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Why is it that things seem to go wrong when they are the most inconvenient?
For example, you’re dealing with a broken A/C while trying to pack for a ten-day vacation and get seven loads of laundry done so you don’t come home to a giant mess.
There you are, multitasking, trying to be Miss Prepared-And-Ready. You start your load of laundry, go about your business, and come back to the washer after the appropriate amount of time for your load to be done. You lift the lid to find…
… a washing machine still full of water. You mess around with the cycle right around when the draining/spin cycle should begin, and all you hear is a click noise. Something’s amiss. You move it to other cycle types (Gentle, Normal, etc), and for each one, the dial stops just before the Rinse Mode. Your washer is now frozen, won’t drain or spin, and you’re worried it could be an exensive repair.
Fear not. This is actually a common problem with top-load washers, and one that we encountered about a year ago. The problem: the lid switch.
The lid switch is a safety device that tells the washing machine that the lid is closed. If the lid were to open mid-cycle, the lid switch is what halts the spinning/washing motion so that there is nothing moving as long as the washer is open. If you close the lid again, the cycle picks up where it last left off. In the case of a broken lid switch, the washing machine mistakenly thinks that the washer is open, thereby thwarting all of your efforts to restart the cycle.
So, what do you do to fix it? Option one is to replace the broken lid switch, which if I remember correctly is over $100 in parts and labor. If you have a relatively new washing machine, your warranty probably covers this kind of repair. In the case of our old, busted (and used) washing machine, we needed a cheaper solution.
Luckily, because this is such a common problem and one that is fairly easy to test, we were able to tackle this tricky lid by ourselves with the help of a few youtube videos. One of the most helpful is below. **Important: whenever you are testing something on any electrical appliance, for goodness sake, unplug it and make sure you are taking appropriate safety precautions.**We followed these instructions to a T, and in less than an hour, we had our washer working again. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing this to a newer washer, but it worked like a charm!
Click here if the above link does not work.
What about you? Is your washer all washed up? Feel free to sound off!
Images: flickr, www.gfwsheep.com
We've encountered that problem too and you're right, that repair works like a charm. Good job!