Dishwasher Replacement
We replaced the parts in the old dishwasher that initially appeared to be the issue, but unfortunately, it did not fix the problem. It briefly seemed to fix it, but then after running for part of one cycle, it stopped again. After poking around for a while, Lisa concluded that it might be several things, but the most likely one was actually the time dial: the mechanical time switch that triggers the various cycles of the dishwasher. It might also be the main pump. But this means that we had reached the point where the repairs were going to get so complicated and the parts sufficiently expensive that it was looking less expensive to buy a new dishwasher.
After some online research, we began to move toward the point where we wanted to look at specific models. An initial review of Lowe's website seemed to say that they had the ones we might want to buy in stock, so we went to the Fernley Lowe's. There we learned that not only did they not actually have any of those models in stock, but the did not have display models. This is important. We were not interested in the high-end models that require wi-fi or Bluetooth connections, as it seems silly to use to put our dishwasher on the internet. Also, a display model lets you test the feel of the controls. Neither Lisa nor I like "soft buttons" or touch pads. We want mechanical switches. None of the models on display in Fernley were even close to what we wanted. So if we wanted to look at the actual controls, we were going to need to go look elsewhere, and on Monday, that appeared to be the Reno Lowe's.
So we drove to Reno. As we neared Lowe's, a tremendous thunderstorm burst upon us. I could barely see where I was going even with the wipers on full. I carefully made my way into the parking lot, but we did not get out of the car. We decided to see if the rain and hail would subside. Sitting in the car, we measured on the windshield hailstones as big as 10 mm across. Eventually the rain let off a little bit and we made the run to get into the store.
This downspout showed some sign of just how much rain fell and how fast.
Anyway, we went to the Appliance section, and to our annoyance, they still didn't have the model in which we were interested on display. They did have at least one in stock, but we couldn't look at it. Lisa did find a different (and more expensive) model that appeared to have the same control panel as the one we wanted. It wasn't great, but then, none of the machines out there were really want we wanted. Again misunderstanding what Lowe's website was saying, we thought it said there was one of the low-end models in stock in Fernley (although not on display). We went back to Fernley, and discovered that we were misinterpreting their site. They could deliver one within a day or so, but they did not have one in stock. We decided to not order anything and went home to think it over some more.
It appeared that we could have one delivered (no charge for the delivery), and they could haul away the old dishwasher for $50. They could also install it for an additional $214. The website also seemed to say that we needed to buy an additional installation kit with a power cable and connector hose. We thought about this some more on Tuesday. Lisa was certain that she could install the machine herself. Also, we have a coupon from Waste Management that allows us to haul away up to a specified amount of junk once per year at no additional charge. We've never used the coupon, but we could do so to dump the old one once we had a new one.
After two days of mulling it over, we decided that we would be better off going and getting one ourselves. Checking the measurements, we could see that it would fit inside the minivan. So on Wednesday afternoon, it was back to Reno Lowe's, without the massive cloudburst this time. These are non-trivial trips. It's 75 miles round trip from our house.
What we decided to buy was the lowest-end model available, with the least amount of features: a Bosch Model 100, black finish. The retail price: $549 plus tax, which brought the net cost to $594. Reno's sales tax is slightly higher than Fernley's, and Lyon County doesn't get its cut, but that's Lowe's fault for the way their online system behaved. I decided to not order it online (which would have included free delivery), because I couldn't figure out how to activate the twelve month no interest financing. Normally I would have just taken the 5% discount I get with the Lowe's credit card and then paid it off immediately; however, the car repairs have left me a little stretched, and paying at least 1/12 of the base cost off each month with no interest is an easier deal for me. (If you don't pay off the total within a year, they retroactively add interest from the date of purchase; however, I don't foresee this being an issue.) They were able to activate the offer when we bought it in person at the store.
The associate at Lowe's Reno was nice. It took a while because she went back into the back to confirm that what the computer said was in stock was actually there (I appreciated that), and then after we did the purchase, she brought it out on a cart. I was able to drive the Astro to the front entrance, and Lisa and I lifted it into the back of the minivan. Despite appearances, it was not all that heavy. The two of us could handle it without issue.
We drove home and Lisa finished disconnecting the old dishwasher and put it on the hand truck so we could get it out of the house to make room for the new one. Note the controls: The three buttons at right select the type of cycle, the dial at left controls the sequence, and the red button near the center is an on-off switch. Nice and simple. And something you can't get anymore.
We did need to make another visit to Lowe's (the Fernley store this time) to buy an adapter fitting ($6.50) for the water hose, as the new dishwasher uses a different connector type than did the old one, despite both being Bosch machines. Apparently, in the 25 years since the old one was manufactured, Bosch changed connector types.
With me helping a little bit to get it down the front porch stairs and to get things out of the way along the way, Lisa took the old dishwasher to the back patio. There are various parts on it that she plans to strip before we take the machine's carcass to the transfer station. Besides saving the $50 haul away charge, giving Lisa time to decide what to strip was part of the decision to do this ourselves.
Lisa and I carried the dishwasher in from the minivan, lifting it out of the Astro and bringing it up the stairs. As I said, it isn't really that heavy, just bulky and hard to handle. Once we had it into the living room, I was no longer needed; indeed, thanks to my clumsiness, I became negatively useful and was banished to the front porch to be called upon if needed, which I was not. Here it is sitting in front of the space where the old dishwasher lived.
Here's a close-up view of the control panel before Lisa started connecting water (both inlet and outlet, of course) and power and pushing the machine into the cabinet. The way it works is that you press the On/Off button, which then activates the front panel lights. The lights blink to tell you that you need to make a selection, something that annoys Lisa greatly and that I don't appreciate myself. You use the left-right arrow buttons to select the type of cleaning cycle you want. As you do so, the timer display (above the Normal Wash / Delicate Wash buttons in this picture, and dark because the power wasn't on) changes to show the total wash time. When you have finished your selection, you press the Start button. The lights change from blinking to solid and the wash cycle begins.
If you stop the cycle, you can restart it by closing the door and pressing the Start button again. When the cycle is complete, by default the power stays with the lights and timer display still on. After consulting the manual, I changed that to "shut power off one minute after cycle is complete," because I don't see any value in leaving the display turned on after it is finished.
For various reasons, such as the previous owners putting in new tile over the old tile with the old dishwasher already in place, the fit here was very tight. However, Lisa managed to get it into place, and secured to the cabinet.
Here's what it looks like inside. The racks have narrower spaces in them than the old dishwasher, but it appears that we can work with it. This picture was from before Lisa put the final part in place, which is visible on the counter: the plate that covers the base.
We ran a test cycle with nothing in the machine: no soap, no rise aid, and no dishes. Initially, I was concerned because when I pressed Start, I heard nothing. I waited a couple of minutes, saw that the timer was counting down, and then finally heard a slight bit of humming from the machine. Eventually, we finally heard a bit of water being pumped around. This machine is extremely quite; in a sense, it's too quiet, in that it was hard to tell whether is was actually working.
The next day, I put rinse aid and soap into the dishwasher and did a small run of dishes (stuff that I'd previously hand washed and that were sitting in the drain rack). Things seem to work okay.
I had hoped that there was an energy saver feature that would not activate a heated drying element. I later discovered that the machine does not have a heated dry feature anyway, which is okay with me because in our dry environment, evaporation will work just fine.
Thanks to Lisa's mechanical aptitude and the WM disposal coupon, we saved $264 in installation and disposal fees. Once Lisa finishes stripping anything reusable, we will haul the remainder to the transfer station.
This new machine will work. I hope it lasts a few years. I suspect that hoping it lasts as long as its predecessor (25 years) is unlikely to pan out, but if we get 10 years out of it, that will be good. Lisa did some research later and says that it seems like most or all new dishwashers are like this one, and that mechanical switches that are easier to use by the blind don't seem to be made anymore. Not that we're blind, of course, but we would have been happier with a straight replacement of our older machine. Still, if this one works, we should be okay.
After some online research, we began to move toward the point where we wanted to look at specific models. An initial review of Lowe's website seemed to say that they had the ones we might want to buy in stock, so we went to the Fernley Lowe's. There we learned that not only did they not actually have any of those models in stock, but the did not have display models. This is important. We were not interested in the high-end models that require wi-fi or Bluetooth connections, as it seems silly to use to put our dishwasher on the internet. Also, a display model lets you test the feel of the controls. Neither Lisa nor I like "soft buttons" or touch pads. We want mechanical switches. None of the models on display in Fernley were even close to what we wanted. So if we wanted to look at the actual controls, we were going to need to go look elsewhere, and on Monday, that appeared to be the Reno Lowe's.
So we drove to Reno. As we neared Lowe's, a tremendous thunderstorm burst upon us. I could barely see where I was going even with the wipers on full. I carefully made my way into the parking lot, but we did not get out of the car. We decided to see if the rain and hail would subside. Sitting in the car, we measured on the windshield hailstones as big as 10 mm across. Eventually the rain let off a little bit and we made the run to get into the store.
This downspout showed some sign of just how much rain fell and how fast.
Anyway, we went to the Appliance section, and to our annoyance, they still didn't have the model in which we were interested on display. They did have at least one in stock, but we couldn't look at it. Lisa did find a different (and more expensive) model that appeared to have the same control panel as the one we wanted. It wasn't great, but then, none of the machines out there were really want we wanted. Again misunderstanding what Lowe's website was saying, we thought it said there was one of the low-end models in stock in Fernley (although not on display). We went back to Fernley, and discovered that we were misinterpreting their site. They could deliver one within a day or so, but they did not have one in stock. We decided to not order anything and went home to think it over some more.
It appeared that we could have one delivered (no charge for the delivery), and they could haul away the old dishwasher for $50. They could also install it for an additional $214. The website also seemed to say that we needed to buy an additional installation kit with a power cable and connector hose. We thought about this some more on Tuesday. Lisa was certain that she could install the machine herself. Also, we have a coupon from Waste Management that allows us to haul away up to a specified amount of junk once per year at no additional charge. We've never used the coupon, but we could do so to dump the old one once we had a new one.
After two days of mulling it over, we decided that we would be better off going and getting one ourselves. Checking the measurements, we could see that it would fit inside the minivan. So on Wednesday afternoon, it was back to Reno Lowe's, without the massive cloudburst this time. These are non-trivial trips. It's 75 miles round trip from our house.
What we decided to buy was the lowest-end model available, with the least amount of features: a Bosch Model 100, black finish. The retail price: $549 plus tax, which brought the net cost to $594. Reno's sales tax is slightly higher than Fernley's, and Lyon County doesn't get its cut, but that's Lowe's fault for the way their online system behaved. I decided to not order it online (which would have included free delivery), because I couldn't figure out how to activate the twelve month no interest financing. Normally I would have just taken the 5% discount I get with the Lowe's credit card and then paid it off immediately; however, the car repairs have left me a little stretched, and paying at least 1/12 of the base cost off each month with no interest is an easier deal for me. (If you don't pay off the total within a year, they retroactively add interest from the date of purchase; however, I don't foresee this being an issue.) They were able to activate the offer when we bought it in person at the store.
The associate at Lowe's Reno was nice. It took a while because she went back into the back to confirm that what the computer said was in stock was actually there (I appreciated that), and then after we did the purchase, she brought it out on a cart. I was able to drive the Astro to the front entrance, and Lisa and I lifted it into the back of the minivan. Despite appearances, it was not all that heavy. The two of us could handle it without issue.
We drove home and Lisa finished disconnecting the old dishwasher and put it on the hand truck so we could get it out of the house to make room for the new one. Note the controls: The three buttons at right select the type of cycle, the dial at left controls the sequence, and the red button near the center is an on-off switch. Nice and simple. And something you can't get anymore.
We did need to make another visit to Lowe's (the Fernley store this time) to buy an adapter fitting ($6.50) for the water hose, as the new dishwasher uses a different connector type than did the old one, despite both being Bosch machines. Apparently, in the 25 years since the old one was manufactured, Bosch changed connector types.
With me helping a little bit to get it down the front porch stairs and to get things out of the way along the way, Lisa took the old dishwasher to the back patio. There are various parts on it that she plans to strip before we take the machine's carcass to the transfer station. Besides saving the $50 haul away charge, giving Lisa time to decide what to strip was part of the decision to do this ourselves.
Lisa and I carried the dishwasher in from the minivan, lifting it out of the Astro and bringing it up the stairs. As I said, it isn't really that heavy, just bulky and hard to handle. Once we had it into the living room, I was no longer needed; indeed, thanks to my clumsiness, I became negatively useful and was banished to the front porch to be called upon if needed, which I was not. Here it is sitting in front of the space where the old dishwasher lived.
Here's a close-up view of the control panel before Lisa started connecting water (both inlet and outlet, of course) and power and pushing the machine into the cabinet. The way it works is that you press the On/Off button, which then activates the front panel lights. The lights blink to tell you that you need to make a selection, something that annoys Lisa greatly and that I don't appreciate myself. You use the left-right arrow buttons to select the type of cleaning cycle you want. As you do so, the timer display (above the Normal Wash / Delicate Wash buttons in this picture, and dark because the power wasn't on) changes to show the total wash time. When you have finished your selection, you press the Start button. The lights change from blinking to solid and the wash cycle begins.
If you stop the cycle, you can restart it by closing the door and pressing the Start button again. When the cycle is complete, by default the power stays with the lights and timer display still on. After consulting the manual, I changed that to "shut power off one minute after cycle is complete," because I don't see any value in leaving the display turned on after it is finished.
For various reasons, such as the previous owners putting in new tile over the old tile with the old dishwasher already in place, the fit here was very tight. However, Lisa managed to get it into place, and secured to the cabinet.
Here's what it looks like inside. The racks have narrower spaces in them than the old dishwasher, but it appears that we can work with it. This picture was from before Lisa put the final part in place, which is visible on the counter: the plate that covers the base.
We ran a test cycle with nothing in the machine: no soap, no rise aid, and no dishes. Initially, I was concerned because when I pressed Start, I heard nothing. I waited a couple of minutes, saw that the timer was counting down, and then finally heard a slight bit of humming from the machine. Eventually, we finally heard a bit of water being pumped around. This machine is extremely quite; in a sense, it's too quiet, in that it was hard to tell whether is was actually working.
The next day, I put rinse aid and soap into the dishwasher and did a small run of dishes (stuff that I'd previously hand washed and that were sitting in the drain rack). Things seem to work okay.
I had hoped that there was an energy saver feature that would not activate a heated drying element. I later discovered that the machine does not have a heated dry feature anyway, which is okay with me because in our dry environment, evaporation will work just fine.
Thanks to Lisa's mechanical aptitude and the WM disposal coupon, we saved $264 in installation and disposal fees. Once Lisa finishes stripping anything reusable, we will haul the remainder to the transfer station.
This new machine will work. I hope it lasts a few years. I suspect that hoping it lasts as long as its predecessor (25 years) is unlikely to pan out, but if we get 10 years out of it, that will be good. Lisa did some research later and says that it seems like most or all new dishwashers are like this one, and that mechanical switches that are easier to use by the blind don't seem to be made anymore. Not that we're blind, of course, but we would have been happier with a straight replacement of our older machine. Still, if this one works, we should be okay.