Dishwashers have been a saga here at Easement Acres. The new one that was installed to sell the house was a Whirlpool, and a very low-tier model at that; because as I’ve mentioned many a time prior, boomer homeowners always take the cheapest/easiest approach to home maintenance on the assumption that they’ll sell the house one day and it will become someone else’s problem. As is their life philosophy, a scorched earth policy is inevitably employed. Why take down the curtain rods before listing a house? Because they might get a couple bucks selling them used, so screw the potential buyer! Squeeze every penny from the property, even if the labor involved far exceeds the value of the pilfered goods. Leave nothing for the invading army – which is what the younger generations are to them: an unstoppable blitzkrieg of humans displacing them, when we’re not viewed simply as a labor pool whose sole purpose is to pay their social security.
So as one would expect, the dishwasher eventually gave out, though it did survive 6 years of heavy use. I’ll give it credit for that. Initially, I had it reviewed by a technician, because I’m not one to contribute to unnecessary waste when something is fixable. But taking such an approach is always a gamble. Technicians always charge $100-$150 just to show up. Then there’s parts and labor. In an expensive system such as an HVAC, this leaves a lot of leeway before no longer being cost-effective. With a small appliance, however, it does not. Even a single servicing session might not be worth it. And if your technician is from a shady company recommended to you by your plumber, and you ignore the reviews and go on a professional recommendation, you become screwed even quicker. Especially if the technician did fuck-all to diagnose the true problem, and you have to pay for a second visit, then go with a different company who ultimately says that the repair cost outweighs a replacement even if they were able to source the parts needed to make the repair in the first place.
A few angry phone calls and a credit card transaction dispute later, we bought a replacement – A Frigidaire, per the second (legitimate) technician’s recommendation. Apparently, that brand errs on using proven components, rather than doing full redesigns every iteration. Supposedly, that gives them enhanced reliability with an easy-to-source parts list.
But, this being in the post-COVID labor shortage, there was a months-long backlog on installers. So I spent an afternoon figuring out how to install it myself. And I was successful. And it worked. And less than a year later the kid fell on the door. And I hammered the bends and warps until the door closed again with minimal leaking, and that’s what we’ve been using for the last 4 years.
Then the unit started leaking rinse aid, then detergent. Then the detergent dispenser door stopped opening completely. It was apparent that the housing box for the cleaning agents had cracked and malfunctioned. Sooo, having familiarity with the brand by this point, and having learned from last time that a repair probably wouldn’t make longterm sense, we got another Frigidaire! Wooo!
I had to re-level it after a trial run, but no problems so far. It’s quieter, and comes with a fancy top rack for large cooking utensils. It takes longer to run, but I don’t care. It’s a functional dishwasher and I installed it myself inside of 3 hours. I’m hoping it lasts longer than 4 years, though with the number of cycles we put through these things that might be wishful thinking. But it also hasn’t been body-slammed by a teenager, so that might impact its longevity.
Just another project here at Easement Acres.
And if I ever sell this house to a boomer, I’m ripping it out first.
–Simon