Expensive morning

This morning was expensive, but it could have been a whole lot worse.

Our dishwasher crapped out last Wednesday. The owner’s manual said the flashing green light meant trouble with the heating element. Since I was going to be out of town from Thursday morning until Sunday afternoon, we resolved to put off the service call until Monday.

In the meantime, the temperature monitor in the garage freezer began pestering me via my iPhone that the temperature had risen above freezing and was steadily climbing, eventually topping out in the upper 60s.

I called the appliance repair folks Monday morning and they finally showed up this morning.

But in the meantime, the kitchen refrigerator stopped cooling and freezing.

Our first thought was that a power surge from one or more of the recent storms was the cause of the cascade of appliance failures.

But when the two technicians – yes, they sent two guys – dug into things they found:

• The freezer was iced up because the automatic defrost timer failed. As far as I can tell, it never worked in the first place.
• The starter relay failed on the refrigerator, probably because of a buildup of dog hair and other stuff under the fridge that went unnoticed until today.
• The dishwasher heating element, was indeed the problem.

They got the freezer and refrigerator working again in time to save a few hundred dollars worth of meat and other frozen food, but they didn’t have a heater unit for the dishwasher and said they’d come back as soon as they got one – maybe later today or maybe Friday if they had to get one from Little Rock.

Total cost: $686.16. It was painful, but at least we’re not shopping for new appliances and replacing lost food.