Lucky for Us~ We Saved $178.00 (Six and a Half Hours in Dishwasher Hell)

SUBTITLE:A blow by blow account of why the "experts" can get away with charging $178.00 to install something in your house:

Our dishwasher was recalled this week. Something to do with setting kitchens on fire. We had the option of getting it repaired for free... which I'm sure would have meant waiting 8-72 weeks for a part to come in... and then waiting an additional 5-87 days for the service guy to be able to get over and make the repair. All of this for free, while you have no working (safe) dishwasher for 61-591 days. The other option was to get a rebate on the purchase of a new dishwasher. We opted for this, because the old one was six years old anyway, so why not buy a new one, while we could get $300.00 off the price, right? So, (yay!) new dishwasher. I'm sure in retrospect my loving husband would like to murder me. Here's why:

We went to Sears to order our shiny new appliance. Chris chased the girls up and down the aisles while I closed the deal with the Sears dude. I had the Sears card, you see.

"When would you like it delivered? Is Friday good?" he asks.
"Oh yes, that's great!" I reply.

So that's fine, and the delivery guys would take away the old one (for $10.00). Great.

"When would you like it installed~ Monday or Tuesday?" he goes on.
"?!?!?" my brain says, while my mouth says "How much does that cost?".
"$178.00".
"!!!!!" my head yells, while I look around for my dear husband and say "Don't you think you could just install it, sweetie?"

Chris's face says "You're crazy", but his mouth says "Okkkkaaaayyyy."

Yeah. Lucky for me... my husband is a very patient man.

The dishwasher arrived with a fair amount of fanfare on Friday (that's a whole other story). The first thing we noticed, after getting the dishwasher uncrated and partially connected: we needed a single piece of copper connector (some kind of little adapter thingy~ that's a technical term) to connect the copper supply pipe to the water supply line for the dishwasher. Stupid pipe. FOUR trips (three to Sears and one to Lowe's) and 3 1/2 hours later, Chris was finally able to procure the right part (for free) from the sales guy at Lowe's. He actually had to take apart a kit to take the piece out that we needed. We'd send him a fruit basket, if we knew where he lived. He's our hero.

All the pipes, drain hose, power supply etc. were now in place (4 hours into the project and counting). We shoved the dishwasher into position. Or more accurately shoved, and shoved and grunted and shoved. And discovered that the counter and cabinets are not connected to each other on that end of the counter. And that there was a veritable geographic record of sedimentary-type layers in linoleum under our feet. Judging from the extreme ugliness of the bottom layer of lino, I'd say the house was built during the last Ice Age or maybe even the late Cretaceous period. More to the point, though, the many layers of flooring were making the gap under the counter a smidge too tight for the dishwasher to fit. Good thing the counter was a little loose from the cabinetry. We finally got it in there. And discovered that we couldn't level it due to the fact that the top layer of lino, which does not extend all the way into the cavity where the dishwasher goes, was in the way of one of the leveling feet. And also a piece of wood moulding was blocking the other side. Hard to describe, but the technical details don't really matter.

The bottom line is, we were forced to reverse-shove the dishwasher back OUT of the cavity (and cracked a little piece off the front of the cheap-o formica counter in the process), so that Chris could cut away a strip of linoleum and a piece of the moulding with a utility knife~ a job which required him to insert all 6 foot 4 inches of him into the space, which is the size of a dishwasher (go figure). Lucky for him, he did not lose any fingers (or eyes) in the process. We crammed the dishwasher back into position. At that point it was getting easier, because we almost had a system going. It was time to test the dishwasher's efficacy, with a 10 minute-rinse cycle. Five hours into the whole process and counting.

Five minutes into the rinse cycle (pardon my French, but SH*T SH*T...) water sprayed out of the drain hose at the top of the air gap under the sink. SH*T. Stop the cycle, stop the cycle! My husband managed to keep his sense of humor up to this point as he said:

"You know, the good news is that after all of this is done, we still have to do the dishes!"

We pulled the thing out (again) and discovered that the drain hose UNDER the dishwasher had leaked as well. Lucky for us, the Cretaceous (or maybe Jurassic?) period lino was curled enough that it acted like a bowl and contained the pint or so of water that had spilled out. Anyway, long story short (I know, too late)... Chris fixed the drain hose, we cleaned up the mess, retested the machine while it was still in the middle of the kitchen (no leaks) and grunted the bloody thing back under the counter (again). And did the dishes. So far so good. 6 1/2 hours and done.

$178.00 doesn't sound so bad now, does it?