Steve and I were looking at some floor models that Best Buy was liquidating and I was complaining (loudly, I guess) about the price (over $400 a piece). A man approached us and mentioned that if we were looking for a washer/dryer set, he had just consolidated his belongings with his fiancée, and was looking to get rid of his set and would let us have it for $100. I was wary, so Steve took his business card and said we’d get back to him. We called later that afternoon and he said we could come see them and decide if we were interested. He turned out to live in an address on the east side near my work, an area we are familiar with and felt comfortable in. We were delighted to find the washer/dryer to be a very lightly used, good condition, matching set. Here they are at our place:
Granted, the washer is not the newest water-efficient model and the dryer is probably not as efficient as it could be, but they work great!
What didn’t work so well was our landlord’s bizarre drainage rig from the washer. Due to plumbing issues stemming from the slope of the lot, the landlord had rigged a quasi-greywater system, lightening the load on the sewer line from the washer by having the water drain both into the sewer and into the garden. The problem was that the garden end of the system was a long garden hose, which constricted the water to the point that it came bubbling back out into the laundry room. Luckily the laundry room is essentially just a shed on the deck, so no harm done.
Steve got to work to solve the problem. He unhooked the drain pipe from the washer and, using an existing hole in the shed wall, ran the line outside into a makeshift reservoir fashioned from a 20-gallon trash can with a spigot attached and sealed with marine adhesive. From the spigot, we can run the hose out into the garden. The reservoir completely eliminated the constriction problem, and we can even turn off the spigot and save water for later (we have a lid for the can to keep the bugs out).
I underestimated how much having our own laundry would thrill me. It’s good to be satisfied by the small things, I suppose.
3 comments:
Good engineering solution. And good on Lisa for letting you figure something out without calling a professional. My solutions tend to be much more outlandish and prone to failure :(
It must be genetic. Steve tends to over-engineer things and only step back from grander plans with harassment from me. Although, I must say that this project was completely his vision and worked wonderfully.
Steven's solution would be called a surge tank by greywater guerillas. Your landlord's method would eventually burn out the pump on your washing machine, I am told. I have surge tanks on our washing machines here, but I use a window screen "shower cap" over the top, underneath a stationary PVC pipe outflow through the wall, so I don't have to bother with putting a lid on or off when Jenny and I do washing. Yours looks great!
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