What's Shaking?

 It has been an aggravating bunch of days. The new washer we installed was 'walking'. Vibrating itself right out of its place. We have never had a washer do that before. We thought we had the problem fixed by putting a rubber vibration absorbing mat underneath it. We were in a hurry, things to do, places to be, holiday weekend, etc, and then we received a phone call the next morning that the door wouldn't open. A mechanical issue on top of everything else?!!!! It was a brand new $1800 washer! 

So...although we were headed out of town, we turned around and went back to her house to assess the situation. 

The part that wasn't relayed in the telling of the story is that the door wouldn't open because the damned thing had 'walked' once again, and pinned the front of itself against a door molding. 

We simply didn't have time to trouble shoot it and spend a day working on it, so I said, "We're going to have to do this after the holiday. Can you do without a washer over the weekend, while we figure out what we're going to do next?" 

She said that she could. 

That thing has been hanging over our heads all weekend. We've installed many washers in many places, and we've never had this.

Today is Tim's birthday. He wanted to go have lunch at his favorite little restaurant in Pleasantville. They are only open until 2, but we had that darned washer to figure out and a carload of tools, since he wasn't sure what we would actually need to solve this problem, if we could even solve it at all. 

My guess was that it was not level. It's a front loader which we have not got a lot of experience with. Maybe they are fussier than top loaders. Tim was reading up on it while I was getting ready to go this morning. He said, "They say that there are four packing bolts that have to be removed. If they are not removed, it will cause a serious vibration." 

Now...surely it could not be that easy...

But...I am happy to say that it was. He sat down with the owners manual, read where they would be found, climbed back there to have a look, and lo...there they were. He removed them, Deb tossed her weekend of laundry in and we started up the machine. This time, we waited. We sat right there and watched it through the whole cycle until it began to spin. 

Smooth as silk. 

If we said it once today, we've said it a dozen times..."Oh, I'm so glad that washer is figured out..." and we are. Best birthday present ever! It was sorted out so quickly that we met up with my sister and brother in law and had lunch out. We ran to the Mennonite Grocery and picked up a few things, and then came home. 

It's been a quiet night. Tomorrow, we'll hit the road running once again. We're putting the bathroom together, which is exciting. The Township employee is coming to put the electronics back in the grinder pump for the sewage system (each property has its own grinder and pump which pushes everything into the main line). Since our property sat vacant for some years, the electronics were removed and will be replaced Wednesday morning. We will be able to hook our drains into the system. Yay!

Tim has this crazy idea that we can get the bathroom done before my knee replacement, and I can recuperate there. I don't know if all that can happen before the 14th of May, but we'll see. We've got all the stuff to get it done. 

It would be nice. 

You know what else is nice? We've got a ten day forecast and no snow predicted! 

Our Easter was nice too. I hope yours was as well.