R.I.P. Simpson Minimatic heavy duty agitator action

We've had death in our household: our 25-year-old clothes washing machine. I knew it was old, but I hadn't realise it was that old... we had toyed with the idea of upgrading, but decided not to. It was so simple - just one dial for the programs and one for the water level, and so reliable - in the 13 years we have had it, it has never failed us.

But then it started having problems a few weeks ago, just before Thumper's 1st birthday actually, when it wouldn't spin/agitate properly. (In truth, it has been having a little problem for quite a while - every now and then it would trip the mains power switch on the fuse box cutting power to the whole house. This was annoying but the machine kept on going, so I didn't worry about it.)

So DeepSpice pulled it open and tightened up the drive-belt which had come loose. Then we tried a load which got most of the way through but wouldn't drain. So I pulled all the sopping wet washing out and tried to get it to drain when it was empty of clothes. Thankfully, it did, but very slowly. So I switched it off and decided it was time to call a qualified washing machine repairer.

Luckily we had someone in mind, because a few weeks ago Gran and GrandPaul had to get their 15 year old washer repaired. The repair-man (Craig) had told them it was worth repairing old machines because the new ones are rubbish - they are designed to fail after about 5 years so people are forced to buy a new one. Apparently he was really good at breathing life back into their old machine. So I called Craig and he said he would come 'either tomorrow or Thursday'. I was happy to wait because I was quite confident that he would be able to work his magic on our old machine too. However, two days with no washing machine when there are two kids in the household (one of which is in cloth nappies) is a long time. So when he still hadn't shown up by 3.30 pm on Thursday, I was really annoyed. I gave up on Craig and rang another repair-man (Paul) who had been recommended to me by one of the mums I know through BallFiend's kindergarten.

When Paul arrived he took one look and I could tell he was trying not to laugh as he thought: 'why on earth would anyone bother to try and repair such an old machine?'. He turned on the machine and set it running, it made a horrible noise while spinning and then we saw a big spark from the motor, then the mains power went off. He shook his head, and started unplugging it whilst telling me that it was gone... not worth fixing, "...and you see how it tripped the power, well that's an earth-leak. You can't use this machine again until that's been looked at, and it's not worth the cost of fixing it - both the motor and the pump have failed."

I mentioned Craig's comment about old machines being better-made than the ones available now. Paul agreed. He said our old Simpson machine was made by Malleys, and that Malleys went out of business because their machines were too good so people didn't need to buy new ones often enough, "not a good business model". However, to fix our machine was going to require a new motor ($200) and a new pump ($300) and he could sell me a reconditioned top loader for $250-300 (or a front loader for $400-450) and take away the old machine.

So DeepSpice and I took a day to think about options, then came to the conclusion that we would get a front loader and that we would buy a new machine rather than a reconditioned machine. We could get a bigger capacity machine that will fit in the space available, and even though the initial purchase price will be higher than a top loader, it will cost less to run as they use less water and electricity. The downside is a longer cycle (the old machine took about 30 minutes, whereas the front loaders take 2+ hours for a standard cycle) and that all the new machines have fancy new fan-dangled electronic controls (which, Paul the repair-man had warned me, can fail if you use a hot wash and get them all steamed-up). Our old machine had a mechanical timer and not much is ever going to go wrong with that.

Then we had to work out what machine to buy, and in the interim, find a way to wash our stuff. The latter being much easier than the former...

Gran and GrandPaul mind BallFiend every Thursday so when I took him over, I took all our washing too. I put the first load on and Gran insisted that I leave the rest and she would do it for me. That night, when they dropped BallFiend home, he was accompanied by all our clean, dry washing (which made me think that maybe we don't need a new machine after all, even though Gran stridently disagreed.) However, when it came to Thumper's stinky nappies, I decided that rather than transporting them to Gran and GrandPaul's laundry service house (and risking a nasty mess in our car), BallFiend and I would take them up to the local 'Rainbow Bubbles' coin laundette. We had recently read a Mo Willems book 'Knuffle Bunny' which features a toddler and her dad going to a laundromat, and since BallFiend had never heard of, let alone seen, a laundrette before reading this book, it seemed like a good opportunity to address this crucial gap in his education.

Needless to say, it wasn't quite as exciting as BallFiend was anticipating. But he still managed to find things of interest to ask plenty of questions about. Luckily for me, there was an old Greek woman there, washing her husband's smalls, so she got to bear the brunt of the questioning instead of me. Most questions started with 'why', including 'why is it spinning around?' and 'why are you using that one (pointing to the dryer she had selected) instead of that one (pointing to a dryer that she had considered then rejected). Once the nappies were in the machine, $6.00 in $1.00 coins deposited and the machine was spinning away, I took BallFiend for a walk and we bought a biscuit each from one of the many local middle eastern bakeries that line Sydney Road.

Then it was home and back to the more important task of trying to decide which machine to buy. After much deliberations (ie. a week's worth) and visits to a couple of large retail stores, we finally decided on a size, brand and model (Bosch WAE24271AU Maxx EuroWasher). Then I hunted around for the best price and found a suitable machine through AppliancesOnline.

Our new washing machine is to be delivered on Monday, and included in the purchase price is free delivery, free installation and free removal of our old washer. I'm happy so far... and I am looking forward to using cloth nappies on Thumper again: we have had to use disposables for the past two weeks and in that time we have had three major poo-leaks. This is compared to a grand total of one cloth nappy leak over the past year (and this only happened because I took too long to get around to changing her and the nappy was already very wet). Most of all, I am looking forward to a time when BallFiend and Thumper can do the washing, and with a front loader, they will even be able to reach the controls.

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