King of Handymen

I haven't been posting much lately since I'm spending most of my spare time at the new house. There's a ton of work to do down there and I'd like to get most of it out of the way before we have to move out of the apartment on July 31.

One of my big projects lately has been to get the laundry machines installed. The washer was no trouble, but the dryer was a huge problem. First, the existing connection was just a 3/8" copper tube coming out of the floor with a valve at the end. It turns out that copper tube isn't code for a dryer hook up since it kinks easily when moved and will easily rupture creating a gas leak.

Yeah, I found that out the hard way.

Since the "crawl space" at the house is only about 18" high under the laundry, I had to cut a big hole in the floor to get to the tube under the floor. Big thanks to Patrick for loaning me a reciprocating saw, it's really an awesome tool.

Anyway, after a week of playing learning by trial and using fittings that I hadn't ever seen before, I finally got a code-approved gas service installed behind the dryer.

Of course, in the process I had disconnected the pipe that goes from the back of the machine into its burner. So it was time for open-dryer surgery. Luckily in a past life I worked in a maintenance shop where I worked on large appliances pretty regularly, so this wasn't a huge problem.

This week I finally got the dryer all put back together and gave it a whirl. Sadly there was no heat. So I once again dismantled the dryer, took apart all the guts, and basically performed a dryer tune-up. I did find one bad electrical connection, but it shouldn't have made a difference.

So I put it all back together and... nothing. Dammit!

As I was getting ready to dismantle the dryer once again and considering throwing it away and buying a new one I noticed something odd. It seems that the cycle I was using to test the dryer was not "Timed Dry" as I had originally though - it was in the same place on the dial as timed dry on our old dryer. It was in fact "Timed Fluff," which if you read the fine print means "no heat."

D'oh!!!

So it turns out that the dryer works great and all the connections are fine. It was just a matter of not paying attention. For this I think I deserve a special crown or something. At least a merit badge.

I think the real key was that I finally broke down yesterday and did laundry at the laundromat after putting it off for over a month hoping to do it at the new house.