I don’t think anyone here pays attention to tags, but I’ve decided to add a “laundry” tag to the site, since it’s a topic that seems to come up far more often than I would have expected. Of course, had I thought in terms of how much time we spend dealing with laundry, it would have been obvious.
Since the death of our clothes dryer, we have been fortunate in that the weather has been mostly sunny and unusually dry (meaning the humidity has fallen to 80% at times) enabling us to hang laundry to dry. After failing at multiple attempts to repair the dryer, I reluctantly decided that the current Costco special of $400 for a new Samsung electric clothes dryer, including delivery, set-up, and haul-away of the old dryer, made the most sense.
The new dryer was delivered yesterday, just in time for us to start getting a little bit of badly-needed rain. (Sometimes nature does cooperate!) Costco did a great job communicating the status of the order and it arrived exactly on time. It was the same delivery crew who brought the gazebo kit that eventually became the pavilion. They were friendly and efficient; the whole process was a joy. I immediately felt compelled to wash, dry, and fold two loads of laundry and it worked great.
The old dryer had a lot more features: steam! internet connectivity! — which we never used. It also matched the washer. So it bothers me a bit to lose it, but it no longer dried clothes (or even turned on) which I feel are important attributes in a dryer. It’s sad that it wasn’t more repairable, but repairability doesn’t seem to be a feature of most modern appliances.
At least I can console myself that the new dryer is a better match for the upright freezer.
—2p
addendum 2025-10-25T18:11-10:00
Instead of being disheartened by having to attend to things that have broken, instead of building new infrastructure, I have chosen instead to frame it as “our infrastructure is complete and solid enough that maintenance tasks are starting to overtake new construction.”