Some months ago our washer and dryer both stopped working. The washer, a front-loading model, had a catastrophic break-down — the drum came loose and rubbed against some interior part, making lots of noise. Then it just stopped. The dryer, which was stacked on top of the washer, stopped producing heat. It would turn and blow lots of air out the vent, but no heat. That was probably a minor repair, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to buy the same brand of washer (Kenmore) in order to be able to keep using its matching dryer. So we’d been going to the laundromat and getting plenty sick and tired of it (though it did give us plenty of opportunity to marvel at people who evidently can’t afford to live somewhere with laundry facilities, but are able to afford expensive cellphones) as we considered the prospect of buying a new washer and dryer.
Given the problems we’d had with the old washer and dryer (there had been other repairs, and there’s the mold and mildew issue that’s associated with front-loading washers), I was thinking of going back to the old kind of top-loading machines that I my parents had when I was a child. But, in a small house, a stacking washer-dryer is a vert efficient use of space. Also, I had made a new hole through the wall for the stacked dryer’s vent (and I had plugged up the older hole that was for the top-loading dryer that had been in the house many years ago.)
Luckily we have a friend who watches craigslist.com and other things-free-for-the-taking websites. She knew of our washer-dryer woes and took pity on us. Even more lucky: her husband has a pickup truck! One evening she called us and said there was a stacking washer-dryer available and she and her husband would get them for us. The next evening, he delivered them. Fantastic! This keeps at least $1000 in my bank account. We placed our “new” washer and dryer on the back patio while I tackled the next problem: how to get the old washer and dryer out of the basement.
When you buy a new washer and dryer from a store, a couple guys in a truck deliver them to your house. They remove the old washer and dryer — no problem; they know what they’re doing and they’ve got the muscles to do it. I had a good hand-truck and wasn’t worried about getting our “new” washer and dryer into the basement, because I would have gravity on my side. But getting the old ones up out of the basement was a different proposition. Here’s what I’ve learned (remember, in this case, I was disassembling front-loading machines):
The best way, probably the only way, to singlehandedly get a washer and dryer out of a basement is to disassemble them. All you need is some screwdrivers and a socket set. Before you do anything: make sure everything is unplugged and water is turned off and disconnected.
The dryer is the easier one to disassemble: you can remove the door, the back panel, the top panel, the motor, and the power cord and these can be taken away piece by piece. At this point, what remained was light enough for me to take up the stairs and out the door with the hand-truck. If I had continued, I could have taken the drum out of the frame.
The washer is much heavier and takes more work. I removed the door, the back panel, the top panel, the power cord, and the hoses. Then I took out the motor or at least part of it. It was still too heavy. Guess what? Front-loading washers have concrete weights attached to the drum to prevent it from vibrating too much. Who knew? I was surprised to find them and soon had them unbolted and outside. Even with the weights removed, I could see that the drum and the interior frame was still too heavy for me to get up the stairs.
The drum was suspended from the top by two large springs and attached to the bottom by four shock-absorbers. The shocks were easy to twist and pull off. The springs … not easy. The drum was too heavy to lift and thus allow me to unhook the springs. Cutting through them with a hacksaw seemed a possibility, but there were lots of things in the way, making it awkward. I decided to turn the whole thing upside down to take the weigh off the springs. That worked, they were easy to unhook, but turning the washer upside-down created a new problem. As soon as it was upside-down, a thick red fluid oozed out of the machine and pooled on the floor. For a second I thought it was blood! Had I hurt myself? No. Transmission fluid? It sure looked like it. I guess a washing machine has a transmission, so it has transmission fluid. Is it supposed come out if the machine is turned upside-down (or did I crack something as I disassembled the machine)? Beats me. Luckily, my basement floor is part ugly broken tile and part ugly exposed concrete, so nothing was ruined and clean-up was easy. If your machine is on carpet, I recommend caution.
Disassembled, everything was relatively easy to get out of the basement. It sat on the curb for a couple of days before someone took it away for scrap, before the garbage truck could get it. Looking at Youtube, I discovered that out-of-service front-loading washing machines can be converted to electrical generators, which might be good to have if there’s something handy to turn the drum (for example, water flowing down a hill on your property).
Getting our “new from craigslist” washer and dryer into the basement wasn’t hard. Set-up was as easy as connecting the hoses and plugging them in. Manuals are online at the manufacturer’s website, if needed.
Bottom line: lots of money saved, well worth the few hours of work. The story continues …
