<p>It’s as though our old house acts up like a spoiled toddler.
Just finished up a grueling 12 days of 12+ hour days implementing a new project at work.
It’s been difficult just finding food to eat and to keep toilet paper in the bathrooms.
Is it too much to ask for our old house to just keep working for a few weeks?</p>
<p>Apparently so. Woke up this am to enjoy a nice cup of coffee and NOT go to work…
and find the gosh darn (can I use the real words?) dishwasher is not working.
Gobs of ugly dirty dishes everywhere. Sigh.</p>
<p>Managed to get the front porch light replacement fixture purchased and installed yesterday.Wooo hooo.
So, now, I’ll add the broken DW to the broken ice maker, to the falling down back fence, to the tree that needs to be taken down, on and on and on.</p>
<p>Usually, I can keep up. Feeling really beaten down.
And yes, we are all healthy and safe. I’m thankful for so many things.
This old house is not one of them right now!</p>
<p>My sympathies, both on the work-front and the home-front.</p>
<p>Sometimes it feels like we work just to support the house. New roof, new water heater, new heating/cooling unit, new dishwasher. It’s always something!!</p>
<p>Hang in there and try to get enough sleep. Go buy a bunch of paper plates and bowls.</p>
<p>Wow, I can sympathize. I have an 1896 house that everybody raves about - woodwork, character, yadda, yadda. I am so unbelievably sick of dealing with all the issues. It is a money pit and source of great anxiety. Oh, and the curtains are blowing around right now as it’s stormy outside. Charming.</p>
<p>I can sympathize, musicmom. I think of our 1920’s house as another dependent. But I’m not sure that having a newer house would make much of a difference. There is an area nearby of McMansions built a few years ago, selling for $1M-$2M. I was at a party there once, and I was surprised to hear the residents commiserating about all the repairs they had to do. New houses are often shoddy, no matter how expensive. My house has the original slate roof, still in great shape with only an occasional slate replacement or new flashing necessary. I had sash replacements done in 10 windows a few years ago for energy efficiency (replacement of only the moving parts, not the frames). This can only be done if the windows are no more than 1/4" out of square. The contractor commented that the window frames were still perfectly square. The clapboards are beautiful quarter-sawn cedar (I’ve seen bare sections during painting). The new McMansions have clapboards that are obviously warping.</p>
<p>Our latest, relatively minor, issue was that all three toilets were not flushing properly. The plumber came and all of them now work perfectly. But the toilets are all Totos, between 1 and 4 years old. So this has nothing to do with the age of the house.</p>
<p>Applicances don’t last these days the way they used to. The expected life is only about 7-8 years. So you are probably looking at replacing a major appliance every year on average.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the answer is. I’ve thought of living in an apartment or condo, but I hate living so close to other people. I’ve dreamed of living in a small white room with just a single bed and a hook for my single garment.</p>
<p>Thanks for commiserating!
Certainly don’t wish broken house things on anyone else but it IS comforting to know we’re not alone here.</p>
<p>I’m on my way out to buy those paper plates and bowls…until we do the old repair/replace dance on the DW. It is sooo hard for me to believe that my ‘new’ kitchen in now almost 9 years old! We lived with the hideous old one for so many years that this one still seems miraculously new. So, time to REPLACE the new DW?
We already had it serviced once. The hard water really is damaging I’m told.
How come the waaaaay old DW lasted so very much longer??</p>
<p>Puzzled88, I hear you, we also have ‘charm’ galore but also leaky old windows.</p>
<p>NYMom, when you find that small white room can you let me know? I’d love to buy the unit next to you.</p>
<p>And I am sorry if I’m sounding overly dramatic about a dopey DW…it’s really that I’m depleted and need to replenish myself so I can successfully battle our own personal moneypit old house again.</p>
<p>I have a broken 11 year old washer- don’t know whether to call repairman or get a new one. Thanks for your post if really helps me feel like it not just me. NYMomof2 I dream of that simple white room too! So glad to know someone else does.</p>
<p>In my redone kitchen, the DW had a number of major repairs during the first five years, but I had the extended warranty. When that thing went the next time, I knew it was NOT to be repaired again. (Piece of GE “profile” garbage - the profile stands for my face getting really mad.) The pump went as as it leaked under the sheet vinyl on the kitchen floor, and ultimately damage a couple of cabinet bases, and required a repair to the floor, my DH was saying that it was normal. Good thing he is in a completely different line of work than appliance repair.</p>
<p>I bought a new DW which did not give me a minute of trouble. I moved, but I must have had it for at least 5 years when I left. It even was a cheaper price than the previous Garbage Electronics. My GE refrigerator, cooktop and double oven all had problems too. Two weeks after we sold the place, my husband drove by and told me that my old kitchen was out in the backyard of the place. It was 15 years since the redo, and it had become fully useless. Don’t worry they got a good price for the house, and even though the kitchen was junk, it looked really nice - and they knew all about it.</p>
<p>In my newer place, I have already had big repairs on two furnaces. It never ends.</p>
<p>My advice, get a new dishwasher, unless the old one was something really special. If it fits with your decor, get a plainer one that is not so expensive. I think they last longer.</p>
<p>On some weekend mornings, I walk into the kitchen, stare at my appliances and say, “Sooo… Which one of you is planning on croaking today? Do. Not. Even. Think. About. It!!!” LOL.</p>
<p>The house is 12 years old. So far, the washer and the DW have been replaced, and the stupid fridge has been fixed by DH, twice. DH also took the control panel out of the wall oven and soldered in a new 50-cent cpacitor in the place of the one that dried out and made the oven hard to use. Oh, and I forgot - the septic pump failed. That one was a lovely repair, handled by pros.</p>
<p>That’s what I’m thinking. A plainer one with minimal bells and whistles, less things to break.
Do they make such things?
We have been going toward disposable everything lately…since the higher end (supposedly better quality) things keep disappointing us.
I don’t like pitching ‘stuff’ to the curb and buying new but it does seem silly to repair some items that are cheaper to replace.</p>
<p>We bought a $50 blu-ray player last year…if it lasts 3-4 years, we will be happy.</p>
<p>So, I am inclined to buy a cheap new DW with a new 5 year warranty and replace it when it first needs repair after 5 years…
Any ideas on a cheap brand to buy, I’m all ears.
The dying one in my no longer new kitchen is KitchenAid. It was maybe $700 new.
I do have an applied wood front on the DW that matches my cabinetry…can I get that off and attache to new one? or just have to bail on that look?</p>
<p>I love our KitchenAid gas convection stove and it has been lovely.</p>
<p>I can’t remember what brand I bought for my old place, it may have been whirlpool. I did get a whirlpool washer and dryer when I moved in to where I am now. All the other stuff had already been picked out by someone else. Check out the shop on line places to see how much the various features cost etc. I have never used the potscubber functions on any dishwasher. I wash good stuff by hand, so I don’t care about a china setting either. </p>
<p>If you don’t have a water softener, there are a few companies that make appliances with a softener built in. I assume that these are costly options, but I don’t know. We did not have a water softener in our old place (the ancient one that came with the house gave out), but did put one in here. It is a pain to fill up the salt, but supposedly it helps give your appliances added life. Those are not so cheap either, so I don’t know if it is worth it.</p>
<p>Fwiw, of late I like PC Richard for appliances, which has stores in NJ. Also if you are near one of those urban enterprise zones in NJ, you can pay half the sales tax (I think they are still doing that.)</p>
<p>Yes, we live in an old “charmer” ourselves. 'nuff said. </p>
<p>Good move with the paper plates. Now, just put everything you want to eat on the grill!</p>
<p>I won’t even give you my list as it stands right now, but I will say the refrigerator broke this summer, if it ever really worked, and we no longer use the freezer. We just don’t have anything frozen. I’m not even joking. </p>
<p>I just didn’t have the energy to bother with it and I’m fine with buying what I’m cooking that day.</p>
<p>Yes, musicmom, at 9 years old it is time to replace, rather than repair, the dishwasher. I remember when my washing machine broke after 7 or 8 years. I looked at Consumer Reports, sure that the life expectancy should be longer. It wasn’t - CR advised replacing appliances that are that old. I remember when washing machines lasted 20 years, easily. </p>
<p>I always get extended warranties now. I never used to. </p>
<p>We have replaced our dishwasher twice (15 years in the house). The first one we bought was a top-of-the-line Kenmore (stainless steel interior, etc.). It was a piece of junk, after a few years it started putting grit all over the dishes. I had service calls, spent a lot of time online, never could solve the problem. We have a Bosch now, mid-range, and I love it.</p>
<p>We have an older house (55+ years). Seems like it’s always something. Though we also own a much older house (built in the 30’s) that functions as my husband’s office and we hardly ever have issues with that house. I think it was built a lot better.</p>
<p>I tell young people who are anxious to buy a new house that they need to budget a fair amount of money for maintenance - it’s not just the house payment. It doesn’t take long before you have to start to have to deal with repairs.</p>
<p>Also, a home warranty contract (runs around $400 a year) can be really worth it. We used ours to have an air conditioning unit replaced.</p>
<p>Went through this a year ago when our DW broke and we were in the middle of another crisis. I spent about thirty minutes online and picked the cheapest one from Sears (I think it was less than $250, not kidding.) I booked an installation appointment online, the guy showed up and installed it the next day, and we haven’t thought about it since. Works fine, although it’s a tad small for a large family. Sometimes I think the higher-end stuff has more features to break.</p>
<p>Musicmom, there’s an OP from another active thread who’d gladly unload a young, new dishwasher on you, but the dishwasher is dating her daughter, so you might not want him. ;)</p>
<p>We had to have the water heater replaced 4-5 years ago. H & I replaced the garbage disposal ourselves and lived to tell the tale last year. Our 26 years old Kenmore washing machine finally died and we replaced it with a new GE one. It had two repairs by repairmen and one by us in those 26 years. In the same time, the dryer heating element burned out about 3 years ago. Cost us $150 for part & visit, but it lasted. The dishwasher just started leaking, too.</p>
<p>We were going to schedule a repair visit, but we wanted to find out what was wrong first if we could. It appeared that a plastic part had cracked and was leaking. If it had been the pump, we would have just replaced it. So I found the part on-line and ordered it for $12. We paid $100 for the repairman to come whatever it took to fix it. And we had the part, so hopefully the DW will last a couple more years. BTW, it is 16 years old now.</p>
<p>Also have a built-in oven that had to have the bracket holding the door replaced and now needs a new lightbulb. Now if we could just get the furnace/AC people to come service the 16-year-old furnace (which works fine) without giving us the hard sell on a new one!</p>
<p>We need a new dryer…I’d rather need a new dishwasher. At least I can SEE my dishwasher everyday. They dryer is hiding behind doors in an upstairs bathroom. BUT since it now takes well over an hour to dry clothes (set on the HIGH setting), it’s time. We’ll order it next week…and have it delivered.</p>
<p>We bought all of our appliances at the same time…almost 17 years ago…they are all going to break one by one.</p>
<p>I have all the replacements all picked out… a Samsung fridge, a Kenmore washer, a Bosch dishwasher, a Whirlpool stove, and a whirlpool microwave.</p>