Small Chassis Washer Drain Errors

 

Maytag calls them F21 errors. Wascomat calls them Error 2.

Other brands have their own code for the same problem: a slow drain.

What is causing the drains to be slow?

The quick answer is a litany of debris:

coins

hair pins

lint

rubber backing from rugs

socks

rocks,

pet hair

Anything that will fit in the drain will be the culprit!

The easiest thing to check is the drain.

Most small chassis models have some sort of panel on the front of the machine. Remove that and behind it is the pump. Some older frontloaders require you to take off the entire front panel.

Either way you should see a circular drain with a cover that can be twisted open.

Twist on the cover and the drain screen should come out when you've twisted a few turns.

The above picture shows all of the junk that accumulated. There was a sock, paper clips, coins, and a bunch of the rubber backing from a bathroom rug.

Once you've dumped out the drain screen. Stick your finger inside the pump drain hole to see if there is anything stuck in there like a sock or dryer sheet. In the models I work with you can feel a small impeller inside the hole. If it isn't blocked up you should be able to spin it freely with your finger tip.

 

There is always water in the drain. If you don't have a bucket you can use the front panel as a water catch. If there is water inside the tub before you start this process then you need a bucket!

 

More examples of junk inside drains.

When you are done your drain and screen should be clean. I like to run a test cycle on the machine just to make sure and to give the machine a rinse in case there was water stuck inside for a time.

It's a good idea to check the drains once or twice a year even if they don't back up.

Remember my other articles about finding money in dryers?

You can often get a chunk of change from your drains too!

Ev

A Heck of A Nice Guy

Condensation in Dryer

Have you ever come into your laundry room or laundromat and noticed the dryer doors were wet?

The dryer works fine but each time that it rains or snows you notice the water dripping off the inside of the glass.

If you see this hapening with regularity you might want to check your backdraft damper inside the dryer. The following pictures are using a Maytag MLG45 stack dryer, however the general idea is the same across all dryers. 

To solve the problem open up the back of the dryer.

Locate the exhaust duct inside the cabinet and the exhaust fan. Somewhere there should be an access panel in the exhaust duct or sometimes the backdraft damper will be on top of the exhaust fan housing.

Remove any panel that covers up the access hole.

Behind the panel should be a damper of some sort that stops air from gong back down into the dryer.

Notice the silver "ramp" in the picture above That is the damper in its closed position. Moist air from the top dryer can't get into the bottom dryer and moisture from the bottom dryer can't go back into the top.

This is the same damper when we first took off the access cover.

Notice the lint.

The lint was not allowing the damper to close enough and when the dryer was off all of the damp air from a rain storm would go back into the lower pocket. If the top pocket was running some of the hot air would go into the cold lower dryer and that caused the condensation.

On a related note, if you notice the paint inside the lint drawer area or on the lint drawer itself starting to peal off, odds are you have a problem of moisture getting back into your dryer.

Make sure you clean all of the nooks and crannies on the damper so that it swings freely and easily.

Your damper should look like this when you're done.

Depending on the way your venting is set up you can also add an external damper in the duct work coming out from the dryer. Sometimes it is easier to deal with that location than to go into the dryer itself all the time. 

Thanks to owner S from Milwaukee County for letting me use his dryer for these pictures!

Ev

A Heck of A Nice Guy

Goodbye Old…

 This week WASH begins our official tenure at the new location on Tower Avenue. The old location in Brookfield served us well for many years. We say goodbye to the old and hello to the new! I look forward to seeing you at some point at the new facility.

Ev

A heck of a nice guy

This was the old show room and the entrance to the Parts area and service counter

Great Lakes customers and employees will always remember this is Dan’s office

A newer rendition that took up space of the old lunchroom and created some new officers

A look into what used to be the parts area

This was Reed’s office. It had no heat so he used to have to have his own space heater and still had to wear a winter coat

I don’t remember knowing that there was an attic. This was the area behind the lunch room

Warehouse 

This was unused space behind the office. For a brief time it was a bigger conference room until it was divided in half

Storage above the bathrooms and show room

Warehouse bathroom. Even when clean it still was gross

Loading dock looking from the old parts store

The other half of the break room/lunch room. When the conference room was divided into two this became an office space

From the back of the warehouse looking forward

I have had many careers and jobs in life. Not because of nefarious reasons or scandal, I just have a lot of interests and figure if I'm going to pursue some of them I might as well get paid. Whether you are on your first job or your 10th, at some point you have to ask if this company or job is right for you. How do you decide to do that? JohnThiel has some ideas from this article back in 2015 and they still apply today.

What does this have to do with laundry?
If you own, work in, or manage a laundry room or laundromat the same rules apply.
This is an example of where my jobs in laundry and recruiting collide.
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

When You Know It's Time to Go

Mar 19, 2015
In this series, professionals share all the right — and wrong — ways to leave a job. 

When I left my first job, my boss told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I told him that he might be right, but I had to follow my instinct. I didn’t need to argue the point. I was optimistic about my future, and, by leaving, I knew I was taking an active role in improving my life.
People often associate quitting with giving up, but it’s really about understanding when it’s time to go — especially today, when it’s increasingly rare to see someone do the same job for 20 or 30 years.
So, how do you know when it’s time to move on? Over the course of my career, there were a number of situations that I’ve found to be pretty universal with others.

If you’re genuinely bored with your work, you should really think about doing something else. Staying on is not fair to the company you’re working for, or to its clients or customers. And it’s certainly not fair to you. This happened to me at my first job. When it started to feel rote and mundane, I knew it wasn’t my future.

If you find your own values are misaligned with the organization, you should definitely leave.
I had one job where this happened to me — and as soon as I realized it, I knew I had to quit as quickly as I could. If my values and my ideas of service are compromised, I can’t sleep, so I have to go.

Sometimes, the company and its culture might be great, but you have the bad luck of working for someone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart. Someone, for instance, who is jealous of you, or has low self-esteem and takes that out on you. In my case, I was able to reach out to others in the company, and eventually found a new role working for a different part of the same firm.

Of course, one of the most common — and best — reasons to leave a job is because of an opportunity or challenge somewhere else. For example, some years after I started at Merrill Lynch, I left a job in a local field office — one that I was both good at and comfortable doing — to work in New York on the leadership team. It was a stretch role for sure, but I had been steadily investing in and building my leadership skills. When I got that opportunity I knew it would have a big impact on both my personal and professional life, but I was ready and I had to make the jump.

No matter what the reason, if you do make a move, remember to do it in the most professional way. No need for pay-backs or to get the last word in — that most likely will come back to haunt your career aspirations. Remember that first job I left, when I was told I was making a huge mistake? That former employer is actually a client of ours now, and I have a great friendship with him today. But most importantly, it’s always better from your own psychological standpoint to stay optimistic and maintain your dignity — even in the toughest circumstances. That will serve you well, no matter what your work situation.

John Thiel
Head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management

John Thiel is the head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and is responsible for the strategic management of 14,000-plus financial advisors and 6,000 client associates, as well as more than 200 private wealth advisors.

Lies From A Boss

 

You’ve told a lie sometime in your life.

-No, you don’t look fat in those jeans
-I have a headache
-I forgot

While the examples above are indeed lies by the definition of the 8^th commandment, “Thou shall not lie.”
we call them “little white lies.”
They don’t hurt anyone.
They help us avoid conflict with each other.
Some would say they are not lies or sins but rather “polite responses” that show good manners.

What about telling lies in the work place?
If your boss tells you to say something to a customer, and the boss has no malicious intent, and it later turns out that statement wasn’t true, did you tell a lie?

If your boss tells you to say something that they know it isn’t true, and you say it but didn't know what you were told was false, did you tell a lie?

What would you do if a boss told you to lie to a customer?

My first sale in radio was on my third day on the job. A prospect called in and the sales manager gave it to me and said it was time for me to try out what I had learned over the previous two days of training. He gave me the commercial package I was supposed to sell and sent me on my way. I met the prospect and he bought the package after some convincing. Proudly I came back to the sales manager with contract in hand. The manager looked at the contract and told me he couldn’t accept the deal because the price per spot (a.k.a. commercial) was too low. I pointed out that 90 minutes earlier he gave me this exact package and I sold it to the customer for the exact price he told me to sell it at. He said I had to go back to the customer and tell him that I sold him the wrong package and he had to buy this new package that had a higher price and fewer spots. I asked him to go with me since it was my third day and I didn’t understand why the package he told me to sell, and that I sold, was suddenly no good.
He said he didn’t have time and I should go and tell the customer “I made a mistake because it was my third day  and I sold him the wrong package.”
On the drive down I was upset and mad.
Why do I have to talk the fall and look bad for someone else’s mistake?
I did what I was told to do by the manager at the original meeting.
I was taught that rule number one of sales was “never lie to a client.”
I believed that then and practice it to this day.

I decided that I was going to tell the customer the truth.
If I lost the deal or made the manager look bad I would still be able to sleep guilt free, and maybe the customer would appreciate my honesty and use us again.
The customer was surprised to see me and more surprised when I told him that we needed to redo the deal.
I told him the exact reason and words my sales manager used.
The client said he appreciated my honesty and signed the new deal.
He asked for my sales managers name and phone number.
He said he was going to call him and tell him what a lousy manager he was for sending me down with a stupid excuse why he had to buy the new package and should have honored the terms of the original package.
I’m not 100% sure the customer called my manager, but the manager never asked me to do anything that dishonest again.
I kept my integrity and got the deal. In fact this customer exclusively bought from me for the next several years.

I was right to handle this situation this way.
On the way down to the second appointment I knew I was right to handle it that way. In the appointment I knew I was right. After the appointment I knew I was right. To this day I know I handled that situation right and have handled similar situations the same way. I was taught my first day of my sales career the number one rule was to never lie to a client. 
Over the years I have stedfastly followed that rule.

I have had managers over the years tell me I should outright lie to a customer in circumstances where I don’t know the answer and to “make one up” because of the belief that if you give the client an answer it is better than having no answer at that moment. I disagree.
How would you have handled the situation with the customer I described above?

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy