Simple living in the country - back to basics

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon MSE chums! 

Gosh, where is today going?! 

Had a satisfying day yesterday clearing out my mum's spare room and doing some painting - hopefully she'll now feel like she can get on with the rest of the job (also secretly/selfishly hoping no more parents need any house clearing assistance before we've sorted more of our own house!)

It was quite a long day though, and we didn't do anything after we got back.

Today we've had a cafe trip, popped into town, and I've lazed around reading for a while. Feeling the need to spring into action though before we head out to a local party later. 

I was going to get on with the remaining ceiling jobs, but then I remembered the washing machine... Sadly the utility room worktop is resting on it, so I need to clear everything off that first, move all the recycling etc 🙄 then try and figure out what's wrong with the washing machine. 

Just writing it in here so I can report back when I've done it and not demoralised half way through 😂

Cheery_Daff

Hmm. Having spent quite a while clearing the assorted shelves and sh*te off the top of the worktop, and the worktop itself, and hoovering behind the machine etc, it occurred to me to try checking the filter first. 

Needless to say, I've never managed to remove it before, but I put more effort in and it came out - along with rather a lot of smelly water, several coins, bits of plastic, pieces of chicken corn, and a load of black gunk 🙄😂

Hope that's solved the problem. Mildly annoying because the filter is at the front of the machine, so I needn't have moved everything 😂 Going to do a trial quick wash to see before I put everything back...

Here's the filter in all its glory. Domestic goddess I am NOT 😂😂

greenbee

Cheery, if thats the state of your filter I'd recommend doing the hottest wash you can with an empty drum and some soda crystals, and then cleaning out the drum and around the seal. I now have a drum clean programme on mine, but used to do this every couple of months anyway, and found a lot of fluff would appear in the drum. I now alternate soda crystals one month and citric acid the next as I have very hard water, and find the filter is generally clean, as is the seal. I also bung the drawer in the DW occasionally, and wipe out the hole it lives in (or scrub it with an old toothbrush and vinegar, or steam clean it, depending on what else I'm doing). That way at least I know dirt isn't being added to the wash by the machine, and it is working efficiently. 

My last one was older than yours by the time I passed it on, and still working well - I just decided to pre-empt it falling apart when I had the utility room done as it meant one less thing to store... 

Cheery_Daff

Thanks greenbee - it's got a quick 30 degree wash on now so I can compare it to the soping wet one we did the other day, but I'll do a hit wash tomorrow and see what happens...

badmemory

I do mine with a 90deg wash every couple of months & one 60 deg one most months.  I never thought of steam cleaning which my taps could use as they get mould coming out of them if I'm not careful.

Karmacat

Wow.  I'm at Cheery's level - never yet managed to clean the wm filter - I had one machine that lasted over 20 years, including when I lived in the centre of the city by the sea and had 4 lodgers! - but since then, I've had 3.  Can't see me doing it this next week, but Real Soon Now.  Thanks for the pic, Cheery!  And Cheery and everyone else for the knowledge.

VintageHistorian

I've never cleaned a filter but I do the boil wash with white vinegar and bicarb 2 or 3 times a year, just to give it all a good rinse out. It's amazing how much leftover soap shows up in the drum while it's spinning empty.

Ramouth

We have also experienced washing coming out of the washing machine siping wet.  In our case it was something that had got through the filter and was in the pump so was an easy fix for the repair person.

This was was a big improvement on our previous machine which got progressively worse at spinning.  This one the bearings failed and it caught fire!  (Our fault - we could hear that the bearings were going but put off getting an engineer out).  

We have also had one on which the brushes needed replacing but that had stopped turning the drum all together so was pretty obvious.  

Also one where the old fashioned program dial stopped turning so we had to manually tell it which bit of the cycle to do.

You have made me realise how many washing machines we have got through!  You are doing so much better with yours.

Hope the filter clean has helped.

elantan

Hopefully the filter clean worked cheery, fingers crossed 

Cheery_Daff

Thanks all. Crikey Ramouth, your machine went on fire?! 😱😱 I know what you meant about having yo tell the machine manually what to do (we have a cycle where you have to 'turn the washer on a click' to do the spin cycle, as we did when we were kids) but I confess it's amusing to imagine you standing in front of it saying 'washing machine, move to the spin cycle!' in a loud and clear voice 😂😂

We had a lovely evening at the neighbours' party on Saturday. So nice to be out drinking and able to walk home!! Got back about half 2 i think after staggering up what felt like an entirely vertical hill through the woods and fields. 

Yesterday was a complete write off though. I'd only had a couple of drinks, but I could barely move yesterday, I was so tired. Utterly pathetic! That's not even that much of a late night for me - I'm regularly up til gone midnight even on a work night (although I prefer not to be!)

 We started a day with a nap in the garden - in my case ruined after 10 mins when the farmer turned up to fix a bit of dry stone wall further up the drive. I couldn't leave him to do it alone (it's our wall! But his potentially escapee cows, so as he pointed out, he's got a good incentive to fix it...). Anyway, ended up helping him fix that, but that was the most productive thing I did all day really, mostly just lay about reading. Mr Cheery did stir himself to sort out a load of little boxes of tools and screws etc that had accumulated in the offshot though, and we sorted all the chicken medicine etc into tubs so that's feeling more organised.

No plans for today. I'd arranged a walk with a friend, which was downgraded to a paddle and ice cream when the heatwave news hit, and which has now been cancelled as her daughter has covid. Heat isn't too bad out there (yet) but I'm planning to spend most of the day in the cave of a kitchen finishing the last bits of ceiling. It's always cool/cold in there - a pain in the winter but a great advantage in this weather!

Payday today, and the first wage for a few months that hasn't had any strike deductions I think, so I'll do the banking once I've had breakfast. A little list then:

* Happy wheel over breakfast
* banks/YNAB
* ring pensions people
* finish kitchen ceiling tidying
* finish painting kitchen ceiling
* arrange visits (there are a few people i need to contact)
* ring vets
* tidy bathroom and put clothes away

That's probably enough for such a warm day i think. A fair bit will be messing about making sure the chickens aren't overheating - I wouldn't want to be wearing a down jacket in this weather! They have plenty of shady options, and dust baths etc, but having lived much of their lives in cages, they can be a bit daft about not seeking them out... Yesterday they spent quite a bit of time in our kitchen...

Right, best start with getting dressed I suppose!