Monday, December 01, 2008

If you turn on the dishwasher, and it fills up but the motor just kind of buzzes instead of doing anything, it's bad, right?

I now face the unenviable choice of trying to find a repair person (and maybe be told I need a new dishwasher anyway) or going out and buying a new one. As I've lived in the house seven years, and the dishwasher was already old when I bought the house, I'm leaning towards just buying a new one...the old one had been making odd noises the last few times I run it.

Yes, I know, the arguably more environmentally friendly choice would be to hand wash all my dishes, but meh. That sort of thing tends to make me shy away from actually cooking, and sometimes, cooking is the one thing that keeps me from going totally feral and eating standing up in front of the refrigerator.

I also face the unpleasant task, sometime today, of figuring a way of getting the inch and a half or so of soapy icky water that is pooled in the bottom of the dishwasher out. I'm not sure I want to steal a length of tubing from work and siphon it, at least not mouth-siphon. But I may have no other choice. I "dippered" out as much as I could with a bowl.

Nothing gives a person who was previously in a good mood a "case of the Mondays" faster than a dead appliance.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I agree that you need a new dishwasher. If you can buy one and get it installed this week, you might just leave the installer to deal with the water.

On the other hand, it may be that a drain pipe is stopped up somewhere. My understanding (cloudy at best) is that the dishwasher and kitchen sink both use the same drain. Maybe some drain cleaner down the kitchen sink would open things up enough that the water will drain out.

Anonymous said...

I agree; time for a new dishwasher. The new ones are more efficient and therefore envoronmentally friendly. Also, dishwasher detergent doesn't make suds unlike the stuff you'd use for hand washing. That's another "green" point.

I would think that the installer would expect to have to deal with an old dishwasher but you might mention it when you arrange for the install.

Anonymous said...

Actually, a dishwasher is more green than washing by hand. Google "green dishwashing". One site claimed about 1/2 the energy and 1/6 as much water. Of course they assume you only run full loads.