Fun Things to do around the house #1: Repair a washing machine

As you've probably gathered from the sidebar (assuming you've read it), I'm the proud parent of three little nippers. Their ages range from just over three months, to nearly nine years old for our eldest daughter.

Recently our eldest has decided to help out around the house - which is nice. Well, usually it is.

The other day she decided to help mummy out by filling the washing machine. OK, so she didn't sort out the colours from the whites, and God only knows how much washing powder she used, but hey, it's A Good Thing that she is willing to help.

Unfortunately that was when the washing machine started doing a pretty good impression of a machine gun, and then stopped whilst half-full of water, which my wife only discovered when she opened the washing machine's door and flooded the kitchen.

Trying to run the machine again (in a vain attempt to get it to drain the water) just resulted in a red flashing light on the front of the machine. Luckily the machine is only around six months old so it's still under warranty, and we had purchased an extra couple of years extended warranty on top of that.

Of course, where there is an upside, there is also a downside. Where the heck did we put the warranty information, because without it they won't even come to look at the machine.

Whilst in the process of searching around the house I decided to check online to see if anyone else had reported the same sort of problem with their machine and managed to get hold of the user manual which gave me the details on what the flashing light actually meant. . . .

"Unable to drain water."

Gosh, that was helpful. I KNOW that the water isn't draining, my wet feet are a testament to that fact. More useful was the troubleshooting information - check the outlet hose and the filter, and a further note on how to remove the filter.

Removing the filter was a slow process, especially as there was still water in the machine, so it was a case of loosening the filter casing, catching most of the water that gushed out into a tin tray (the only thing thin enough to slide under the filter casing), empty that into a bucket and repeat.

Half-an-hour and two full buckets later. . .

Once all the water had gone I was able to completely remove the filter, and out fell a five pence piece which must have been left in some-ones pocket. Sensing victory, I put the filter back in, crossed my fingers and selected the "Spin" mode and turned it back on.

It worked! Sadly it still sounded like a machine gun, and also made some quite worrying grinding noises when it started up.

I waited for it to finish, eased the tray back under the machine and re-opened the filter, and this time a rather battered hair clip fell out.

Feeling slightly braver, this time I selected a "Rinse" cycle, and it worked, didn't sound like it was ready to explode, and finished without any problems.

We'll still have to find where the warranty is, just in case our eldest decides to help again (aaargh!), but hopefully she'll wait to be shown what to do next time.