Last week our dryer started to make crunchy sounds. DH was like, it’s probably a ball-bearing. I’ll look into it on the weekend, maybe take it apart and put it together again.
A few days later it started to make squeaky sounds. Then it stopped making heat consistently.
DH looked on the internets and determined that it probably wasn’t a ball-bearing but was instead something dealing with sparks that he was not going to be able to fix.
I’d looked into getting a new dryer before but DH was always able to unclog it and it would start working again. Enough time had passed that my chosen models weren’t really being offered anymore.
So on a Thursday, we looked into buying a dryer and picked one out in like 30 min. Which is much much less time than we usually put into shopping for a major appliance.
The top models for several online sites were no longer being made OR were out of stock for long periods of time. But Tom’s Hardware’s top model also happens to be the other half of the pair for the LG washer we currently have (or at least the other half of the pair of the newer model of our current LG washer). It came in white/gas and Home Depot said they could have it to us by Tuesday. So we bought it.
We also decided to pay extra to have them install it and cart it away because nobody wants to mess with gas and it’s probably worth $30 not to have to move the dryer to the curb for bulk pickup.
Total cost including tax and installation and installation kit: $1,268.64.
It seems to be working great, and DH has been having fun playing with the “steam” option. I especially like the way it matches our washer visually, though I didn’t used to care about things like that. If it were a low rated dryer I probably would have picked a non-matching white dryer, but with it being highly rated, I get a little extra happiness from completing a set.
A couple of days after we ordered a new dryer (but before it got here), our microwave decided to give up the ghost mid-frozen lasagna. We looked at all the top rated microwaves on various lists and none of them were in stock in our local stores, though we could order them from amazon. Also none of the top rated microwaves came in white, and currently all of our major appliances except the dishwasher are white, and while I don’t mind another stainless steel appliance, if we couldn’t get a microwave locally that day, I figured we might as well get one that matches the kitchen. So then I looked for white microwaves locally. Home Depot had a number of very cute “vintage” style microwaves that I didn’t want to deal with. I prefer buttons to knobs, thank you. The Lowes in the next town over had a white GE that looked decent that we could pick up that day. Which we did. It was $175, which is on the expensive side for what it is, but it matched the kitchen and we wouldn’t have to wait half a week or longer to get it. It seems to be working ok so far. It’s much more powerful than our old microwave so we’ve been adjusting timing accordingly (less of an adjustment for me–I think it’s actually the same model as what we have at work for the same reason– it was what was available to buy that day when the workroom microwave stopped working in a cloud of smoke).
I think we might have gremlins.
Have any of your appliances given up the ghost recently? Do you like your dryer? How about your microwave?