Column: Wrestling with wonky washers is wearisome

We have an 18-month-old Maytag washer in our cellar. Sometimes the spin cycle works, sometimes it doesn’t. Technicians from two different service centers have no idea why. They blame our basement.

The Maytag was free. It replaced the Whirlpool that refused to work after a year or so of operation. The Whirlpool before that didn’t last very long either.

Sometimes, throughout this ordeal, I thought maybe we were doing something wrong. We know “planned obsolescence” has been a manufacturing technique for decades, and obsolescence occurs sooner in a device’s life cycle every year. But, really—a washer shouldn’t go wonky after a few months.

When my husband, Paul, and I moved into our home in 1988, there was an ancient washer and an old dryer in the basement. I believe the washer was one of the first non-wringers to come out. Anyway, we figured the dryer could toddle on for a while, but the washer had to go. Since it seemed to weigh a bit less than a ton, and we have no outside entrance to the basement, we had to get creative.

We took out an ad in “Uncle Henry’s.” It said, “Free washer. Must help get it out of cellar.”

A taker quickly showed up. I don’t think he was too happy when he saw the narrow stairway he and Paul had to navigate, but they got it out of the house and into his truck. “Buh-bye,” I waved.

We went to Sears and I had the brainstorm that a washer/dryer combo unit (one on top of the other) would be perfect for us. The delivery folks would easily get it downstairs. Which they did; the only problem was that it was too high. Back to the drawing board.

The only way into the basement is through a downstairs bathroom. This chamber probably was a pantry when the house was built in the 1870s. Our neighborhood has many old houses, and I’ve noticed some have been retrofitted with cellar doors. However, that is not practical in our house. Whenever we buy any appliances or furniture, we have to make sure we can get them into the house through the existing doors. The washer and dryer have to be much smaller than the gargantuan models most American families seem to favor. But they have laundry rooms, and we don’t.

Anyhow, my point is that the first washer had probably worked for 30 years. We had to buy a washer based on size rather than top quality and that first replacement lasted for 20 years. Now we were going through three washers in five years?

Something strange was going on.

It reminded me of the problems we had with our furnace for, perhaps, five years. It was a solid, relatively new furnace when we arrived. We’d have it serviced every fall. But then it started failing weeks after each servicing. One year we woke up to a cold house on the day we were headed to visit our families in Massachusetts for Christmas. We were not amused.

The technicians were always able to get it going again, but not for long. The number of repair calls was frustrating to both us and our fuel company. Finally, the president of the company came over to see what was going on. If he couldn’t figure it out, we’d get a new furnace, gratis.

Unfortunately for us, he saw what the problem was in short order. Our furnace was, let’s say, model L345X. The technicians had been treating it like it was model L345. Rats. Who doesn’t love a new furnace?

It seemed to me our washer problem might have a similar solution. There was something wrong that perhaps only a set of fresh eyes could see.

A new technician, however, pretty much said what the other guys had. Our 19th century cellar floor is uneven. The pallet we had placed under the washer was making things worse. And our cellar is damp.

Yes, it is. But how did the ancient washer that came with the house survive those conditions for decades? Paul removed the pallet. No improvement.

Then I thought I had it. Electronics.

Our most recent purchases were highly digital. They didn’t like the sump pump. They were sensitive to motion. We were trying to adapt 21st-century machines to 19th-century conditions.

Paul was not receptive to this theory. However, I argued that this would explain why the spin cycle worked intermittently. There was nothing wrong with the spin cycle. It just needed optimal conditions.

Something resonated with him, though. He went downstairs and put two long, wide planks under the washer. It was not perfectly level, but it did provide more stability. Although it didn’t completely solve the problem, it was a definite improvement.

Now, I think, Paul saw that I had a point. I told him I thought the only way to have a fully functioning washer was to turn our former guest room into a laundry room. It’s a small, upstairs bedroom that adjoins the upstairs bathroom, so the plumbing would just need to be brought in through the wall.

To tell you the truth, it’s a dream laundry room. It’s the right size, and the ease of bringing clothes into the nearby master bedroom is to die for. I could even have a really big machine like everyone else! I could set up the ironing board permanently!

We are frugal. We aren’t big on renovating. It’s a pain in the neck. There’s a laundromat nearby, so we don’t have to go dirty if the machine breaks down again. We’re good for now.

But a girl can dream, can’t she?