Fatigue, Pain, Leaking Washing Machines and a Leaking Roof

It has been a pretty quiet week.  The weather has been lousy and my energy level has been depleted so I have mostly been resting and sleeping this week.  

We had a leaking washing machine.  I quickly determined it was a leak out the front door of the washer due to gunk, grime and sliminess on the door boot seal.  I spent a day and a half resolving that problem.  

First, I spent half a day manually cleaning the inside of the washing machine as well as inside all the folds of the door boot seal.  I didn't want to be too abrasive on the seal because I knew that would only cause more leaking so I carefully and methodically cleaned it up, little by little.  

While I was doing that, I also ordered a new boot seal for the front door in case my efforts failed or in case this fix only lasts a short time.  Plus, I don't want to be without a washing machine for a week or two so I would prefer to have a part that I know I will need on hand for when we do need it.  That new boot seal arrived the following morning but I am saving that part for the next leak.  

After spending a few hours manually cleaning the boot seal, I ran a few test loads with no laundry...  we had no leaks.  The following day would be a day for two cleaning cycles and two rinse cycles.  This required about 11 hours in total.  Each cleaning cycle requires five hours and each of the rinse cycles is about a half hour long.  That required the whole day.  Plus, I needed to stay very close to the laundry room in case the washer started leaking again.  Obviously, I would want to shut it down as quickly as possible if it started leaking again so that meant sticking very closely to the laundry room.  

On the positive side, spending a lot of time in the laundry room as the washing machine was running reminded me of how much I like this washing machine.  It actually worked impressively well.  Plus, it is incredibly quiet especially compared to squeaky top loader washing machines.  This front loader uses far less water than the top loader washing machines too and that is a tremendous plus for those of us with a septic system.  The funny thing is you'd think I would hate this washing machine at a time when it required a day and a half to fix but, on the contrary, I really like this washing machine.  As I watched for leaks, I was reminded of all the reasons why I find this washing machine very impressive.

The first cleaning cycle was with white vinegar.  I finally found a good use for this nasty stuff!  I never use white vinegar for cooking because I despise the stuff.  I use apple cider vinegar for recipes instead.  This white vinegar worked well for cleaning the inside of the washer though.  Even though I only put white vinegar in the detergent tray, we had a machine full of soap suds.  These suds were from soap residue in the washing machine.  This was a sign that the vinegar was doing the right thing.

Five hours later, I filled the detergent tray with bleach and ran another cleaning cycle.  This also produced some suds.  Five hours later, the washing machine looked quite clean.  I then ran two cycles of a 'rinse and spin' to clear out any remaining bleach.  

These cleaning cycles use nothing but hot water.  When the hot water is combined with the vinegar, it also helps to clean out all the internal drain lines.  The hot water combined with the bleach does the same.  This was my main concern.  I couldn't get at the insides of the drain lines within the washer so I needed a way to eliminate the gunk, grime and sediment from all these internal drain lines.  Detergent and especially fabric softener tend to leave a slimy, gunky residue.  The vinegar and bleach seemed to do the trick in eliminating this residue.  

I even disassembled various parts of the washer to check on how clean everything was at this point.  Things looked like new again!  

Since I had pulled the washing machine out of its usual place so I could disassemble it and work on it, I then needed to put it back into place and level it again.  That was fairly easy with Sheila's help and it was nice to have a newly leveled washer.  The levelness really matters for a few reasons with these front loader washing machines.  Actually, it matters for top loaders too but there are far more working parts to a front loader washing machine.  Now the washing machine was within a half of a degree of level front to back as well as side to side.  I think this was better than when it was installed about seven or more years ago.  Geez....  how long have we had this washer now?  

Then it was time to really test the washing machine again.  I think I did a total of four loads of laundry.  After the leaking incident, we had a lot of towels to wash plus I had a load of my own clothes to wash.  These loads of laundry cycled through without incident so that was good.  I then remembered that I had some microfiber cleaning cloths to clean as well as my filthy hat that I wear to keep the sun off my terribly sun damaged face.  So I ran one last small load of laundry.  

Overall, it was a relatively easy problem to fix and now we have a spare door boot seal for when this original boot seal can no longer effectively seal that front door.  

While we had this washing machine problem, it was raining heavily outside.  Sheila noticed a waterfall in our back hallway.  So, that required more towels.  Replacing this back section of roof has been on my to-do list for years.  First we were side-tracked with cancer and cancer treatments...  then I had a TBI and health problems...  then we had the pandemic...  and now, although we still have a pandemic, we also have lumber prices that are triple what they should be.  I can't afford to purchase lumber at these prices so this home repair is still on hold along with a few other important projects around the house.  In the meantime, we'll just try to contain whatever waterfalls we get.

Since having the virus at the beginning of 2020, I have had significant problems with swollen and inflamed joints.  Whenever I try to do anything physical, my joints swell up and become terribly painful even at rest.  Well, we were busy in the yard last weekend so my joints have been paying the price this past week.  This pain significantly cuts into my sleeping too which compounds my usual fatigue issues that are a result of my primary health problems.  

I'm still quite exhausted this morning but I'm looking forward to getting some work done in the yard again tomorrow.    Oh...  and I am happy to have this washing machine issue behind me now!