Can You Do It? I Bet You Can.

Homegirl Lisa called me last weekend.  “I don’t think I can fix my dryer,” she said.  “I just have so many other things to do.”

Well, it was raining, so weeding was out of the picture.  Housecleaning?  Inevitably, the house will get dirty again.  Laundry, same problem.

“Look at it this way,” I said.  “Is your time worth the price of a new dryer?”

I asked myself the same question when my dryer broke.  It wasn’t a big break.  Three of four ballasts (those plastic thingees that stick out in the dryer drum and keep my clothes from rolling into a big, wet ball) had detached from the drum wall.  I knew it would cost me the $85 house call for the repairman to look at it and say that I needed new ballasts.  I knew that I needed new ballasts!  The old ones were cracked at the point where they screwed into the drum.  The deal was this: I had to pay the repair man $85 to look at my dryer, diagnose the problem, and then another $85 for him to come back to my home with the pieces needed to repair the dryer.  Then I’d need to pay him for his time to replace the ballasts.  All totaled, I was looking at a $300 bill to replace three ballasts.  It seemed a bit excessive.

I could order the pieces myself and I did.  I could wait for my husband to fix the dryer, but I really needed it sooner than he could get to it.  Why not try to fix it myself?

First, I unplugged it.  Unplugging is REALLY important.  Then I took it apart.

It was pretty easy to get the top off the dryer.  I lifted it up and figured out how to get off the front of the dryer.  Once those pieces were removed, it was obvious what needed to be done.

No wonder the ballasts had worked their way free from the drum.  The metal screws that attached them to the metal drum had worn bigger holes into the drum.  I bought machine screws and oversized plastic washers at the local hardware store (those family owned stores always have the most knowledgeable staff and they are more than happy to explain, in detail, most DYI projects).

I fixed the dryer for less than $50 in supplies and actually improved it with the addition of the plastic washers to all the ballasts.

Please note:  I am not, by nature, a handy person.  But I am a frugal person and I am willing to give most jobs a try.

I once worked for an older woman whose husband, like mine, was an engineer.  She relied on him to do most “mechanical” things around the business because he was good at it.  But, from time to time, business called him away from the shop and the rest of us were left to deal with the maintenance things he usually did. 

She would say, “Come on, ladies.  We all have degrees from major universities.  We can figure this thing out.”  Translation: we were smart enough to handle this problem.  We could do it.

I don’t need a college education to fix my dryer.  A manual would have helped.  But most important is attitude.

My mantra is one part “Bob the Builder” and one part Barack Obama, “Can we do it?  Yes, we can.”  At the very least, we could try.

Is it worth a $300 repair bill or a $600 replacement price?  I thought so.  When I put it that way to Lisa, she agreed.  The piece she needed to fix her dryer is due in today.  I’ll keep you posted.