Schipperkes and Washing Machines

Schipperkes must be the most inquisitive dogs around!

I dragged my broken-down washing machine out to the front verandah yesterday to open it up and poke at the parts, hoping to fix what ails it. I unscrewed things, and opened things and took things apart.

And then stood back in horrified awe at the gross stuff lurking inside! It's a wonder any of our clothes came out clean. The outer barrel was covered with what looked like a layer of black algae, dirt, and a liberal sprinkling of lint/dog hair. A THICK layer, which you could peel off in strips. YUK!

Unfortunately I couldn't get the inner barrel out, but I did manage to do some scraping and cleaning, then got the hosepipe and sprayed it with as much pressure as I could manage. Which, of course, had me soaked every time I deviated from getting the water precisely between the two barrels.

And all this time, Didi the schipperke was poking his nose into the exposed undersides of the machine, vacuum-sniffing whatever he could reach. Push him out the way, and he's back a few seconds later. Standing in the waste water pouring out the pipe, getting cobwebs up his nose in the corners. He just HAD to see what was going on and absorb all the smells. Dogs! :)

Well, I hope I've fixed the beast (washing machine, not dog). I think all that junk was clogging up the pump so it couldn't work. I HOPE that's what the problem was. I've left it to dry out overnight in case some of the wires got drenched, and will test it later today. With a load of hot water and nothing else, just in case there's still gunk floating around somewhere.

If it's fixed, yay! If it isn't - well, we are due for a new machine sometime anyway. Just wish I could afford those LG Washer/Dryer combo's, with winter coming on! But it's likely to be the cheapest model I can find, with a decent capacity.

At least now I know what the insides of a washing machine look like.