10:31 – The blizzard finally showed up overnight. When I took Colin out around 0730 this morning it was freezing with a slight breeze (versus the 600 MPH/960 KPH gusts that had been forecast, or something like that), and with at least a quarter inch (6 mm) of accumulated snow.
Like all of the built-in appliances that were in this house when we bought it, the dishwasher was a Frigidaire. Hawk, spit. It never did a very good job, and the internal layout was crappy. I’d been running it on the 93-minute Ultimate Scrub cycle until a couple months ago, when that button just stopped working. I fell back to the Normal Wash cycle with the Sanitize option. The other day, that button stopped working as well, so yesterday Barbara and I headed over to Blevin’s Hardware to buy a new dishwasher.
Consumer Reports says Bosch and Whirlpool models are the most reliable. When we moved into our house in Winston in 1987, the Whirlpool dishwasher that was there was probably original with the house, which made it 18 years or so old. It still worked fine, although it was definitely showing its age. We replaced it several years later with another Whirlpool, which was still working perfectly when we moved out of that house in late 2015. Our experience with other Whirlpool appliances like washers and driers had also been excellent, so we were pleased to see that of the 10 or so dishwashers Blevin’s had on display, more than half were Whirlpool. Russ said they carried only Whirlpool and Amana (a cheaper Whirlpool-made brand), and I believe GE. The Consumer Reports article said that pretty much any model that sold for around $600 or more would do the job well, but to avoid the $300 and $400 ones. So we picked out a $600 Whirlpool and told them to deliver it.
When I mentioned installation, Russ said they couldn’t do that because of insurance/liability issues. I was surprised because we’d bought our new washer and drier from Blevin’s, who’d installed it. He said they could do washing machines because the water connections were exposed and simply screwed on, while a dishwasher connection was concealed and could do a lot of damage if it leaked.
So we called Shaw Brothers, our usual plumber, and arranged to have Herschel come out later this week to do the installation. While I was talking to Elaine, I mentioned that it might be a bit awkward to co-ordinate delivery of the new one and hauling off the old one with Herschel actually getting the installation done. Elaine said that was no problem. Herschel would just pick up the new one at Blevin’s on his way over here, install it, and haul off the old one.
We got another eight forensic science kits built yesterday, which was all we could build with the subassemblies we had on hand. One of those shipped this morning, but seven forensic kits is a comfortable level for this time of year.
Barbara may or may not be volunteering at the Friends of the Library bookstore this afternoon, depending on weather. They aren’t likely to get much traffic today anyway, so if she decides not to go in there won’t be many people disappointed that it’s closed.
Otherwise, we’ll just keep working on science kit stuff.
* * * * *