Thursday, November 04, 2010

A new Dryer

When our old dryer arrived here in January, we noticed it was noisier than it had been.

But we didn't get around to opening it up to see what was wrong until last week. It took a few days to figure out how to take the thing apart, and to discover that it was just off its rollers. It took a couple more days to realize it wasn't going to stay on the rollers, needed new clips and new rollers, needed a new belt and probably pulley, and had been rubbing on the back long enough that it had rubbed right through.

Plus it wasn't drying clothes very well anymore.

And it was getting louder, and Louder, and LOUDER, so that even with the door closed to the laundry room downstairs, we couldn't sleep upstairs when the dryer was on.

Since it was a really old dryer (like it was the one my mom was using when I was a kid), we decided it was time to replace it rather than replace the parts and keep trying to make it work.

That's tricky on our very tight (to the point of ridiculousness) budget.

So I started watching craigslist because free dryers come up often there. They also go REALLY fast. So yesterday, while I was watching election results come in, I sat for hours and checked craigslist every 5 minutes or so and emailed everyone who posted a dryer we even might be able to get.  I had to check 3 craigslists--everything within an  hours drive of here--and eventually had emailed a dozen people.

I got one email back today, for the only not free dryer that was posted. It appealed to me because it was cheap ($40) and was a commercial grade dryer that worked. So today we bought it, and for gas money extra, the guy delivered it to our house.

Sure enough, it's commercial grade.

Sure enough, it works.

And it's quiet.

And big enough for a large load of towels or jeans.

And it dries the clothes, as promised.

And it's bigger inside but smaller outside than the previous dryer.

So now we can get back to trying to keep up with the laundry.  Hooray!

And thank goodness for craigslist and for $40 dryers.

(And if you want a project dryer that goes, but barely, or you want scrap metal, come on over! We have an old dryer to get rid of.)

1 comment:

Brooke said...

Woo-hoo for Craigslist! My grandmother always used to say that, when you get married, the two things you want to invest in are a good bed and a good dryer. (My mom says that might be because Grandma spent too many hours hanging up diapers on clotheslines.) :-)