DFR Travels: With apologies to our son Craig...

We received an email from Craig yesterday regarding his new house. This is too funny not to share. He was using his new front load washing machine for the first time.

I put in a load of towels on the weekend and pressed start. It sat there for a few minutes doing absolutely nothing, then I hear an alarm chime and NF starts flashing on the display. A quick check in the user guide indicated that meant NO FILL. Stupid me, I forgot to check if the water was turned on, so looking under the sink I spotted a closed water supply line.

Turned that on and all was good. For a few minutes anyway… another alarm chime and NF flashing on the display again. Stupid me, of course there should be TWO water supply lines: hot AND cold. Another look under the sink and there was the closed HOT water supply line hiding behind the P-trap. Turned that on and all was good. For a few minutes anyway… another alarm chime rings out and now ND is flashing on the display. One more quick check in the user guide indicated that meant NO DRAIN.

This one had me stumped. Was there perhaps a drain valve somewhere that was shut too? Nothing under the sink that I could see. I tried to pull the machine out to see what was behind it but there was no budging it by myself. Grabbed a flashlight and headed into the crawlspace to see if there was anything suspicious down there… nothing. Maybe there was something up with the drain pump? Nothing I could do about that, so I finally ended up draining the machine manually with the tiny 1/4" diameter 6" long drain hose in the access panel at the bottom front of the machine. A dozen frying pans full of laundry water later (thank God it's a high efficiency machine that doesn't use 10 gallons of water per load!) the machine is drained and the spin cycle starts. My god that thing spins fast… I thought it was going to take off!

Anyway, the spin cycle wringed out another 4 frying pans full of water by the time it stopped. The display still shows 5 minutes left in the cycle, so I sit there (I've brought in a chair and a couple of beers by this time) and watch it do absolutely nothing for 5 minutes. At last I hear the happy "end of cycle" chime and the display reads END. Hooray!!! Uh oh… the door won't open. There's a little KEY icon lit-up on the display now. So I wait. Perhaps there is a cool-down period before the door will open. Ten minutes of intense washer-watching later the door is still locked. Suddenly, another alarm chime rings out and the display is flashing LO.

I consult the user guide to confirm what I think I already know LO stands for. Yep… LOCKED OUT. It's almost 11:00 by now and I need to get to bed. I'll just turn the machine off and try something else tomorrow. Not quite that easy, when I press the power off button the display reads OFF but it doesn't turn off… it starts flashing OFF then after 5 minutes the alarm chime sounds and it flashes LO again. The damn thing won't turn off, and that alarm chime is really starting to wear on me. Out to the garage to shut it off at the electrical panel…

OK, there are like a HUNDRED breakers in that panel, all neatly labeled by the electricians in their own cryptic shorthand, and of course the labels are on the panel door, not next to the actual breakers. I find one labeled LDRY PLG. That must be it. I switch it off, and bound back up the steps into the laundry room. Nope, must just be the wall plugs. Back into the garage. There it is… WSHR PLG. I switch it off, bound back up the steps into the laundry room again. What the hell… the machine display is still lit up! Back to the garage. I can't for the life of me see one labelled with anything that even resembles the word WASHER other than the one I already tried.

Screw it then, I'll turn one whole side of the panel off then. 50/50 chance that should do it! The garage goes dark too, so I pull out my phone to use as a flashlight and bound back up the steps into the now pitch black laundry room. But wait, it's not quite pitch black… there's a red glow over by the washing machine. The ONLY light left on in the entire house is the red LED display of the washing machine… AAARRRGGGHHH!!! a few seconds later though, the display goes dark. There must be a capacitor or something in there that keeps it powered for a few minutes in case of a power failure.

Back out to the garage to turn all of the breakers back on. I bound back up the steps into the laundry room. I try the door to see if it's still locked. No go. Dare I press the power button? I press it and I hear the happy start-up chime. The door still won't open. Suddenly, the washer comes to life and starts to fill with water… it must think it hasn't finished it's last load because there's still towels in there and the door is locked! I press the stop button, and the water stops coming in. Soon the alarm chime starts again and the display is flashing LO. I know what to do now, so i head back to the garage and turn off the WSHR PLG breaker. I trudge (i'm too tired to bound by now) back up the steps into the laundry room and see that the display does indeed stay on for a while before it actually turns off.

So out comes the frying pan again to drain the water through the tiny 1/4" diameter 6" long drain hose in the access panel at the bottom front of the machine. It's well past midnight by now, so I leave it as it is… powered off, door locked, and a load of towels fermenting in the drum.

When Nathaniel was here yesterday, he pulled the machine out from under the countertop (I think he may have thrown his back out doing it) and checked the drain hose connection. It's installed as it should be. So I'm making a call to Trail Appliances today to arrange a service call. It's kind of funny really.