Author: HomeOwnerMan

Looking for some fun and excitement this weekend?  Look no further than your own laundry room.  Most Americans are unaware of the untapped entertainment value of their own washing machine.  You see, washing machines combine the four elements of home-owner fun: electricity, water, grease, and  sharp edges to accommodate all of your hand-shredding needs.

My introduction into this world of joy began about two months ago, when my wife noticed a strange whine coming from behind our 1979 Whirlpool 4 cycle, 3 temperature, LHA 7680 washing machine.  I spent two weeks assuring her that there was no problem with the appliance, and so long as we could verify the whereabouts of the two cats, no one was being hurt by the whine.

Unfortunately, these types of problems rarely fix themselves, and soon the washer began refusing to empty until someone came along and manually twisted the agitator (quite adequately named, I might add) a couple of times.  This progressed into the machine’s outright refusal to start the spin cycle unless someone (me) reached around the back and advanced the ever-fraying belt a couple of turns.  Clearly, something needed to be done.

“Florence, take these clothes down to the river and clean them on some rocks.”

“Yes, Dear.”

After a week or so of watching (from the Lazi-Boy with a beer in my hand) my wife lug baskets of clothing down to the estuary of the mighty Delaware river, I was moved with pity, and decided it was time to repair the washing machine once and for all.

My first course of action was to diagnose the problem; that was a pretty easy task.  The drive belt coordinates everything that goes on in a washing machine, and the belt on ours was clearly worn.  Therefore, it had to be the belt.

I called the “Sears Parts By Phone” hotline, who operate under the motto, “We’re not just parts, we’re part of the problem.”  I was greeted by the familiar, “We’re sorry.  Both of our customer service representatives are currently busy.  Please wait on the line, and you will be disconnected in the order that your call was taken.”  They were as good as their word.  I was disconnected twice before finally speaking to Melinda.  She asked, “May I have the model number of your appliance?”

Having proudly anticipated this question, I read the number “LHA 7680” right off the front cover of my owners manual.  Melinda then asked, “What are the last two letters?”

“Huh?  What flagging last two letters?” I thought to myself.  “That’s all, just LHA 7680,” I replied.

“Well, I’m sorry, but without the last two letters, we cannot place your order.  You can find the full model number on a plate on the back of your washer.  Click.  Bzzzzz.”

It took me roughly 24 hours to cool down and move the washer away from the wall so I could read the numbers on the plate.  And sure as manure stinks, the model number was listed as “LHA 7680 WO” on the plate.  I was finally able to place my order. I subsequently waited eagerly by the mailbox every day for 2 weeks.  Still, no belt.  I phoned Sears again, and asked them the status of my order.  Mike, the customer service representative, said, “Well, since you didn’t specify method of delivery, we sent it by the least expensive means.”

“Which is?” I inquired.

“Cattle boat from China,” Mike was more than happy to inform me.

At last the day arrived!  A large padded envelope arrived from Sears in Spokane, WA which enclosed both the belt and instructions for replacing it.  Instructions indeed!  As a seasoned home owner and backyard auto mechanic, I scoffed at the notion that anyone would need directions to replace a belt.  Fortunately, my wife wrestled the directions out of my hands before I could cast them into the fiery furnace.  She insisted that she could read the directions to me while I installed the belt.

For 3 grueling hours, she read things like “remove mounting bolts (A), (B), (D), and (J) from stabilizing brackets (C), (E), (F), and (K), being careful not to lose spacer (G).”  The old spacer (G) went falling into the clutch mechanism (H), causing husband (M) to begin swearing.  Along the way, I discovered what my father must have felt like when I was a kid of 6 or 7 years old, and wanted to “help” my father fix something.  He’d ask me for a socket wrench, and I’d hand him a pair of pliers;  he’d ask me to shine the flash light on a particular part, but my mind would wander, and soon he’d say to me, “shine it on the washer, not on me.”  Wives, I discovered, are much like 6 or 7 year old boys in this respect.

We finally pieced the washer back together, and were ready to try it out.  We reconnected the hoses and power supply, and selected “normal cycle.”  To our amazement, the washer began to fill, and even stopped filling at the appointed time.  But then without warning, in what should have been the agitation cycle, the agitator (had I mentioned how apropos this name is?) refused to agitate, and instead, the tank spun.  “No problem,” I said. “The controller must simply be in the wrong position.  We just need to fix that.”  So we again disassembled the washing machine, put the control rod in the “correct” position, and reassembled everything.  This time, the agitator (this ~really~ has been aptly named) worked correctly, but the tank wouldn’t spin during the spin cycle.  Again we disassembled and reassembled it, and this time, both the agitator (well-named) and the tank spun ALL of the time.  The appliance had become, for all practical purposes, an amusement park ride for clothing.

I have no idea why the Maytag Repairman is so lonely.  He’ll soon be making a service call to our house.

HomeOwnerMan and the Wrath of Sandy Video Here ***

When we last left HomeOwnerMan and Wife Girl, they were transforming this ‘80s style kitchen, and don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the ‘80s, most of HomeOwnerMan’s clothing and eyewear are from the ‘80s, anyway, they were transforming this ‘80s style kitchen into this modern-looking, functional-yet-elegant, money-sucking, kitchen including all the amenities.

Wife Girl and HomeOwnerMan scarcely had a chance to sit down and enjoy the new room when, as if from nowhere, came Hurricane Sandy.When the red phone, er Silver and black phone rang, they sprang into action.  With the help of Fuerte Dog, they set about getting things ready for the incoming storm.  Things like water, a generator, gasoline, extension cords, and the most important disaster supply, beer, which can be used not only for nourishment, but as currency if one needs to bribe the neighbors.
Finally, Hurricane Sandy made landfall.  And in Hometropolis, the winds and driving rain pounded hard. HomeOwnerMan had recently fortified the Home Cave with Dry-Lok, to keep the water outside Home Cave, or at least not too much higher that the super-sump. This seemed effective during Hurricane Irene and The October Storm of 2011, but Sandy was no ordinary natural disaster.  Would the dry-lok hold?

Eventually, the storm proved too much for Jersey Central Power and Light, and the power came to an abrupt halt.

To keep themselves busy, HomeOwnerMan and The Boy Runder, set about filling Halloween bags for the throngs of local youths who would undoubtedly find their way to the Home Cave to Trick-or-treat in two days.  Using their night vision, they skillfully filled the bags with three pieces each, except for the last stragglers who would only get two.

The winds began to gust to 90 mph.  Looking out the window, the Homeowner Gang were practically soiling their super-suits. Fuerte Dog was panting hard, and though he tried to cross his legs, eventually nature got the better of him and he had to go out.  Amid the wind and the rain, HomeOwnerMan and Fuerte Dog dodged flying sticks, stinging rain, and falling trees.  Under the cover of night, they could make out a strange shape looming high across the lawn.  But it was too dark to identify it.

It wasn’t until the long sleepless night, which was punctuated by important Nixle messages every 10 minutes, was over that it was finally bright enough outside to identify the strange shape on the lawn. It was not just one but two toppled trees, their roots torn from the ground like those of a turnip.

If this were HomeOwnerMan’s only concern, he could have cleaned up the mess lickity split.  But he had to deal with no power, no water, no coffee, and no internet. As these hurdles cleared themselves one by one, it was time for HomeOwnerMan to have at the trees.  Pulling a chainsaw from his utility belt, He slowly diced the trees into manageable logs.

HomeOwnerMan: Making the ordinary extra ordinary.

 

Flash back to last October.  HomeOwnerMan and Wife Girl were minding their own business in stately HomeOwnerMan Manor when Mother Nature brought her wrath upon the northeast in the shape of an unseasonable snow storm.  The wet snow clung to the heretofore unfallen leaves, bringing branches and trees down everywhere.  Even the force field that HomeOwnerMan furnished with his highly developed brain was insufficient to keep the arboreal damage at bay, and eventually a large branch fell across the deck of HomeOwnerMan, breaking three sections of railing.

 

The composite railing had been furnished Bate-n-Switch Industries, who just a few years ago promised a “lifetime warranty.”  HomeOwnerMan was not astute enough to realize the “lifetime” was measured on the order of that of a Drosophila (about two weeks) , and so when he went to buy replacement parts was surprised to find the manufacturer was out of business.  However, the Mom-n-Pop Home Center Store was able to locate some and graciously ordered it in.  It arrived in time for the holidays, and HomeOwnerMan was too busy in his white, spandex “Pizzelle Prince” outfit to install the new parts.

Flash ahead, now, to the current time when the weather had become pleasant and HomeOwnerMan again turned his attention to the broken railings and post.  The post was affixed to the deck in 2004 by HomeOwnerMan with the intention of permanence.  He had not considered that the post would ever need to be removed.  Unfortunately now was the time to remove it.  After disassembling the deck around it and filling three extra-large swear jars with quarters, the broken post was removed and its replacement installed.  This required the strength, intuition, and an anti-swearing potion that only Wife Girl could provide.

Installation of the railings then commenced.  The sun was still high in the sky while the first two railings were cut to length, installed and fastened down, so it was time to tackle the stair railing.

Comparing the damaged stair railing with the replacement material, HomeOwnerMan was quick to realize the humor that Bate-n-Switch Industries provided for free, because while the old material accommodated six balusters per 28 inch run, the new material only accommodated five.  So the existing bottom rail would have to be replaced as well.

HomeOwnerMan recognized the classic “rise over run” type problem with cutting the stair rail to length, and instantly pressed the beacon on his utility belt to summon Son Boy.  This was a classic teaching opportunity, and HomeOwnerMan was not going to let it pass without sharing his knowledge that really the only thing he ever learned in school of any use was trigonometry, oh, and the fact that the teen super-hero girls wearing the red “COH” badges were upperclassman and would humiliate a fledgling male, underclass super-hero just for sport.  HomeOwnerMan set up the problem for Son Boy thusly, “The stairs have a run of 25 1/8” and a rise of 10 ¾”.  How long should I cut the piece of stair railing and at what angle should I set the miter saw?”  Son Boy made HomeOwnerMan so proud when he came up with the proper length (27.32816”, we’ll get to the significant figures lesson later), but said they had not yet gotten to arc-tangents in super-hero middle school.  HomeOwnerMan gave him a pass on this (for now).

Would that construction was as easy as trigonometry, however, and HomeOwnerMan knows this fact well.  He therefore cut the pieces a bit long and began the process of running downstairs, trimming the pieces a little, running back upstairs to fit the piece, and repeating the process over and over again, also adjusting each baluster in a similar manner.  He thumbed his nose at the need for a device called a “Stair Master.”  The sun was now low on the horizon.  As he went to install the new section of stair rail, he realized that the new material was also slightly taller and would not clear the top step in its current configuration.  This dilemma vexed HomeOwnerMan, who eventually made the daring decision to rout out a part of the offending stair so the rail could have clear passage.  Assembling a custom routing jig for the occasion, HomeOwnerMan worked into the dark hours removing the material neatly and with precision.  In the dark, he reassembled the stairs with the aid of his infrared vision and LED flashlights.

HomeOwnerMan – making the ordinary extra ordinary.

 

It was a quiet evening in Hometropolis, indeed a little too quiet.  Incredidog was dozing on the couch, having barked a record ten minutes straight at the UPS guy, who delivered a small, unassuming package from Amazon Prime, containing a recoil spring for a Briggs and Stratton 130212/3247-01 engine.  This engine powered a 25 year old air sweeper/leaf blower which HomeOwnerMan had acquired from Weaselpuss, an unscrupulous Craigslist huckster who thought he had gotten the better of a mere mortal by selling what he believed was a non-functional pile of scrap.  Weaselpuss gladly accepted $125 for the lot, and smirked as HomeOwnerMan loaded it into the Homeowner mobile and drove off slowly so as to not damage his new purchase. Weaselpuss was sure that the machine would never start, but HomeOwnerMan spent 5 minutes with some Gum-Out and a screw driver, and before you could say “Homeowner Beacon” (if you spoke really slowly) the air sweeper started up on the first pull, and continued to do so for the next five years.

It was a good thing that it started on the first pull, actually, because after a few years, if it didn’t start up on the first pull the starter rope would not re-wind into the machine, and HomeOwnerMan would then spend 5 minutes manually rewinding the rope before a second pull could be attempted.  Finally, this procedure became too much for HomeOwnerMan, and he scoured the internet for the cheapest place to buy a recoil spring.   He found it at Repairclinic.com for $6.95, but they also wanted $6.95 for shipping.  HomeOwnerMan was too seasoned to fall for the old “Shipping and Handling” trick, and he remembered that Wife Girl had recently enrolled in Amazon Prime which,  in addition to offering free second-day shipping, also had a large variety of TV shows and movies.  It further occurred to HomeOwnerMan that he had not actually seen Wife Girl since she enrolled in Amazon Prime; someone had cast a spell on her and all she could do was watch old movies and foreign films on her iPad. HomeOwnerMan, for his part, stuck to watching Looney Toons re-runs like Elmer Fudd being “vewwy, vewwy, quiet” as he stalked Bugs Bunny, or Foghorn Leghorn speaking in his southern drawl phrases like “Hey, I say, Hey there boy…”, or Pepe Le Pew as he wooed unsuspecting female cats.  HomeOwnerMan thought of this as educational television.)  So for $10.12 and free shipping from Amazon Prime, HomeOwnerMan got the recoil spring and was ready to install it.

Although HomeOwnerMan lists “Superior Intellect” among his many super powers, he is not above watching a You-tube video or two before attempting a repair job, especially those that involve springs under a great deal of tension.  Choosing the video of a man replacing a recoil spring that had the most hits (41,763), he watched and learned.  The man in the video had a difficult-to-understand southern drawl, so the educational television that HomeOwnerMan watched was already paying off.  The man adeptly installed the spring right before HomeOwnerMan’s superhuman eyes, and now it was HomeOwnerMan’s turn.

It was a warm evening, so HomeOwnerMan set himself up near the top of the driveway. Knowing that night came quickly in these parts, he wanted to be near the spotlights.  Unbolting the cover plate, he exposed the flywheel, the recoil spool and the recoil spring.  The spring was a long, thin ribbon of memory steel so named because if it hit you in the head, you might well lose your memory.  It was in bad shape, so at first inspection HomeOwnerMan was sure he had made the correct diagnosis.  He then began re-installing the new spring just as Foghorn Leghorn had done in the video, only with not as much ease.  The first time he got it all wound up, but as he went to re-insert the pull cord the spring came flying out, momentarily erasing the memory from HomeOwnerMan as it whacked him in the forehead.  The second time he did a better job of winding the spring, and this time invoked the help of WifeGirl who, among other superpowers, boasted tiny, little fingers unrivalled by anyone but Oskar Schindler’s little children who polished the insides of shell casings.  WifeGirl threaded the pull string through, knotted the end, and they tested the rope.  It recoiled just as it would have done if new, and HomeOwnerMan was so pleased with WifeGirl that he gave her a greasy-handed embrace.

He re-installed the assembly on the air sweeper and gave it a pull.  The motor rotated but did not start and much to HomeOwnerMan’s chagrin, the rope again did not recoil.  Undeterred, HomeOwnerMan again uninstalled the cover plate and this time tested the starter clutch.  It was frozen like a chocolate covered banana at a state fair.  So HomeOwnerMan watched another video, this time by a man who sounded more like Charles Emerson Winchester from “M*A*S*H” showing how to remove the clutch and lubricate its parts.  It was now dark, but HomeOwnerMan just had to finish the job.  So, following the advice of Major Winchester, HomeOwnerMan unscrewed the clutch, being careful not to lose the ball bearings, lubed up the shaft, and was ready to re-assemble.

It was then that he saw it.  Were his eyes playing tricks on him?  Had a black cat accidently rubbed her back on a paint brush loaded with white paint?  No, it was him.   Not fifty feet away it was Pepe Le Pew!  HomeOwnerMan’s instinct was to recoil like the $10.12 spring, and to clutch his heart in fear, but the educational television had paid off again.  Summoning the images of Elmer Fudd, HomeOwnerMan stayed “vewwy, vewwy quiet”, and the skunk eventually turned tail, but did not lift tail, and scurried off.

Reinvigorated with his new-found zest for life that did not include bathing in tomato juice, HomeOwnerMan re-assembled the air sweeper, and throwing caution to the wind that would soon come out of the machine, he started it up despite being well past the “noisy equipment curfew”.  It ran like a charm, and when shut off, it was able to be restarted again with one pull.  All was right again in Hometropolis.

HomeOwnerMan – making the ordinary extra-ordinary.