letting it run for ten minutes, he confirmed that it wasn't working and that the ignitor and/or gas valve had to be replaced (all of which I told the woman on the phone when I made the appointment). He then told me he would have to go back to the shop and order the parts then come back the following week to replace them. I asked him how much it was going to cost and he said he wouldn't know until he got back and actually placed the order. He figured it would take an hour to replace the parts and put the machine back to together. I asked him to give me a call before he placed the order so I'd know how much I'd have to spend beforehand. "No problem." he said.

Fast forward 3 weeks and numerous unanswered phone calls.....

I called several other places to get a price quote on replacing the two parts. I told each place I called the model number and exact parts I wanted replaced. Not one single person would give me a quote until they came to our house to look at the dryer. And I thought politics was corrupt... Not only did they not give me quotes but two of the people I called would call me at 8:30 in the morning, while I'm at work, and ask if I'd be home between 9:00 and 11:00 that same morning. This happened three times by two different people. I finally got sick of them and we ordered the parts directly from the manufacturer. The company policy is to only sell to authorized servicemen but after we had called to complain about the lack of service from one of their own, they relented and sold us the parts. The parts arrived as scheduled and we were ready to tackle the job Saturday afternoon.

Once we realized that you didn't have to take the back panel off and only had to remove the front face it was smooth sailing. There aren't very many parts inside the machine so finding and replacing the necessary parts was pretty simple. We just wasted time trying to remove the back panel then putting all the screws back in. All in all, it took about 2 hours to fix.

Lesson #2: The door to my basement steps does not close all the way unless you pull it shut and Alexis can open it by herself if it's closed completely.

I had gone down into the basement Sunday morning to check on the progress of something on the computer and Alexis had seen me. So she decided to follow me downstairs. I had pulled the door behind me when I went downstairs, but obviously (obvious now) not hard enough since Alexis got the door open and tried to crawl downstairs. All I heard was a couple of thumps and then crying. I immediately realized what happened and ran over to the stairs. There was Alexis sitting on her butt facing the stairs. I scooped her up and checked for any breaks and after a few minutes she had calmed down and was laughing. She was shakened up a little and had a couple of red marks from her fall, but otherwise she was alright. Next time I'll be sure to either take her with me or make sure the door is closed fully.

Lessons learned.