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A Tale of Two Washers
Dec. 30th, 2017 06:21 pmI haven't really wanted to spend the last week running to Reno every day, but that does seem to be what I've been fated to do. Yesterday, I took the Astro in to have the oil changed, rear differential serviced, and transmission fluid changed. Today, Lisa and I went shopping for a new washing machine.
Rather than a big-box store, we went to Sargent's Maytag in Sparks. Although they did not have any refurbished simple washers at the moment, they did have two models of new washer that Lisa liked. But they actually talked us out of buying anything immediately. When we explained the symptoms, they told us that it looked we might be setting the water level too low. Our machine has three water levels. Apparently, if you set the water level so low that clothes sit above the waterline in the basket, the machine can start thrashing water out of the basket. It's possible that this has been happening off and on for a while now and we didn't notice, and it was just me doing a particularly large load of laundry that caused the most noticeable problem.
After doing other shopping in Reno/Sparks and having Saturday brunch at the Peppermill, we went home and did a test with a very light load: one pair of my slacks. With the water level set to medium, there was no water on the floor. But with the same load and the water level set to low, we started getting water coming out. So this does mean for now no more low-water washes.
While this does seem to mean that we don't have to immediately replace this washer, Lisa is leaning very much toward going ahead and buying the Speed Queen Commercial model we checked out in Sparks. The model is about to be discontinued, but it's simple, sturdy, and has a 3-year warranty. Also, we might buy a spare set of knobs for it at the time we buy the washer, because they did admit at the store that the knobs tend to be the item that fails most often. We'd be looking at a total of more than $1000 including the delivery to Fernley, but that does also include hauling away the old washer. They can refurbish it and probably resell it as used, which is fine with me, as I hated the idea of just dumping it in the landfill.
We'll think about this some more next week and see about putting together the money to buy a new washer. The very fact that this store discouraged us from buying until we checked out what they suggested makes us more likely to want to deal with them. Oh, that and the fact that they had an adorable little boy in there who was playing with the toy train he got for Christmas and was enthusing about having gone on the Polar Express at Ely this December.
Rather than a big-box store, we went to Sargent's Maytag in Sparks. Although they did not have any refurbished simple washers at the moment, they did have two models of new washer that Lisa liked. But they actually talked us out of buying anything immediately. When we explained the symptoms, they told us that it looked we might be setting the water level too low. Our machine has three water levels. Apparently, if you set the water level so low that clothes sit above the waterline in the basket, the machine can start thrashing water out of the basket. It's possible that this has been happening off and on for a while now and we didn't notice, and it was just me doing a particularly large load of laundry that caused the most noticeable problem.
After doing other shopping in Reno/Sparks and having Saturday brunch at the Peppermill, we went home and did a test with a very light load: one pair of my slacks. With the water level set to medium, there was no water on the floor. But with the same load and the water level set to low, we started getting water coming out. So this does mean for now no more low-water washes.
While this does seem to mean that we don't have to immediately replace this washer, Lisa is leaning very much toward going ahead and buying the Speed Queen Commercial model we checked out in Sparks. The model is about to be discontinued, but it's simple, sturdy, and has a 3-year warranty. Also, we might buy a spare set of knobs for it at the time we buy the washer, because they did admit at the store that the knobs tend to be the item that fails most often. We'd be looking at a total of more than $1000 including the delivery to Fernley, but that does also include hauling away the old washer. They can refurbish it and probably resell it as used, which is fine with me, as I hated the idea of just dumping it in the landfill.
We'll think about this some more next week and see about putting together the money to buy a new washer. The very fact that this store discouraged us from buying until we checked out what they suggested makes us more likely to want to deal with them. Oh, that and the fact that they had an adorable little boy in there who was playing with the toy train he got for Christmas and was enthusing about having gone on the Polar Express at Ely this December.
