...a von Frinkenhagen could do it. At least that's what I was told. The von Frinkenhagens were in the market for a new dishwasher because our old one did not wash dishes. Given that the name of the appliance inferred that the dishes would actually get washed, we figured we needed to find one that actually would.
We mentioned to another family member that we were searching for a new dishwasher and we were told NOT to pay for installation. It was so easy to put in a new dishwasher that even I, Brian von Frinkenhagen, could do it.
My confidence couldn't be higher. We showed up at Sears and, after weighing our options, we selected the lucky appliance. When the sales rep asked whether we wanted the dishwasher installed, I firmly said that we did not. "Who was going to install it?", he asked. "We are", I said without a quiver in my voice or a twitch in my face. How hard could it be?
Here's what I envisioned. I unplug the old dishwasher. I disconnect a hose or two. I pull out the old dishwasher. I push in the new dishwasher. I plug it in and connect a hose. Bada bing, bada boom. Installation complete.
Wrong.
Here's how it really went. Step one was to turn off the water valves attached to the dishwasher. I got down under the sink and did the deed. Righty tighty, lefty loosey. I turned all of the water valves to the right as far as I could. They were tight and the water was cut off. Step one complete.
On to step two. This involved disconnecting the old dishwasher. I unplugged the dishwasher first. Easy enough. Then I disconnected the drain hose. So far so good. Then it was on to the copper tube that appeared to connect the hot water to the dishwasher. This one made me a little uneasy. For whatever reason, I associated the copper hose with natural gas. Grandpap von Frinkenhagen (GvF for short) reassured me that the copper hose was simply the hot water connection. Fantastic. With the valve closed, GvF went to work disconnecting the hot water connection. It was nearly off when we heard the odd sound of gushing water.
Uh oh, that's not right.
I reluctantly took a peek under the sink, and, sure enough, found water gushing out of the hot water valve. With the kitchen floor filling with water, we tried desperately to turn the valve. Unfortunately, the valve was broken and there was no way to stop the flow. Hayley ran for the towels while I ran for the master water valve in the garage. Fortunately, the master valve did work and we were able to slow (though never fully stop) the water flow out of the valve.
While we were swimming, Kaylynn was sitting in her high chair laughing. I'm convinced I would have been using some choice language had she not been present. But how could I be upset with her smiling face looking down at me as I did the backstroke to the back door.
Ok. We hit our first snag. There was no way of knowing that the valve was broken and that we couldn't turn of the water. Actually, the fact that the dishwasher still worked (when plugged in of course) should have been a hint that the water was still flowing. But that's neither here nor there. Surely it couldn't get worse than this.
Consistent with the general theme of my blog posts, I was wrong.
After using every towel in the house, we almost (yes, almost) soaked up all the water. And that meant we were moving on to step three. With everything disconnected, all we had to do was pull out the old dishwasher. Fortunately, that step was easy. With a few adjustments to the dishwasher legs, out it came.
Step four was unpacking the new dishwasher. I took the initiative of opening the top of the box. GvF then pointed out the words on the bottom of the box that said "Cut here". The folks at Whirlpool were kind enough to provide a line to cut along so that you could just lift the box. That way you didn't have to lift the dishwasher out of the box. They're smart folks.
After three attempts to lift the box, I finally managed to cut it all the way around. That only took 10 minutes.
What step am I on now? Oh who cares. The next phase involved installing the new dishwasher. Here's what I envisioned. First I plug in the dishwasher to the wall. Then I reconnect the water line. Then I reconnect the drain tube. Then we start washing some dishes.
The first snag came when I realized there was no plug with the new dishwasher. Oh, I see. We bought a dishwasher that runs on batteries. Perhaps a car battery or something? I just don't think the nine-volts will do.
Wrong again. The dishwasher does in fact run on electricity. Ok, so we bought a wireless dishwasher. I just couldn't quite figure out how to set the thing up.
Nope, this was not a wireless dishwasher. It did in fact need a plug. At this point, I was beyond confused. I needed to plug the dishwasher into the wall. But there was no plug. How are we supposed to run the dishwasher without a plug? Remember me saying that the folks at Whirlpool were smart? I take it all back. Even I understand the concept of plugging things into the wall (with wires and stuff) to make it run.
Fortunately, we had the plug from the old dishwasher that we could "borrow". After disconnecting some wires, we re-wired the plug to the new dishwasher (using wire nuts and everything!). Since part of the old dishwasher is still being used, I suppose our "new" dishwasher isn't completely new.
Anyway, on to the rest of the installation process. The plug was attached. We managed to re-attach water hose and drain hose without a problem. All that remained was to push it under the counter. We managed to do this without incident (thankfully).
There really was only one last step. We just had screw the dishwasher to the bottom of the counter. Piece of cake. Before we started, GvF said not to drop any of the screws in the dishwasher. If you did and it fell into the motor, you were a dead duck. To prevent this from happening, we put down a towel to catch any of the screws I may have clumsily dropped.
I should have known we were going to have problems when I put in the wrong screws. Twice. That's right, I attached the dishwasher with the wrong screws. We couldn't close the dishwasher door because the screws were too big. No biggie. GvF pointed to the correct screws and, as I began screwing it in, I heard a clink, clink, clink, clank.
Oops, I dropped a screw. No worries though. That's what the towel is for. Except it didn't do it's job. Yep, that's right. The screw fell down, hit the door, hit the bottom of the dishwasher and then rolled right under the towel. By the time I threw the towel up, the screw was gone. As I climbed half-way into the dishwasher, I looked down in the motor casing and saw the screw. Saweet. I could see the screw, but I couldn't get it (because of the filter cover thing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, open your dishwasher and look at the bottom. You'll see that there are small gaps that serve to prevent knives, forks, etc. from getting in BUT NOT SCREWS).
Ok, ok. I could see the screw. Surely there was a way to get it out. Obviously the dishwasher couldn't run with the screw there because it would destroy the motor. But I had a plan. Almost as soon as the screw hit the bottom of the motor casing, the MacGyver theme song started going off in my head.
Here was the plan. I was going to go get one of our magnetized screwdrivers. I would stick the screwdriver into the motor casing and get ahold of the screw. I would carefully pull the screwdriver out, grab the screw, and use it to attach the dishwasher to the bottom of the countertop. What a perfect plan.
Except it wasn't.
The magnetized screwdriver was not strong enough to grab the screw. That, or the screw was not magnetic (since it was stainless or something). On to Plan B: a visit to Ace Hardware.
While at Ace, we found a long, flexible magnet. We tested one of the screws that was to be used to attach the dishwasher and found that it was indeed magnetic. This did not mean that the screw in the motor casing was magnetic, but it was a good sign. Twelve bucks. I was willing to pay the price if it meant I was going to save the dishwasher.
Once home, I again climbed back into the dishwasher, threaded the magnet into the motor casing and...heard a click. The magnet had grabbed the screw. I carefully removed the magnet, grabbed the screw, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. I then proceeded to place 50 towels inside the dishwasher to make sure the same thing didn't happen again.
After this fiasco, I attached the diswasher to the underside of the counter, tested it, found no leaks, and considered the ordeal a "success".
After all that, here's the moral of the story: no home repair project will be easy when I am involved. But the things in life that are worth having (like clean dishes) don't come easy. Enough said.
We mentioned to another family member that we were searching for a new dishwasher and we were told NOT to pay for installation. It was so easy to put in a new dishwasher that even I, Brian von Frinkenhagen, could do it.
My confidence couldn't be higher. We showed up at Sears and, after weighing our options, we selected the lucky appliance. When the sales rep asked whether we wanted the dishwasher installed, I firmly said that we did not. "Who was going to install it?", he asked. "We are", I said without a quiver in my voice or a twitch in my face. How hard could it be?
Here's what I envisioned. I unplug the old dishwasher. I disconnect a hose or two. I pull out the old dishwasher. I push in the new dishwasher. I plug it in and connect a hose. Bada bing, bada boom. Installation complete.
Wrong.
Here's how it really went. Step one was to turn off the water valves attached to the dishwasher. I got down under the sink and did the deed. Righty tighty, lefty loosey. I turned all of the water valves to the right as far as I could. They were tight and the water was cut off. Step one complete.
On to step two. This involved disconnecting the old dishwasher. I unplugged the dishwasher first. Easy enough. Then I disconnected the drain hose. So far so good. Then it was on to the copper tube that appeared to connect the hot water to the dishwasher. This one made me a little uneasy. For whatever reason, I associated the copper hose with natural gas. Grandpap von Frinkenhagen (GvF for short) reassured me that the copper hose was simply the hot water connection. Fantastic. With the valve closed, GvF went to work disconnecting the hot water connection. It was nearly off when we heard the odd sound of gushing water.
Uh oh, that's not right.
I reluctantly took a peek under the sink, and, sure enough, found water gushing out of the hot water valve. With the kitchen floor filling with water, we tried desperately to turn the valve. Unfortunately, the valve was broken and there was no way to stop the flow. Hayley ran for the towels while I ran for the master water valve in the garage. Fortunately, the master valve did work and we were able to slow (though never fully stop) the water flow out of the valve.
While we were swimming, Kaylynn was sitting in her high chair laughing. I'm convinced I would have been using some choice language had she not been present. But how could I be upset with her smiling face looking down at me as I did the backstroke to the back door.
Ok. We hit our first snag. There was no way of knowing that the valve was broken and that we couldn't turn of the water. Actually, the fact that the dishwasher still worked (when plugged in of course) should have been a hint that the water was still flowing. But that's neither here nor there. Surely it couldn't get worse than this.
Consistent with the general theme of my blog posts, I was wrong.
After using every towel in the house, we almost (yes, almost) soaked up all the water. And that meant we were moving on to step three. With everything disconnected, all we had to do was pull out the old dishwasher. Fortunately, that step was easy. With a few adjustments to the dishwasher legs, out it came.
Step four was unpacking the new dishwasher. I took the initiative of opening the top of the box. GvF then pointed out the words on the bottom of the box that said "Cut here". The folks at Whirlpool were kind enough to provide a line to cut along so that you could just lift the box. That way you didn't have to lift the dishwasher out of the box. They're smart folks.
After three attempts to lift the box, I finally managed to cut it all the way around. That only took 10 minutes.
What step am I on now? Oh who cares. The next phase involved installing the new dishwasher. Here's what I envisioned. First I plug in the dishwasher to the wall. Then I reconnect the water line. Then I reconnect the drain tube. Then we start washing some dishes.
The first snag came when I realized there was no plug with the new dishwasher. Oh, I see. We bought a dishwasher that runs on batteries. Perhaps a car battery or something? I just don't think the nine-volts will do.
Wrong again. The dishwasher does in fact run on electricity. Ok, so we bought a wireless dishwasher. I just couldn't quite figure out how to set the thing up.
Nope, this was not a wireless dishwasher. It did in fact need a plug. At this point, I was beyond confused. I needed to plug the dishwasher into the wall. But there was no plug. How are we supposed to run the dishwasher without a plug? Remember me saying that the folks at Whirlpool were smart? I take it all back. Even I understand the concept of plugging things into the wall (with wires and stuff) to make it run.
Fortunately, we had the plug from the old dishwasher that we could "borrow". After disconnecting some wires, we re-wired the plug to the new dishwasher (using wire nuts and everything!). Since part of the old dishwasher is still being used, I suppose our "new" dishwasher isn't completely new.
Anyway, on to the rest of the installation process. The plug was attached. We managed to re-attach water hose and drain hose without a problem. All that remained was to push it under the counter. We managed to do this without incident (thankfully).
There really was only one last step. We just had screw the dishwasher to the bottom of the counter. Piece of cake. Before we started, GvF said not to drop any of the screws in the dishwasher. If you did and it fell into the motor, you were a dead duck. To prevent this from happening, we put down a towel to catch any of the screws I may have clumsily dropped.
I should have known we were going to have problems when I put in the wrong screws. Twice. That's right, I attached the dishwasher with the wrong screws. We couldn't close the dishwasher door because the screws were too big. No biggie. GvF pointed to the correct screws and, as I began screwing it in, I heard a clink, clink, clink, clank.
Oops, I dropped a screw. No worries though. That's what the towel is for. Except it didn't do it's job. Yep, that's right. The screw fell down, hit the door, hit the bottom of the dishwasher and then rolled right under the towel. By the time I threw the towel up, the screw was gone. As I climbed half-way into the dishwasher, I looked down in the motor casing and saw the screw. Saweet. I could see the screw, but I couldn't get it (because of the filter cover thing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, open your dishwasher and look at the bottom. You'll see that there are small gaps that serve to prevent knives, forks, etc. from getting in BUT NOT SCREWS).
Ok, ok. I could see the screw. Surely there was a way to get it out. Obviously the dishwasher couldn't run with the screw there because it would destroy the motor. But I had a plan. Almost as soon as the screw hit the bottom of the motor casing, the MacGyver theme song started going off in my head.
Here was the plan. I was going to go get one of our magnetized screwdrivers. I would stick the screwdriver into the motor casing and get ahold of the screw. I would carefully pull the screwdriver out, grab the screw, and use it to attach the dishwasher to the bottom of the countertop. What a perfect plan.
Except it wasn't.
The magnetized screwdriver was not strong enough to grab the screw. That, or the screw was not magnetic (since it was stainless or something). On to Plan B: a visit to Ace Hardware.
While at Ace, we found a long, flexible magnet. We tested one of the screws that was to be used to attach the dishwasher and found that it was indeed magnetic. This did not mean that the screw in the motor casing was magnetic, but it was a good sign. Twelve bucks. I was willing to pay the price if it meant I was going to save the dishwasher.
Once home, I again climbed back into the dishwasher, threaded the magnet into the motor casing and...heard a click. The magnet had grabbed the screw. I carefully removed the magnet, grabbed the screw, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. I then proceeded to place 50 towels inside the dishwasher to make sure the same thing didn't happen again.
After this fiasco, I attached the diswasher to the underside of the counter, tested it, found no leaks, and considered the ordeal a "success".
After all that, here's the moral of the story: no home repair project will be easy when I am involved. But the things in life that are worth having (like clean dishes) don't come easy. Enough said.
4 comments:
I am still dying laughing on the recent posts. This one alone had me falling over for 20 minutes if not more......Brian, I believe now would be a good time to admit defeat to any house projects and to not attempt any more. Hayley, I hope you agree.... I unfortunately can envision one where you get hurt Brian, and no one wants that. There has got to be some cheap help in Texas. You know my feelings....
Are you going to replace the water valve? I had to replace all of our valves in the kitchen and master bath when we redid the countertops and and such because they were all rusted and leaking. It's not fun either, I had 3 bloody knockles after that ordeal...
Well, dad said that we should replace the water valve. But I said "why?". And he said "so the next time we do this you won't have this problem." And I said "the next time it won't be us...".
After trying for a little to get the valve off, we went with the "next time it won't be us" philosophy.
Oh my word - hilarious. Good for you for taking on the challenge - I'm glad you now have a dishwasher that lives up to its name (and the satisfaction of knowing you installed it yourself for free! Or - maybe 12 bucks at least :)
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