The Joys of Plumbing

Having lived in a house for many years of my life, I am not used to the workings of an apartment/flat. Over the past month here in London, we've had some interesting experiences with the utilities (electrical, plumbing..) As you can imagine, the flats here are much smaller than what we've been used to in the US, but not unlike the US the idea is to save space the best you can. That's why companies have invented putting a washer and dryer into one unit. When the clothes are done washing, you simply leave them and switch it to dry. That's if it works how it's suppose to....and if the plumbing is set up how it's suppose to be.

The first couple of weeks in the flat I was playing catchup with the laundry, since much of it had piled up...and I had to "learn" how to use this brand new appliance. I was able to get fully caught up, and had just started to do the regular "weekly" wash (here it is "daily") when the washer threw it's first error message. F18. F18, what does that mean? So to the washer's manual I go.

F18: Can be caused if something is caught in the front drain. Empty it and clean it out. Or, it can also be caused by the filter being blocked with lint.

Hmmm....the drain is in the front....the filter is probably somewhere in the recesses of the dark cabinet behind the washer. I chose the easier route. I also had no idea how to check the filter anyway. Well, the drain seemed fine, so I continued doing my washes. After another couple of weeks, the washer consistently threw the F18 errors, and I even got one F17. No idea what that one even meant in the manual. I did, however, check the front drain again.....and again it was fine. Ok, there has GOT to be something wrong with the washer. I called the landlady, and she gave the me the information to have a service technician come out. I procrastinated a couple of days due to dealing with another plumbing issue that I will get into in another post. Then I had an incident that made it impossible to ignore this problem.....the night I opened the FRONT facing washer door, and a flood of water landed on my feet and the kitchen floor. The washer didn't drain. I called the technician.

So, now I write this post after my visit with the technician. The nice man, whose bare buttocks I became familiar with every time he bent over, did not charge for the visit...even though he should have. It seems there was something to that F18 error. It was indeed clogged at the filter. Great! Now I knew what the problem was and how to fix it myself going forward. But, "How can I prevent this from happening again?" I asked him....."Don't use the dryer" was his reply.

Hmmm.....