Washing machines are not my favourite thing in the world and that cannot be more true for how I feel about our washing machine in Korea.
On its best day it half-washes things and takes forever but in winter it is worse, MUCH WORSE.
This is partially because I have never lived in a country that drops below -3 degrees Celcius let alone -20 degrees Celcius.
You see, our washing machine is in an outdoor room (covered) of our apartment which means that the pipes freeze which leaves us high and dry with no clothes to put on.
About two weeks ago our machine would not drain water. It just sat there full of water and clothing. My director came over and showed me that our water-outlet pipe was frozen. He went about defrosting it and I watched closely incase it happened again.
Little did I know I would be going through the whole process every time before being able to do our laundry on.
Here is the process:
Take off the end pipe, run hot water through it until the pipe eases up and the ice comes loose, then attach the pipe and pray like hell that it works.
But yesterday there was another twist in the tale. The pipe that lets water into the machine froze and at a slight tug it snapped. URG!
So it was off to the shops to by another pipe. Then I got to work defrosting and attaching and praying. AND....it didn't work!!!
Cry cry...frustration....deep breath....forcefully pull out some hair.
So Lauren gave me her heater and I let it radiate against the inner pipe (attached to the machine) that had now frozen.
I have just put the machine on again....cross fingers that it works this time or else I am going naked to work tomorrow which is going to make the freezing weather that much more real :)
Post by Claudia
4 comments:
Small heaters are the best way to go in thawing out your pipes. It also helps to get a tarp to place over the washing machine and a chair or two to keep the tarp off the heater to heat the pipes quicker without heating all that extra space in the whole room.
Thanks for the advice!!! Luckily I came right and finally got my laundry clean!
I thought this was happening to me too but instead my washing machine has been leaking and due to the extreme low temperature, a frozen pond has now formed on my balcony which I have to carefully step on to reach the washing machine!! I tried melted said pond but the boiling water just freezes so quickly Im cluesless what to do! Ahh Korea!!! :)
Yeah, I tried the hot water route...I poured the water and then swept it into that little hole in the floor and then used the little heater to dry the rest!!!
Ofh the joys! You would think that something would have been invented to prevent washing machine drama every winter!
They can take a man to the moon....
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