You would think that washing machines are fairly simple things. A big drum, some water, a heater and a motor to turn it all around. Well they are not, as I found out when I had to dismantle one over the weekend. I say I had to but it’s more like I decided to..
Ours started making a dreadful grinding noise a few weeks ago, which had become gradually worse and worse. The sound of metal on metal eventually became so loud that you couldn’t be in the same room as the machine when working. I decided to have a look and see if I could repair it (see above). Once I had got the casing off, no mean feat in itself, its mysteries were shown to me. Wires, hoses, switches and even concrete appeared as I dug deeper and deeper into its workings.
It turns out that the main bearing that allows the drum to turn had failed. Only a third of the ball bearings were still intact inside the race. Could I remove it? No matter how hard I tried the main bearing just would not budge. I even broke a bearing puller trying, that I’d purchased especially.
After four hours or so of hammering, levering and some swearing, I gave up and so it was that we found ourselves at one of the big sheds this morning to buy another.
It isn’t just the workings of the washing machines that are complicated, however, even buying one seems to be. We were faced with so much choice which was bad enough (in a good way) but became completely bamboozled with the range of variables we had to consider.
There were the obvious things such as the drum capacity (measured in weight) from 5kg to 11kg and the spin speed (1600 seemed good). Then the fun started with the energy rating (A isn’t good enough now, A+, A++ and even A+++ exist), the amount of water usage and the number of decibels when it’s washing and spinning. Not to mention all of the features, variable spin, pre-wash, half load, soak, timer delay, low iron, delicates etc etc. You needed a degree to understand it all.
An hour later and how did we arrive at our decision? We decided how much we wanted to pay, looked at the options and chose the one which we like the look of.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 