warning!!! household appliance repair!!!!!

[jim]

Mrs jim bust the tumble dryer!!

last year i had to make a new bearing for it, this time the heating element blew

the cost of these household goods is frightening (you could get a good rotary table for cost of a new one!)

to restore the harmony of the house, i bought a new heating element off ebay (less than a tenner ).

So, i get up after work, take the back off, make a carefull note of the wiring (even did a little wiring diagram ).

the new element goes in a treat, by now Mrs jim is making "you are clever noises"!, then i start to swear and curse!!!!!!

at the time it seamed obvious, RED = R, GREEN = G, (by now you can see whats coming!) BROWN = B, BLUE = B and BLACK = B!!!!

i ended up putting the wires on on the "B" that looked the right length
Lucky for me it worked
the harmony is now restored, the

[crabsign69]

its great when it all works out haha   we keep the mrs happy or else the mrs makes life really bad for me.

[Brass_Machine]

Love it! SWMBO loves the fact that I have the tools to repair most everything. Did a similar job on the dryer... mine is gas, had to replace the ignition unit. Manufactured a support strut for my washer a few months ago. About 3 weeks ago I fixed our central heat/air. Spent $35 to fix it. The repair company wanted $125 just to come out and look at it.

 

Eric

[wheeltapper]

I always find the best thing in those situations is a digital camera.
take loads of pics, of wiring, where parts go, and so on.
It's got me out of trouble loads of times.

Cheers
Roy

[raynerd]

Congrats on your fix!

I`ve just this last hour finished fixing our boiler. We have had no hot water for Saturday and Sunday. My parents got charged £80 + parts a few weeks ago for theirs. It cost me £15 for the part that I guessed must be broke (water temp sensor - thermistor) and so I asked her if I could have £80 for new tools.... my child wasn`t allowed to be near by when she replied!

[Stilldrillin]

Jim,

One of the nicest phrases in the world....... When the struggling stops. 

"Oooh. Aren't you clever!"       

David D

[MrFluffy]

Its a slippery slope though. Once everyone knows you fix things you have to be horrible to them to make it stop or it sucks all your shed time away!

On our last washing machine during its 6 year life it had three sets of bearings, the drum spider tig'd back together, two new sets of solenoids (neither of which were for it and required some creativity to fit), some door hinges made on the mill, a motor from the shed I was keeping to use on a buffer and eventually the door itself was held together with straps and extra fasteners and we had to glassfibre the soap drawer back together after it froze. Then the button panel fell off internally one day and was forced back in place with zip ties and some more custom brackets.
It had frozen solid for weeks on end over two winters being outside in the hanger ratchet strapped to a pallet while we lived in a mobile home and each time that meant more repairs.
When we moved into the house finally, we decided it was time to let the poor thing have a rest and bought a brand new in the sales shiney one and installed it in the house out of freezing harms way. Then the mobile home heater froze up instead, and I ended up lapping the halves of the diaphragm chamber back together with some blue.

This winter I hope to not be living at all in the mobile home and having to deal with how to fix it all after yet another week of -10 temps

[jim]

i've always got something to fix, not everything works aswell as it should!!

i had to put a new power jack on one of the kids laptops, that ended badly, but atleast i managed to salvage all the little screws for my box of "little screws"!

the advice about using a camera is one i tend to follow. as you'll know, if you take loads of pictures, you don't need them!!!

[DeereGuy]

The digital camera has saved my butt more than once.