<p>In the same grain as all the remodeling threads.
Our house is 11 yrs old and I decided that some items needed a bit of sprucing up.
The dishwasher works great. It is quiet, cleans the dishes with no rinsing. The stainless tub looks as good as the day it was installed. The racks are another story. They have begun to rust in places and showing signs of age. I thought that I would replace at least the top racks. I asked at the appliance store. He said it is cheaper to buy a new dishwasher. I didn’t believe him till I started researching. To replace a top rack of a Bosch dishwasher is over 200 dollars. 300 for the bottom.
I guess I will live with my rusty racks!
any similar stories?</p>
<p>mom60…guess my Bosch is going to live with bad racks for a while too. We had a problem with our ge profile oven a while back. I was able to buy a replacement part cheaply online and DH installed it.</p>
<p>You can try a cheap fix with about 6 packs of unsweetened lemonade koolaid or a like amount of Tang. Run it through a cycle. That can clean the rust. You can also cover the rusty prongs with 1/4 inch polyethlene rubber tubing or order tray caps from Guardcoat (?), they are in some of those catalogues, can’t remember which but google it. They are not at all expensive. The other thing you can do is to try to paint them with liquid electrictape that you can get at recreational vehicle supply stores.</p>
<p>Thats why my wife and I have decided to kept each other. Maintenance level is still acceptable and far cheaper than a new model.</p>
<p>I sometimes volunteer at Habitat store. A lot of dishwashers with good racks.</p>
<p>Mom60, we went through the same - incredibly pieces of the racks started breaking off…</p>
<p>If you think that’s bad…</p>
<p>When I broke my leg, the titanium rod was $6000 - with some assembly required.</p>
<p>I now live in a new house and have refused to do any home improvement or renovation. Am just enjoying until I have to fix something, after years in fix me uppers. However, I am working on my mother in law’s decrepit 100 year old house and trying to get it looking good on a shoestring budget. Her dishwasher is ancient, probably an original, and we will be replacing it after we paint the rusted metal cabinets and replace the knobs on them. Also need to paint the peeling ceiling and walls, put in new lighting including a ceiling fan, and then a new floor as the last step. Her back porch also needs to be scraped and painted with the washer and dryer moved there to turn it into a laundry room. The adjacent laudry room will get a new built in shower complete with handicap rails and the rest of that room will be a dressing room. She can no longer go up the stairs and there is no full bath downstairs. To knock out the wall of the powderroom which is the tiniest one I have ever seen, would be a big job involving load bearing walls. So, we’ll leave the toilet and tiny sink in place, just spruce it up, and put in a walk in shower stall in the laundry room. Give her plenty of room for her clothes and lines, and a dressing area right outside of the stall. Big issue is heating the room as the radiators do not extend to that laundry room and she is currently heating it with an electric heater. She’ll need more than that if it is a shower/dressing room. The elderly get cold very easily. That is our big challenge.</p>
<p>Feel free to ask me any about any quick and inexpensive fixes as we never had the money to do it up with any of our houses and had to look for the quick and easy and cheap route.</p>
<p>^Flat panel wall electric or oil heaters.</p>
<p>Worknprogress: Still cheap.</p>
<p>Am also thinking about one of those heaters that will blow down hot air from the ceiling when you step out of the shower. They would be on a timer. This in addition to a flat panel wall heater. Right now we have a long narrow electric baseboard heater and it just does not do the trick.</p>
<p>Just pulled the baseboard heaters from the beach house. They never were effective, could not control the heat very well, and prevented good placement of furniture. We use for many years, electric oil heaters and place them where they are needed.</p>
<p>I am going to replace the baseboards with Cadets, because they were a good buy from Habitat and I still want to use the 220 line. These are fast heat but noisy.</p>
<p>I bet the powder room I saw today beats yours cpt. It was less than 2 feet wide and about 5’ long. It was the former front hall closet. It was so small they didn’t even put a sink in it. :eek:</p>
<p>Mathmom, the powder room is less than two feet wide and less than five feet long AND there is a sink in it. The good thing about is that my mother in law cannot possiblly fall down in there. There isn’t any place to fall. She could not even fit unless standing straight up or sitting on the toilet, in the space between the toilet (to the right of the door0 and the sink (to the left) both overlapping the door frame.</p>
<p>Try a heat lamp instead of a heater.
I also was wondering- the peeling paint, is that on plaster or drywall?</p>
<p>I am thinking longingly of any dishwasher, I haven’t lived in a house with a built in one for 33 years.</p>
<p>Those rusty prongs eventually break off the dishwasher racks. My 4 yr.old Amana is already missing several. Thanks for the tips about covering or coating the prongs, cpt. It’s def worth a try.</p>
<p>You are not thinking longingly of any dishwasher, Emerald. I have a broken one in my kitchen that won’t drain=stagnant water=replacement needed=$$$. Even if I don’t replace it, it needs something done so that it does not get mold in it like my mother in law’s. Hers is a health hazard. You can have that one and mine free of charge!</p>
<p>I am sure I am going to be for another shock later this morning. My son came in last night needing the 2nd set of keys for his car. He lost his set. They are the type of key that you have to buy from a dealer.
This one is at least going to be on his dime. He is working a summer job making sandwiches at a deli so I think he is going to feel some pain. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him though. How hard is it to keep track of your keys.</p>
<p>mom60, he’ll have to make a LOT of sandwiches to replace that key (if that’s an electronic key, they can run up to $500 depending on the car’s model). I’m glad DD retrieved her cell phone which she left at the hair salon.</p>
<p>Please…NOTHING can break in our 14 year old house for two more years. If it breaks it will have to stay broken. Two kids in college. When they graduate, we’ll fix things. In the meantime, the only “fixing” we do around here is painting here and there.</p>
<p>We just had lost keys last weekend through a mishap (half of us went home taking the keys to both cars!) It did not cost much to get the replacement from a dealer. It’s the electronic opener thing that can cost. We just walked into the dealership with the VIN and our licenses, and they cut a key for us. I would let my kid just use the regular old key they lost the opener.</p>
<p>I haven’t spoken with him yet today. He was sleeping when I left and at work when I came home. We have two sets for that car. Only 1 with the electronic opener. Of course that is the set he lost. I am hoping he can figure out where they were lost. Haven’t found out if he was just at the house where he left the car or if he had gone somewhere else in another car with his keys in possession. Otherwise I would think he could find them. I am not paying to replace the keys and I am not letting him not replace it. I am considering taking the current key and holding on to it and the car until he buys a replacement. He is lazy and is figuring he will just use the extra set. He won’t want to pay for the programing the electronic opener I am sure but I feel like he lost the good set so should replace it with what he lost. My husband uses this car when son is not in town. The car is a Volvo and we absolutely hate the Volvo dealership in our town.
This boy is going to drive me crazy!</p>