Mystery Noises Revealed

The second of the mystery noises has resulted in the entire motor drum assembly of our front load washer to be sitting out on the side of our kitchen since Sunday.  Our laundry room is just adjacent.  Just lovely.

In case you are wondering, if and when the bearing decides to let go, it will cause instability during the spin cycle and create sufficient force to snap the shock(s).  The resultant sound is like a machine gun or semi automatic weapon going off continuously.  I was upstairs when this delightful noise came about.  Boy did it make me move fast. 

So far D has replaced the shock and when the spin cycle was tested, it still made a horrendous racket which helped to diagnose the bearing issue.  That part is on order and will cost ($250) and the install will take about 2 - 3 hours.  He already has numerous battle scars in form of metal scrapes to show for it and we have had a talk about wearing proper clothing when doing such work... Men and their "invincibility".  Heard of necrotizing fasciitis??  I would be far more impressed if he came out of all that work completely unscathed. 

Before bothering with the self fix, we did price out a new washer/dryer set just in case as we estimate our current ones to be coming upon 10 years old.  We were pleasantly surprised that you can buy a fancy enough for us model for around $1500 delivery, taxes and disposal included.  And we could have gotten it by tomorrow.  Whereas the part on order will be arriving by the end of the week and the attempt to fix will be made and should it turn out positive, we would have saved ourselves from spending an extra $1100.

The first of the mystery noises pales in comparison.  It was around 11 pm and I was enjoying a quiet evening, when an irritating beeping noise started, non consistently, about every 5 - 10 min.  We had recently started up our furnace.  (No, I'm not one of those folks who forces themselves to wait until 'whatever time' before being willing to turn on the heat.  No thanks.)  So the first thing I thought of was the furnace.  I know you can find error codes on its main electrical board in the form of blinking lights and sounds.  So off I went. 

In the meantime, I kept hearing the beeping and it wasn't coming from the furnace.  It seemed to emanate from the duct work which made it really frustrating.  I checked the carbon monoxide and smoke detectors.  We have a combination of battery and wired in types.  It was driving me crazy and I was starting to foresee a night of little sleep.  So I took to just sitting and standing in between rooms and waiting for that irritating sound.

Not long after my initial search, D called as I had sent him an email (he had arrived at the cottage) and here we were on the phone, me trying to capture that stupid sound so he could give me his 2 cents.  It wasn't in the basement.  It sounded like it was in between the floors.  Finally D walked me through where all the detectors were and it turned out I missed one in an obscure place that I needed a ladder to get to.  It was a battery operated smoke detector after all. 

Something we learned from all this.  Check the date on your detectors.  They do "expire" and will beep because of that and not because it has run out of battery juice.  Wired in units are not exempt.  Turns out we have a number of units that will need replacing.

There you have it.  A little "excitement" to brighten up our every day lives...