Singing Potatoes
Previous — Main Page — Up to Archive — Next
Friday, 8 October 2004
Awesome Repairman

After the move, our washing machine made scraping sounds during the agitate cycle. Needless to say, we didn't want to use it when it was producing such an ugly noise, so we've been trucking up the hill to the complex's tiny laundry room.

Today, I started calling around to see how much it would cost to fix. Most places were asking around $50 just for someone to come out and give an estimate, not even counting the hourly charge and parts.

Then I hit one repairman who, as soon as he knew what model it was and learned that the noise occurred after moving, told me how to take the front panel off, and gave me three problem areas which that model usually had trouble with, and how to fix them.

He missed telling me one important fact about how to remove the front panel, but after I figured that out, it was clear that his first guess as to the cause was accurate. (The bottom panel on the GE Prodigy washer is a thin-gauge metal, and while getting it onto the dolly, we'd buckled it inwards. All I had to do was push down on it and now it works like a charm.)

I'm impressed that he was so helpful, as he could have made $55 for a couple minutes' work. Perhaps "shocked" is a better word, in this day and age.

Posted by godfrey (link)
Previous — Main Page — Up to Archive — Next