How-to: Replacing a Clothes Washer

A washer and dryer. These are two essential items for any college house. I mean, how are you otherwise going to wash your clothes? Take them to a laundromat? Hah, I don't think so. You'll wind up going quadruple-duty on that Star Wars shirt you got when you were 12, skimping out on an undershirt with dress shirts (who are you, Magnum PI?), and worst of all, eventually stealing your roommates socks. After all, they are always the first to run out. Let's not even start on underwear.

Up until yesterday, we had a washer that only kind of worked. It washed everything just fine, except it didn't move itself through the different cycles. So basically, you had to manually change the setting from wash, to rinse, to spin, etc, every 10 min or so. That sure was a pain.

So we got the washer and dryer from our old house and hauled it over (the new people that moved in were going to buy it but didn't pay up, so we repoed it). Here is how to go about replacing a washer:

First of all, unplug / disconnect everything. It's usually just a power cord (do that first), a hot and cold water connection, and a drain tube. You'll probably spill some water, but don't worry about it.

Next, muscle that sucker out of there. This will probably be the hardest part. Washers are a lot heavier than dryers. It's definitely a two person job. We had to haul it down some steps too. It would be awesome to have a hand truck for this part.

Notice the drain pipe on the bottom-left. That usually just pulls right out of another pipe in the wall with no problem.

Whao! What is that nastiness on the bottom of the wall?

Looks like we could have some water damage. Let's take a closer look...

Do I even want to take a closer look?



Yep, water damage. I would say that this picture actually does do it justice. That's just nasty. See that pipe right in the center with the "residue" on it? That's the drain for the two toilets in the house. I'll leave it at that.

But seriously, it's not *that* gross. The toilet drain wasn't leaking. All that mess is from a leaking water pipe. That will be another blog sometime, but for now, I'm going to hide all of this with the replacement washer. If I can move it...

New and old washers side by side. Not shown: my hernia.

Ironically, the new washer is the exact same model as the old one. Two of my three roommates probably won't even realize I replaced it and will figure it magically replaced itself.

All that's left to do now is reconnect everything. Make sure you get the hot and cold connections right. It's probably a good idea to try to get it somewhat level, too If it's really out of whack, it could get damaged by spinning off center. Now, after all this work, will you get the old one out of there?

Guest Blog: Vacuum Fix.

How many broken vacuums do you have? We discovered one in our garage, and my girlfriend took it upon herself to handywoman it. Here's her story:


Vacuum cleaners, like office chairs in a college environment, tend to have a short life span. Even the smartest bag-less that boasts 12 amps and has a washable filter isn’t invincible to the demands of a collegiate household.

Recently, I was perusing the shop outside the house, which is home to a random assortment of dilapidated washing machines, office chairs and furniture that we inherited upon moving into our house and I saw a black vacuum, standing neatly against the wall.

Upon first inspection, the vacuum looked fairly new, just a little dusty. So I plugged it in, and tried to vacuum some dirt, but realized not only was the vacuum not sucking, it was blowing! I flipped it upside-down and examined what might be the problem, and noticed a large buildup of hair and lint behind the brushes.

I traced where a tube, leading to the bag-less dirt chamber, connected to the underside of the vacuum, and realized there was major clogage. I unscrewed a screw that was holding the tube in a curve, and was able to shove a long metal skewer (mmm anyone want to BBQ?), through the tube, unearthing about 4 solid inches of sawdust, hair clippings and lint. I put all the pieces back together, plugged it in, and viola, it sucked in a good way.

TOOLS NEEDED
-multi tool or drill

-skewer or plumberesque tool

Refrigerator Update... Yikes Again.

I'm a day late on this post, but here it is.

A couple hours after turning off the fridge, we started cleaning it. I was working on the top freezer portion, when I came across this mysterious panel attached to the bottom. It was attached by two screws on either side. I could tell it was dirty under there, and when pushing down on it I could feel ice give way. I had to see more...



I grabbed my trusty screwdriver and went to work. My heart rate grew as the screws twisted out. I have a bit of a fear of mold; it grosses me out. I cautiously lifted the panel off, and BAM! Mold and other general frozen grossness!

Well, I survived the cleaning with some help from the roomies. Under the panel, I found a vent of sorts that leads into the fridge section. The vent was blocked by solid ice. I think it's safe to say this was the root of the problem. A day later, the whole thing works fine again. The freezer isn't too cold, and the fridge isn't too warm. Problem solved.

Edit: 4-10-08.
If you think this is gross, check back this weekend when I take on my next project...

Refrigerator Defrosting... Yikes.

So this isn't really a project. It's more of a spur of the moment type thing. The freezer part of our refrigerator was waaay too cold, while the fridge part wasn't cold enough. We didn't really know what to do, so we figured we might as well try defrosting the whole thing and starting fresh. This was also a great opportunity to do some cleaning. Needless to say, there were some nasty things in there.

We threw all the freezer items in a large cooler. The rest either went in the trash, or into one of four mini-fridges we have in the house. This picture is from about halfway through the process. You can see that it could use a good cleaning.

I think doing at least one fridge cleaning like this is a pretty good idea. It's too soon to say if it will fix the temperature problem, but at least we'll have a clean fridge. It will certainly make cleaning at the end of the year a lot easier.

Gross item awards:
1. Partially separated mayonnaise.
2. Old packets of deli meat.
3. Five jars of old pickles.