Weekend HandyBat!

Back in April, I spent a morning repeatedly clicking on the Mass Save® Great Appliance Exchange website, in order to reserve an Energy Star dishwasher rebate for his sweetie. I let folks know back then, on Facebook:

K. wants to inform all of his Massachusetts-local friends about the big Energy Star appliance rebates that are opening up tomorrow morning at 10 AM: $250 for a dishwasher, $200 for a fridge, $175 for a clothes washer. Your ARRA money at work! List of qualifying appliances on the website.

I only got a waitlist spot, but it turns out they were honoring them for the rebate! So we went out shopping for a replacement dishwasher in May, and it was delivered in June. So finally, in July... I had a weekend free to install the darn thing!


Man... during the installation, I came to realize that there was some beautiful German engineering going on... it's a Bosch. For instance, those "channels" at the bottom of the dishwasher are there on purpose--to route the electrical cable, and the water supply hose. Very elegant... I'm used to installs where you just have a jumble of wires and tubes, and you try to keep them unkinked as you slide the dishwasher into its opening.

Also, instead of having levelling feet on the front and rear... with the rear ones close-to-inaccessible, there's a clever screw-and-pivot system, that lets you adjust the rear height of the dishwasher from the front, with the dishwasher in place. Very nice.

Another thing that I discovered during the installation... the existing dishwasher was hooked up to the garbage disposal, under the sink:


There's a pipe stub at the side of the disposal, that the dishwasher drain connects to. That drain comes from the factory with a plastic plug in it, and you knock it out when you hook up a dishwasher, so that it can drain:


But check out how the disposal was connected:


Hrm.

Hey Sarah--when did you say the dishwasher last worked correctly?

Oh, about 2003.

So what did it do?

It wouldn't drain... it would chug away and overflow.

Ah. I don't suppose the garbage disposal got replaced around the time the dishwasher stopped working?

Um.... maybe?

Check out this picture...

Haha... that's funny. Also, do you know who installed the disposal?

Um... who?

My ex-boyfriend, D.

Heh... awesome! Fixing repairs that the ex screwed up. Hey... if I was told that I'm a lousy lay compared to the ex, I probably wouldn't be that crushed... hell, I pretty much expect that out of life. But not being able to fix something that the ex could? That would be a bit too much. So my manhood and ego are safe for now.

Also, I took care of some landscaping work that Sarah needed done--a wind-fallen branch that was too large for the bin. So fellas--if you want to impress the ladeez, you might want to whip out the 18 V cordless reciprocating saw with a tree pruning blade...


Yeah. Or something like that.

Anyway: the finished result for the dishwasher: ta-dah!




Yay! No dirty plates in the sink!