Adventures in dishwasher replacing
A friend of mine at work is remodeling his kitchen and sold all of his old appliances for very cheap. Since the dishwasher at the farmhouse is old and desperately needs replacing, I bought my friend's used one. We picked it up Saturday and yesterday we attempted to remove the old dishwasher. You can read rfunk's account for the details.
Basically, the dishwasher is older than the laminate flooring in the kitchen. The 1/4-inch laminate was installed over the edge of the dishwasher's feet. There was no way we were getting it out without removing some of the laminate. He tried to cut the flooring with a drill, but didn't get anywhere. He finally went out and bought a Dremel. I had heard of a Dremel before, but had no idea what one was. Apparently it's like a drill, but turns much faster and has lots of grinding attachments. After a lot of noisy grinding and nasty burning laminate smell, he finally had the front feet free.
Once he got the feet free and turning (one side was stuck, I guess), he realized the water line for the old dishwasher is on the floor, while the line for the new dishwasher is not (I think it's on the back, iirc). So he's going to have to put in additional plumbing pipe, and an elbow. At that point he gave up for the day.
And where was I during all of this? If I was the type who thinks that anything dealing with tools is men's work and oh-gosh-I'm-ever-so-happy-to-have-a-man-around-the-place, everything would have been fine. I would have left him to it and ignored the whole thing.
But we all know that's not me. I admit that rfunk is waaaay more knowledgeable about fix-it stuff than I am, but I want to help, and learn. Unfortunately he was pretty much making it up as he went, and it's hard to help someone who doesn't really know what he's doing. So I eventually gave up trying to help and wandered away to a somewhat less grind-y part of the house. I did, however, pay attention to what he was doing, and now I know a bit about replacing a dishwasher and what a Dremel is (I hadn't known they existed before yesterday!). So that's good.
Basically, the dishwasher is older than the laminate flooring in the kitchen. The 1/4-inch laminate was installed over the edge of the dishwasher's feet. There was no way we were getting it out without removing some of the laminate. He tried to cut the flooring with a drill, but didn't get anywhere. He finally went out and bought a Dremel. I had heard of a Dremel before, but had no idea what one was. Apparently it's like a drill, but turns much faster and has lots of grinding attachments. After a lot of noisy grinding and nasty burning laminate smell, he finally had the front feet free.
Once he got the feet free and turning (one side was stuck, I guess), he realized the water line for the old dishwasher is on the floor, while the line for the new dishwasher is not (I think it's on the back, iirc). So he's going to have to put in additional plumbing pipe, and an elbow. At that point he gave up for the day.
And where was I during all of this? If I was the type who thinks that anything dealing with tools is men's work and oh-gosh-I'm-ever-so-happy-to-have-a-man-around-the-place, everything would have been fine. I would have left him to it and ignored the whole thing.
But we all know that's not me. I admit that rfunk is waaaay more knowledgeable about fix-it stuff than I am, but I want to help, and learn. Unfortunately he was pretty much making it up as he went, and it's hard to help someone who doesn't really know what he's doing. So I eventually gave up trying to help and wandered away to a somewhat less grind-y part of the house. I did, however, pay attention to what he was doing, and now I know a bit about replacing a dishwasher and what a Dremel is (I hadn't known they existed before yesterday!). So that's good.