Appliance Breakdown

It has been an interesting couple of days... Friday we had snow, and early in the day there was a power outage. The new wall oven/microwave reacted badly to it and displayed a lost communications error message. It had done this before, and cycling the breaker at the house power panel seemed to fix it. (a Windows design?) Not this time. So we had to call the factory for service. It turned out to be a board that failed, so we have to wait for the part to come in and then schedule another service call to install it.

So yesterday, while waiting for the serviceman to get here, we decided to do a little laundry. At the end of the first load, I noticed a burning smell. At first I thought it might be the ceiling fan, but no, it was the drive belts of the washing machine, being gently toasted by the motor drive pulley. It seems the washer's transmission jammed and froze. The washer is quite old, so the failure was not a total surprise, just the timing of it.

Getting back to the ceiling fan, though, the wife had commented that several of the fans were getting a bit fuzzy with dust, so I got out the ladder and started to vacuum the blades ad the housings. The one in the laundry room was apparently inspired by the washing machine, and while I was vacuuming one of the blades, it broke off from the motor.

Since one of us had to stay home and wait for the repairman, the wife went to the big box store and bought a new washer/dryer and a cheap ceiling fan. Next day delivery this time of year is just an advertising ploy, so we have to wait almost a week for the units to get here. At least the ceiling fan went in quickly.

Winter weather in Houston

It is snowing outside. Not sticking to the roads yet, but it may get cold enough to do that before the day is over. If so, Houston will be paralyzed by traffic accidents. It will all melt by tomorrow though.