The Dishwasher

We have a dishwasher that came with the house, but it is definitely sub-par compared to the Bosch dishwasher that we left in the old house. I am totally lazy when it comes to the dishwasher. I want to throw everything in (nothing hand washed) without chunks on it and I want it to come out clean. One of my personal nightmares is to be drinking from a cup and see that there is some unidentified crusty at the bottom. The thought of that makes me nauseous. YUCK!!!

Of course the days of just going to the appliance store to purchase what we need have gone. Every penny saved buys tile or plywood or water heaters. So Moose suggested that I comb Craigslist for a replacement. It took awhile, but I found a Bosch for $200. The catch; it needed a part. The blessing was that the people selling it had a repair person come out and they told me what part needed to be replaced. With Moose's help, I found the needed part. He assured me that I could replace the part and if I ran into trouble he would help. I took a deep breath and decided to make my Grandpa, Ernie Lange, proud. Papa often came to our rescue and fixed many things around our house. My grandma, Mama, was always his patient assistant.

I have fixed our old dishwasher with the help of YouTube videos so I turned to that again. There are so many helpful videos on there!

I took awhile for me to track down all the tools and I watched the video a couple of times before I really got going. The video was of a different model and I kinda had to guess on how to take things apart on ours before moving to the next step.  I took a lot of pictures of different parts because I was so afraid that I wouldn't be able to remember how to put it back together. That would have been so embarrassing if I needed to call the repair dude and gave him a bunch of screws...good luck.

When I finally go the bottom of the dishwasher, I noticed quite a bit of mouse poop on the right side of the tray. Lovely. Then I turned to the left.....and there was the stowaway. He had clearly been there for sometime and wasn't fresh. Still that was gross! Time to break from disassembling to bleach the mother out of that thing!!!!

I was able to pull off the water pump, but while I was wrestling it a gasket appeared at the bottom of the tray.

Where on earth did that come from?!?!?!? I got a clamp off the hose, but I swear it was a one time use item. That darn thing wouldn't close. Time to Call A Friend.....MOOSE!!!!

Being the kind man that he was, he called me back, but wanted to know how long ago the mouse died. EEWWW!!! He said he would stop by in the morning to bring a clamp and help me find where the gasket appeared from.

After help from Moose, I was able to replace everything without having any extra parts! Yahoo. I lost some blood, but it wasn't a horrible experience. I had a somewhat creepy labeling system to remind me what went where and the pictures helped.

The surgery is complete, but it is unknown if the patient is going to make it.  Once again, thank you Moose and to Papa who taught me to "Force gently!"


In other news..... Meet Popsicle, Easter, and Pickles!

More friends to come.