Took me 6 hours to fix a $3 washing machine drain hose clamp

My washer started leaking a few weeks ago and I spent all Saturday tearing it apart, replacing seals, checking the pump. Turned out it was just a loose hose clamp behind the machine that I could have tightened in 30 seconds. Has anyone else spent way too long on a simple fix because you assumed it had to be something worse?

3 comments

3 Comments

brian_ramirez19d ago

oh man, I feel this in my soul. I once spent an entire weekend rebuilding a carburetor on my old lawnmower because it was sputtering and dying. replaced everything, gaskets, jets, the whole nine yards. fired it up and it still ran like garbage. turns out I forgot to turn the gas valve back on after cleaning the fuel filter. that was a solid 12 hours of my life I'll never get back for literally turning a knob. you just assume the universe is out to make things complicated, when really its just a loose clamp or a closed valve mocking you from behind the machine.

simonb9219d ago

...and my buddy Ben had basically the exact same thing happen with his dryer. He spent two whole days taking the whole thing apart thinking the drum bearing was shot, bought a multimeter and everything. His wife came home and just pushed the vent hose back onto the outlet and it clicked right in. Said he just assumed it couldn't be something that easy because the noise was so loud. I think we're all trained to expect the worst case scenario, especially with appliances that are supposed to be complicated. Your mileage may vary, but I bet 9 times out of 10 it's the $3 fix, not the $300 one.

tarag2819d ago

@brian_ramirez that lawnmower story is way too familiar. I used to be the person who would automatically go straight to the worst possible fix, thinking the more expensive and complicated the problem, the more likely it was. Then my dishwasher started making this grinding noise that sounded like death. I had it half pulled out of the cabinet, ready to call a repair guy, when my neighbor walked over and pointed at a little piece of plastic stuck in the drain pump. He pulled it out with his fingers and the noise stopped completely. That was the moment I realized most problems are just dumb little things that are easy to fix but we're too scared to look for them.