A while back Denis and I noticed that the rubber gasket on our eight-year-old washing machine was getting a bit smelly and gross. I tried cleaning it with bleach and vinegar, but that stuff wasn’t budging and continued to smell. Our clothes didn’t smell, but the machine did whenever you opened the door. For the first three years we owned the machine I would towel-dry the gasket everytime we were done doing laundry. That got older after three years, so I eventually stopped and would just leave the door propped open a bit to let it airdry. But the time had come for the gasket to be replaced.
I hopped online and found that it was apparently quite easy to replace the gasket on a washing machine. I even found a few videos on YouTube showing how to replace the gasket on our brand of machine. It looked surprisingly easy-peasy, so I ordered a replacement gasket to install myself. After it arrived it proceeded to sit on top of our washing machine for a couple of months while I kept saying, “I’ll do it this weekend.” And then the weekend would pass and I’d say, ‘I’ll do it THIS weekend.” Yesterday Denis brought down the laundry and said, “You want to do the laundry first or replace the gasket?”
I did not choose wisely.
We should have done the laundry first because despite how easy the video made it seem, replacing a gasket is NOT easy. We basically had to take apart the washing machine to even get to the gasket area, and then for a good 45 minutes to an hour the two of us struggled to get that stupid new gasket to stay in place. It wouldn’t. Then we brought CootieBoy over to hold one section in place so that we could work on the rest of it, and that didn’t work. CB was being snarky about the task, so we asked CootieGirl to come help. Still couldn’t get that stupid gasket on.
We finally gave up, and called Bosch to find out if they had any appliance reps in the area, and then left a voicemail with one of the three names given to us. And in the meantime, we had a LOT of laundry that needed doing.
So we cobbled together just over $10 in quarters and Denis headed out to a laundromat about five miles away and spent his Sunday afternoon there.
So let the lesson be learned – YouTube may make things look incredibly easy for a DIYer, but that’s not always this case. Because if it were the case, we’d have been able to get the gasket on as simply as this (started at 5:12):
Or this (starting at 1:04):
Or this (starting at 3:26):
Even after reviewing these videos, I have determined that despite it looking so easy, replacing a rubber gasket on a washing machine is NOT meant to be DIY. Either that, or Denis and I are complete idiots (for reference: we’re not complete idiots).
