Appliance Gremlins

Carter spent the night at a friend’s last night and Russ got up early to run into the office for a bit before his father’s post lunch arrival so I was taking a few extra moments to sleep in this morning. I should have skipped the sleeping in.

When I did get up I noticed the dishwasher was running. I needed to wash the sheets in the guest room and take a shower so I tried to time all the hot water consuming activities to line up together. When I heard the dishwasher click into drying mode I jumped in the shower. After dressing I stripped the guest bed and took the sheets to the laundry. On my way back through the kitchen I heard an odd sound coming from the dishwasher and was altered by the flashing lights that something was awry.

A big “F70” was flashing to the beat of “Warning, Will Robinson” from Lost in Space. Not now I thought. I pushed the off button on the machine, but the loud sound did not stop. I searched in the “manuals” drawer and found only the Meile warranty book that at least had the service phone and web site. I dialed New Jersey and after following all 6 appropriate prompts met with the message that the service was closed for the Holiday. Really? It was 9:00 on Good Friday and I was faced with the thought of no dishwasher over the long weekend and my father-in-law visiting.

Just then the phone rang and said in-law announced he was in Durham, but had taken a wrong turn. He was only four hours early so a wrong turn was good news to me since the sheets were just in the washer. I gave him instructions to correct the wrong turn and knew that I had twenty minutes.

I called Russ and left him a message at work. Get home! I turned to my computer to look at the Meile website to find a repairman and guess what, the closed office also included the department that helps you find a local repairman. Do not buy a Meile if you expect it to work on a holiday.

I goggled Meile repair in NC and called three places. Two said they don’t work on Meile and the third being an obvious Meile repair place was closed for the holiday. Out of desperation I goggled Meile F70 and came upon a Mr. Fixit post about solving the issue himself. I studied and went to my dishwasher, which was a different model from the one in the post. Since I did not have a front kick panel to remove I decided to do the one thing I know to do when something is broken. I shook my dishwasher.

The bad sound stopped. I turned the machine on the F-70 had disappeared even though I had already tried turning the machine on and off before. I restarted the machine and lo and behold a Good Friday miracle. Since I learned from Mr. Fixit that F-70 meant the float was activated because water had gone into the bottom of the washer I guess I just got the float to go back down and whatever water was in there had already drained away. I certainly did not fix the cause of the problem but let’s hope I at least bought myself a weekend of dishwashing.