Washing Stuff

We got a new washer and dryer this week. Our washer and dryer were bought when we moved into this house however many years ago that's been now. 12 maybe? Anyway, they've worked well all these years and have washed and dried thousands of pounds of clothes but the dryer decided it was tired of all that work and while it still ran, it didn't heat up anymore. Should we get it fixed or just invest in newer and more energy efficient models?

I'm of the opinion that if an appliance is over a certain number of years old it's usually more cost effective to upgrade rather than repair. Yes, I'm part of the throw it away and buy new generation.

Anyway, I went over to Lowe's and picked out an affordable Whirlpool washer and dryer, well, affordable depending on how you look at things, but the total was $1001.00 including the stuff to connect it all and they came with free delivery and set  up. I didn't realize it at the time, just looking at price tags mostly, but the washer I chose is one of the newer (at least new to me) high efficiency models that I guess uses less water to wash which is a good thing here in the desert that is California.

You have to use special high efficiency detergent, something also new to me, but fortunately the detergent I already had has the little HE label on it, safe for all machines.

We were going to have the delivery guys take out the old machines and haul them away, something else Lowe's was offering for free, but decided to take them out ourselves because who knew what was lurking under and behind our washer and dryer. They live in a closet in the kitchen and it's impossible to clean under and behind them without taking them out of the closet. Hence, cleaning under and behind them never gets done. I'm glad Keith took them out because I would have been totally embarrassed to have anyone other than us see how disgusting our closet was. About an inch of dust was under the washer and dryer, along with 4 or 5 toy mice, a cheerio, a marking pen, and a little ball of petrified cat poo. Now, our cats haven't played with toy mice in years, being lazy and rather sedentary since they are now all senior cats, and where the single cheerio came from I don't know, and what the hell is a little ball of cat poo doing under there?

As you may or may not know, we didn't have doors on the laundry closet for a long long time after we painted the kitchen however many years ago because Keith likes to start things and not finish them and the doors were out in the garage for a long long time waiting to be painted and put back up. That is how things got knocked under the washer and dryer, cats playing with things back in the days when they still played. Long story short, that stuff had been under there for quite some time.

So, washer and dryer removed and the inside of the closet all scrubbed clean and we were ready for the deliverymen. They came yesterday morning and Boom! washer and dryer installed in about 15 minutes and now I could wash all the stuff that had been waiting to be washed. Which I did and I'm happy with how the new appliances work so far and maybe I'm even saving water and energy.

And, we got rid of the old stuff in record time by putting it out on the driveway with a FREE sign and about 30 minutes later someone came by and hauled them off. I told them that the dryer needed a new heating element but they still seemed quite happy at their score. We've gotten rid of quite a few things this way, people just can't resist FREE!