Kitchen Mysteries

We have had more than our share of problems with appliances.  There was the KitchenAid coffeemaker issue.  WALL-E eventually stopped working and not long ago was replaced by a Bunn Phase Brew 8 cup coffeemaker.  That one didn't work very long but was still under warranty and Bunn sent us a new one that for the moment is working fine.

Then there's the dishwasher.  After the kitchen renovation we got a GE Monogram dishwasher which failed, spectacularly, on Thanksgiving Day in 2009.  When Tom refers to this episode, he usually says that the dishwasher caught on fire.  It did not, but I am fairly sure that something would have, eventually, if he hadn't turned off the circuit breaker.  So the day after Thanksgiving we went to Lowe's and purchased a Bosch dishwasher to replace it.  It's nice to look at, with lots of stainless steel, and is extremely quiet.  And it does a good job on the dishes, when it works.

Given our prior history with the previous dishwasher, we did purchase the 4 year extended warranty.  I can't even estimate how many service calls there have been for this dishwasher, which frequently will not start.  It's had the circuit board replaced several times.  Sometimes they blamed the problem on the wiring, which had been attacked by rats.  The last time they came for a service call, a couple of weeks ago, it worked fine when the repair guy was here, only to return to not starting as soon as he left.

Of course, having a dishwasher that won't start is preferable to having one that won't stop.  But having one that works would be even better and we've talked about whether to replace it now or wait until the extended warranty expires.  (I am sure Lowe's has it in their computer system to never offer us an extended warranty again.)

After the most recent round of attempted repairs, Tom spent some time on line researching Bosch dishwasher problems.  Somewhere -- I don't know where -- he found the tip that for our specific problem if you open the door at a specific point in the start up sequence that the dishwasher will in fact start.  And it does.

We have probably had repair people here from multiple different appliance repair companies here at least 6 times, maybe more, because intermittently the dishwasher will not start.  Nobody every told us that if we open the door at that particular point that it would start.  They've replaced circuit boards, told us to replace wiring, done all kinds of other things, but no one ever told us to open the door.  Which now we do, and so far it has worked.

When I was a kid, we had a dishwasher, and an automatic drip coffeemaker.  They both worked forever.  Is it us, or are appliances too complicated now with too many microcontrollers and circuit boards provided by the low bidder?  I thought it might be Atlanta's aging electrical grid; after the circuit board had to be replaced in the washing machine we got a housewide surge protector.  It is inexplicable.

But -- for the moment, anyway -- everything is working, and I have an excellent cup of coffee to start my day.