Monday 25 July 2011

The Battle of Belko


On Saturday our new washing machine arrived, the hired men dropped it in the dinning room and left. That’s all well and good but it needs to be in the utility room.

Now this leaves us with two problems, firstly now I have to move it, secondly and this is the big one, now we will have to install it ourselves. Have you ever installed a washing machine? Well I have now. Flicked through the instructions and they read simply enough, it all seems so straightforward. Can’t be hard, no I’m certain it will be simple.


Day One,

Step one, remove restraining bolts. I own one spanner, it doesn’t fit, we give up in despair.

Day Two,

Step one, remove restraining bolts. Go out shopping a buy a new set of spanner, spanners don’t fit. Rage. Think to myself ‘I knew I should have bought an adjustable spanner’. Ask next-door, return with a magic albeit rusty adjustable spanner. Spanner works and we loosen bolts, not sure what to do so we just keep turning. After twenty minutes my beautiful assistant manages to remove one, turns out you have to pull them out not twist. Well get the remaining three out in record time. What’s next..

Step two, move into final resting place. Now this was the part I was dreading, now moving it into place sounds deceptively easy but bear in mind its going into a very small utility room with very little room for play. We had about an inch height clearance and a foot width. Slots in nicely you may think, ah I retort but if you just slide it right in how do you connect it up?

Washing machines have three main connections, water in (some machines have two water inlets, a hot and a cold, ours had only the one, being more of an economic model, electricity in and waste out. It’s recommended that you get each of these connections right. The electric connect is an easy one to make, even I know what a plug looks like.

I guessed which pipe I needed for the water and connected a hose before testing into a bucket, water flows, right, good. The waste pipe was the one I really had to get right, mess up with that and you get flooded. With the waste and mains connected it was a relatively easy case of walking the machine into place and reaching around into the dark and trying to screw on a fiddly connection. It’s like when you try to reach around a big television a plug in a scart lead but infinitely harder and aggravating. That done however and a firm shove into place and our washing machine was in. Turning on the water was a nervy moment, but hooray no leaks! I had confirmed my masculinity and installed a washing machine.

The first couple of washes were regularly scrutinised but it stayed a flood free environment. God am in proud. This must be what having a child feels like…