Thursday, November 20, 2003

"Home Depot is good at breaking stuff."

That was the verdict of the first GE Repair Man last week. A piece of plastic had sheared off, leaving the central bin of our washing machine off-center. He popped off the lid, did something and declared it usable. However, he was going to order a part, which arrived a few days later via Fed Ex. And then a second GE Repair Man came and installed it. That seemed odd to me, but there was no charge and now the broken parts are in the shipping box that the new part came in, sitting by the garbage.

As the first guy explained it, there's a shipping rod in the bottom of each machine and that the guys at Home Depot often remove it before loading it onto the truck to save themselves time during installation in the field. That we could not have broken it ourselves, even with heavy lopsided loads, like the dog's pillow. Apparently there's a part in the washer that contains sea-water and provides for counter-balance on unbalanced loads.

The Home Depot destruction theory could also explain the bent runner on the dishwasher. I unbent it as best I could, not knowing if I had done it, or if it had been delivered that way (since it sat in a box for two months). I levelled it and it's been working fine.

I hope nothing's wrong with the hot water heater, still in a box, three months later. That was unceremoniously left outside our gate with no attempts by the delivery guy to actually make contact with us, we just found it sitting outside the same afternoon that different Home Depot guys were to deliver the stove, dishwasher, washer and dryer.

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