Thursday, January 07, 2010

Cold and the haps

Tuesday night I needed to do some laundry.  Of course, I go to turn on my washing machine, and nothing happens.  For those of you who've never been to my house, my laundry room is outside, in a separate "room" on my patio.  There is a door, and a light, but it is cold out there regardless.

Right away I understood that my laundry pipes were frozen.  I called Carmen and borrowed a heat gun from her.  For the next hour I was outside blowing heat behind my washing machine, being careful not to melt anything.  Eventually, I could tell that the pipes were not frozen anymore, so I turned on my washing machine, which was running, and went inside.

[Cut to 1 hour later]

I went back outside and saw a HUGE puddle of water on my patio.  I opened the laundry door and there was water pouring out from udner my washing machine, and soap billowing out of the top, about a foot high.  Turns out the drainage pipe from the machine was still frozen.  Did I mention that all of this is happening OUTSIDE where it was around 20 degrees?  I used the heat gun again for a while, then left a hair dryer running out there for 2 solid hours.


Around 11 pm now, I go outside and turn the machine back on.  Water is still only coming out the bottom of the machine, and the tub is not draining.  *YAY*

Now, all I can do is wait for this weather to calm down a little and hope upon hope that when that shit unfreezes, the washing machine works properly again.   In the meantime, I am stuck washing clothes next door on Carmen's back patio.   I hope she doesn't mind.


Here is what I looked like yesterday while GPSn for the first time in months:

5 comments:

Unknown said...

It's weird that yours are frozen and Carmen's aren't. Contact your home owners association!

Badass pic, btw!

Katie Bonk said...

How do these things always happen to you?? :( #FTCW

Allison said...

I really wish I knew. Maybe I was an asshole in a former life?

Carmen said...

Of course I don't mind. Mine isn't frozen, Sam, because Jon spent an amazing about of energy sealing our room up really well so our pipes wouldn't freeze. He's pretty awesome like that. Also, the condo association won't do crap. They say it every year at our meetings...that frozen pipes are our problem. And quite the problem they are.

alisa.r.herr said...

That really aught to be your new FB profile photo