Not a Good Time for Major Appliances and Such

[Deleted User]

The past 365 days or so have not been a fun time for the major appliances in my house. First it was the big screen. Decided to go out while I was watching the MLB All Star game. Fortunately I was able to fix that. Next was the dishwasher (15 years old) went out about 10 days before Christmas adding to all the other holiday stress. Next, the dryer starts sqealing like a stuck pig. I have the parts ordered just need to find time. Last Monday something burns up in the washer stinking up the entire house. Smelled like someone was lighting band-aids on fire. Here's the kicker, the washer was two years old, Sears Kenmore. Their name tag should just read K-Mart more. Very unhappy about that one. The silver lining is that the wife hated it so we went and got a really nice Maytag on Thursday. Which brings us to today. The other night the electrical service wire got ripped off the house in some high winds. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no property damage. The amazing thing was that we didn't lose power. Got the line re-attached but was informed the service cable had to be replaced. The electrician showed up today and the bill for that is $3,500 clams. Where does it end ? I need to buy some amplifiers off of Ebay to calm my nerves. Sorry for the book but I just needed to vent. :cool:

shack

nap wrote:

Got the line re-attached but was informed the service cable had to be replaced. The electrician showed up today and the bill for that is $3,500 clams.

Is that not covered by your homeowners insurance?

dkg999

$3500 to replace the entrance service cable? ummmmm, you might want to get a second opinion. Not sure what you're dealing with, but for a normal service entrance cable that seems a little high of a price.

mrbigbluelight

Sounds like possible sabotage to me.
Can your wife account for her whereabouts during the times these incidents occurred ?

tonyb

You by chance didn't kick a black cat along the way did ya ? Sorry to hear about your misfortune,crap sometimes comes in bunches.
3500 does seem pretty high, I might call them up for a detailed bill, maybe see if homeowners ins. will cover too.

Polkitup2

nap wrote: »

The other night the electrical service wire got ripped off the house in some high winds. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no property damage. The amazing thing was that we didn't lose power. Got the line re-attached but was informed the service cable had to be replaced. The electrician showed up today and the bill for that is $3,500 clams.

Jeez, $3,500? Does the cable say MIT on it? :biggrin:

[Deleted User]

Okay. Here's the deal on the service cable. The cable was old and the cable jacket got pretty beat up. When the electrician came out, he and I thought we could get away with replacing just that. Problem is the cable on the other side of the meter, the one that feeds the panel, was in equally bad shape also needing replacement. Because if the inspector comes out to inspect the one side and sees the other side as being bad, it gets flagged. Sooo, whenever you replace this side of the cable you need to bring the service panel up to code. My panel is in a kitchen cabinet (old house, long story) a BIG no no. So the panel has to move to a spot that would be easily asscessible by the fire department to kill the power in the event something bad happens. Therefore, we need to have a new service and 19 circuits moved to a new location. That's the reason for the $3,500 price tag. Like I said, the thought of getting a new amp to play with will help me keep my sanity through this. :cool:

tonyb

nap wrote: »

Okay. Here's the deal on the service cable. The cable was old and the cable jacket got pretty beat up. When the electrician came out, he and I thought we could get away with replacing just that. Problem is the cable on the other side of the meter, the one that feeds the panel, was in equally bad shape also needing replacement. Because if the inspector comes out to inspect the one side and sees the other side as being bad, it gets flagged. Sooo, whenever you replace this side of the cable you need to bring the service panel up to code. My panel is in a kitchen cabinet (old house, long story) a BIG no no. So the panel has to move to a spot that would be easily asscessible by the fire department to kill the power in the event something bad happens. Therefore, we need to have a new service and 19 circuits moved to a new location. That's the reason for the $3,500 price tag. Like I said, the thought of getting a new amp to play with will help me keep my sanity through this. :cool:

Gotcha, alot of work went into it then so it may well be justified. Should of had the dude throw in a couple 20 amp dedicated lines for the gear while he was there.

[Deleted User]

tonyb wrote: »

Gotcha, alot of work went into it then so it may well be justified. Should of had the dude throw in a couple 20 amp dedicated lines for the gear while he was there.

The house has been re-habbed over the past 15 years in various stages. Believe me the home runs from the panel to my equipment were handled by me personally. Nothing left to chance there. In the couse of running these circuits I made sure to leave some extra wire because I knew that Panel Moving Day would have to come at some point. :cool:

treitz3

Man, that just plain out sucks. Good news is that the dryer is an easy fix. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

dkg999

Wow, you actually own the cable coming from the powerline to the meter. It used to be the utility company owns and maintains everything from the powerline to the meter, including the meter box.

[Deleted User]

dkg999 wrote: »

Wow, you actually own the cable coming from the powerline to the meter. It used to be the utility company owns and maintains everything from the powerline to the meter, including the meter box.

Yep, when they re-attached to the house the power company guy wouldn't touch anything past their wires. The service head is still pulled away from the house. I couldn't convince him to at least attach that even with a bucket truck and all the necessary tools while he was here. :cool:

disneyjoe7

Well let's hope you're done fixing stuff this year, since you seemed to have fixed everything by now. But I have to ask....

Smelled like someone was lighting band-aids on fire.

How and why would you know how this smells like?

[Deleted User]

treitz3 wrote: »

Man, that just plain out sucks. Good news is that the dryer is an easy fix. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

My biggest question is just getting the thing apart. I'll be working on that tomorrow. I plan on replacing the belt, rollers, idler pulley wheel w/bearing and the pulley lever + shaft. So if you can shed any light on the dis-assembly I would be much obliged. I am off to watch the 500 now. Cheers. :cool:

Amherst

Every overhead electrical service I have ever been involved with the homeowners responsibility starts at the service drop where the wire exits the service head. The new meter socket panel should also be supplied free of charge by the utilty company with the installation the homeowners responsibility. If your branch circuit homeruns are already extra long headed tword the main panel and reasonably easy to reroute the $3500 number still sounds about 1K too much. I would like to do that job! :cool:

[Deleted User]

DSkip wrote: »

Nap, I spent an hour Friday night SWEEPING water out of my parent's house. My wife put a load in the wash and went upstairs. 10 minutes later, my parents come home to water running out of the garage. They opened the front door to 2" of water throughout 80% of the downstairs. My dad said he went in the laundry room and it was spewing like a fountain. Now they are going to have to replace the hardwood floors throughout, most likely all the tile, and possibly some drywall/insulation. We've had about a dozen fans from Dalworth running full blast since Friday and they will be running until sometime tomorrow night. Loud as all hell.

The good news is they were going to do some renovations, and with the low deductible, they should be getting more done with similar or less investment on their end.

Did the washer supply line burst ? Kinda sounds like it. :cool:

[Deleted User]

Amherst wrote: »

Every overhead electrical service I have ever been involved with the homeowners responsibility starts at the service drop where the wire exits the service head. The new meter socket panel should also be supplied free of charge by the utilty company with the installation the homeowners responsibility. If your branch circuit homeruns are already extra long headed tword the main panel and reasonably easy to reroute the $3500 number still sounds about 1K too much. I would like to do that job! :cool:

Some of the home runs are longer as I described some are not. Maybe not quite as cut and dry as you may have thought. :cool:

m1aman

Where I live the power company's responsibility stops with the line. I own the pole, meter etc.

Tony M

nap wrote: »

The past 365 days or so have not been a fun time for the major appliances in my house. First it was the big screen. Decided to go out while I was watching the MLB All Star game. Fortunately I was able to fix that. Next was the dishwasher (15 years old) went out about 10 days before Christmas adding to all the other holiday stress. Next, the dryer starts sqealing like a stuck pig. I have the parts ordered just need to find time. Last Monday something burns up in the washer stinking up the entire house. Smelled like someone was lighting band-aids on fire. Here's the kicker, the washer was two years old, Sears Kenmore. Their name tag should just read K-Mart more. Very unhappy about that one. The silver lining is that the wife hated it so we went and got a really nice Maytag on Thursday. Which brings us to today. The other night the electrical service wire got ripped off the house in some high winds. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no property damage. The amazing thing was that we didn't lose power. Got the line re-attached but was informed the service cable had to be replaced. The electrician showed up today and the bill for that is $3,500 clams. Where does it end ? I need to buy some amplifiers off of Ebay to calm my nerves. Sorry for the book but I just needed to vent. :cool:

I feel for you. I've lived long enough to know and I agree, Bad things come in waves pretty close to one another sometimes.

About your service pole, sorry to hear about that one.
I've had two neighbors that have had problems with theirs. I was asked to help re-attach one during a major hurricane. I did help up to a point that it was re-attached and I ran back home as quick as I could. I heard metal getting blown around in the neighborhood. If the city people saw his house on the back side or even inside, they would've condemed it. So I had to help them keep what little they had.

Another neighbor had black-out from his panel and the episodes kept getting closer and closer between them. His contact points at his outside meter box from the down pole AND wires were in BAD shape. He paid a guy under the table to replace his meter box and down pole and the wires inside of the down pole. I thought his house would catch fire because he waited years before he did anything about it. He was very foolish.

I'm glad your getting it done even though it's happened with all the other bad things. Good luck with everything. OH, we bought maytag replacements years ago and they are great.

quadzilla

Man that sucks. I feel for you, I really do. Hope it gets better. I was able to find schematics and repair manuals online for an old washer I used to have by googling on the make/model and repair. Maybe you'll have similar luck.

[Deleted User]

quadzilla wrote: »

Man that sucks. I feel for you, I really do. Hope it gets better. I was able to find schematics and repair manuals online for an old washer I used to have by googling on the make/model and repair. Maybe you'll have similar luck.

Wouldn't help the old washer is at the dump. I am liking this new Maytag we bought. Its a little fancier than I would normally consider but so far so good. :cool:

[Deleted User]

Now for some good news. I put in a best offer on a B&K amp and the seller accepted. Can't wait to get it. Its a B&K St-202+. An older amp I know but I will probably do a re-furb on it at some point. Should be fun to listen to. :cool:

[Deleted User]

Okay, so adding to the list o' stuff going wrong, I was in a good mood as I was able to leave work a little early today. I get home and my son informs me that the stockade fence on one side of the backyard is getting ready to collapse. We had some really nasty wind today in Baltimore and one section of the fence let go and with the wind whipping it back and forth it was getting ready to take other sections with it. So I got my boys together and through the wind whipping it and us around we were able to get everything braced up and saved about 30 feet worth of fence. Usually you wouldn't care that much about a fence but this is part of the fenced in area for my three dogs. I am thankful it happened when it did (in the daytime) and that we were able to fix it at least temporarily. I shutter to think that my dogs may have got out, run away and or possibly hurt by the fence falling on them. Will one of my fellow Polkies please remove the kick me sign off my back. BTW, my B&K amp arrived today so at least I'll have that to help me relax. Sorry for the book but I had to vent yet again. :cool: