In search of the Maytag repairman…
…because I have a job for him. It looks like our washer needs a new drain pump, because yesterday afternoon it started trying to spin with a full tub of wet clothes and water, accompanied by unusual noises. There’s lots of good information online for do-it-yourself repair, including how to disassemble the washing machine and various diagnostic procedures. The hacker/engineer side of me wants to start taking it apart just because we can. But the weather is great outside today and I’d rather spend my limited time on fun stuff outdoors and leave the pump replacement to trained professionals. If I could find one. There are no Maytag repairmen anymore, only authorized service providers, who are apparently quite busy. It might end up being easier to just buy a new washer, I can get one delivered today.
Tags: home, consumer, appliances, washer, maytag, repair
April 19th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Ho John –
Your decision to replace your washer is fraught with the tensions we face in today’s world. Our parents would have made a different decision than we … and not just because the Maytag guy was semi-real in their day.
Indeed, it’s a family story about my parents’ dryer, a model I recall having been installed when I was a kid, before there was a man on the moon. Some years ago (but well after that), the magnetic latch on the door came off, meaning the door would fall open.
My dad, who would have been a great hacker (if not a great software engineer) got a self-tapping screw and an old strike-plate (the part of a door that the latch hits) and attached the plate to the dryer using the screw such that by swinging the latch down, the dryer door is held closed. I use the present tense here because it has been at least 15 years, and this hack is still working.
Not that there wasn’t a “moment” several years back. The dryer had stopped working. My father, who has never touched a load of laundry in his life, decided to buy a new one, naturally selecting the cheapest one possible (, not consulting my mom, who has indeed touched several loads of laundry). The delivery people came from 50 miles away (Ellsworth, ME) with the new dryer, brought it in, un-boxed it, pulled out the old one, plugged in the new one. The new one didn’t work either. Whoops, it was just a tripped breaker, which the delivery guy determined!
So my dad realized the old dryer was not broken at all. Obviously he didn’t need a new dryer, so he told the guys to take back the new one, reinstall the old one and sent them on their ways. Being the generous man he is, he tipped them: $5 to split between each other. He was brought up during the Great Depression, so is a frugal man indeed.
Needless to say, anyone who hears this (entirely unembellished) story cringes. Especially me and my sisters.
But two things come to mind. First, regardless of whether my parents had the means to purchase a new dryer, they repaired the 20 year old one, because it was still functional. Second, even when the dryer was 35 years old, it was still working: no need to replace it, even under the most embarrassing circumstances. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Consider that things made “back in the day” actually could even last 35 years and still work. Consider that even if far from an Energy Star model, this dryer’s parts were made, shipped, and installed once. A device like a dryer is a fairly energy intensive thing: big, lots of metal and a big motor.
But most important, consider the same instinct I and most of us have: it’s easier to get a new one installed (today!) than to have a pump replaced. How old are our cars? I replaced my perfectly good Toyota Camry with a mere 75,000 miles on it because I wanted a more efficient Prius. A car is far more energy intensive. What’s the true cost, overall of such decisions?
But it is we who make the disposal of mostly good things a feasible business proposition. And from this, we generate huge amounts of waste. Your old washer will not be salvaged for parts, most likely, just melted back down to lower-grade metal. It’s very, very easy to have the old things whisked away to … somewhere. This cannot be right.
We all have to start thinking about the total and true costs of living our modern lives.
I don’t mean to go all righteous on you or anything. We all live in this disposable society, and I contribute a lot, even while preaching on my blog. And now yours! I am a sinner, too.
I’ll get off my soapbox now
Happy laundering.
Tom
April 20th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I actually did manage to get an service appointment scheduled for tomorrow (Monday). The repair-vs-replace debate is non-trivial, though. New appliances tend to be more resource efficient (in this case, lower energy and water consumption). Unfortunately, the very nice washer I would theoretically like to get is too big to fit in the space available, simplifying the choices to replacing it with nearly the same thing, or fixing it. So I’d rather fix it (assuming it is economically rational, and can be completed in a timely fashion).
Old-tech steel and metals are pretty good recycling fodder (think Nucor and all the mini-mills that only start with scrap metal as input). A bigger problem is that all the new miniaturized, energy-efficient stuff is loaded with composites and interesting chemicals that make them harder to deal with at the end of their lifecycle though. Even simple items like light bulbs are problematic; our household has been an early adopter of CFL bulbs, but I’m not so excited about all the mercury going back into landfill. We take ours back to the hardware store for recycling, but that is probably the exception, even around here where people are more conscious of the problem.
I liked the story about your Dad. I think we’re losing something in the US with technology being so heavily integrated (and opaque to users). I did manage to coax more than 150k miles from my old Toyota Celica, before being overruled by the wife.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Hi. I too had a Maytag washer go down on me. Do you have the Neptune front load washer? With kids, a washer can not go down, so I called the service people right away. It took them a couple of days to come out. Luckily, there was a huge class action lawsuit for the Maytag Neptune washers, so many of them broke. They had to completely replace our entire motor, but it works now. Free of charge due to the law suit. I have to keep the door open and jimmy the light to turn off so that it does not get moldy inside. Never buy a Neptune again……. I think the law suit deadline is over, but good luck to you!
April 24th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Ours is a top loader, predating the Neptune front loaders.
It turns out I should have gone ahead and opened the washer up myself before calling the service guys. The drain pump wasn’t working because a sock got in and dislodged the drive belt. This was fairly obvious as soon as we opened the cabinet, since the belt was sitting loose just inside. All that was needed was reseating the drive belt and away it went.
As an aside, I did not know that the drive belt for the Maytag top loading washers was on the outside of the cabinet (under the machine). This makes it vulnerable to stray laundry drifting under the machine and bumping the drive belt off the pump.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I have been looking and struggling with the purchase of the TOP loading HE Maytag washer- If you have the top loader, would you buy it again? Why?