Oh man, so much has happened in a short amount of time! First up on the calendar of special occurrences was the washer that had been given to us by our cousins decided it didn't want to stop filling up anymore. It had already had a couple of other things go wrong and was pretty old. We knew it was just a matter of time before we would have to replace it, but we were fine using it up to the very last bit of its ability! :) We had already decided that since we have a ridiculous amount of laundry to be done all.the.time, that when the time came to get a different one, we would invest in a front loader again. I used to have one before our rv saga and I absolutely LOVED it. Getting a brand new one was just not necessary as far as I was concerned because there is always a bounty of used goodness on craigslist. ;)
So, away my fingers flew on the keyboard and track pad searching through the previously owned offerings. I was looking at either an LG set or a whirlpool duet set. I wanted to go ahead and get a matching set since our dryer is the same age as the washer and the sets I was looking at were actually less expensive than some of the single washer ads. I looked up the reviews on both sets to see if there was anything I should be concerned about with either of the models. It was interesting to find such a huge amount of dissatisfied consumers of the LG model. Granted lots of them were about the odor issue many have with front loaders and since I know how to fix that issue and avoid it in future, that wasn't as big of a deal, but there were plenty having to do with the actual mechanical and electronic parts not functioning properly. I didn't really want to have to do a lot of youtubing how to videos on fixing it and ordering parts and all that, so I was relieved to find that the whirlpool reviews were mostly about the smell and not very many about the machine not functioning properly.
The lady that was selling the whirlpool set was moving and I went to check them out to see if they would work and to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with them. She was going to need them a couple more days to get all her laundry done, so it was kind of an interesting situation. We paid a small fraction of what a new set would have cost, actually got them loaded in the van and with much strain on both mine and Sam's part, got them set up in the laundry area. They can be stacked, so we did that and it freed up quite a bit of space for a new laundry system that will be put into place soon. Something very similar to this:
I was loving washing the first couple of loads when I noticed water coming out from under it. Not a lot, but there was definitely a leak somewhere. Ugh. So, I let Sam know about it and started looking up possibilities for the problem. He said he noticed a small tear in the drum seal and thought that might be it. I took a look at it and found it, but couldn't tell for sure. I found a suggestion that it might be the water pump or it could be that the drain filter was clogged. That one was an easy fix, so I took the front panel off and undid the filter basket. There was a big wad of lint in it and some coins. I was hoping this was the problem. I didn't think the pump was because it wasn't make any non-normal noises. I cleaned it all out and put it back in and did another load. I thought it was good until I saw the water coming out again. Bummer. At least the panel was still off, so I could see where the leak was. Sam was right, it was coming from the seal area. I knew ordering the drum seal would take a while and to be honest, I didn't want to have to pay $70 bucks for one right after we just bought the washer! So, I had it in my head that there had to be a way to temporarily patch it. ;) I was thinking possibly one of those pool float patches or something similar. I actually came across a suggestion of duct tape and thought why not?! The stuff we have in the garage is the very thin cheapo stuff, but it would just have to do. I put a little piece on the tear and did another load. It worked! Sam was pretty sure it wouldn't hold very well for very long and suggested a stronger tape like Gorilla Tape. He was right on. After a couple of loads the leak was back so, I picked some Gorilla Tape up while I was at Lowe's and put a piece over the tear when I got home. That's been a little over a month ago and its still holding strong. I'll eventually replace the seal (I've already watched several how-to videos and even found one where I don't have to take all the panels off of the top and front of the machine!), but for now we are good. :)
To Be Continued...
