This sat in the draft box for nearly four months. Life got busy. But a flashback to March...
The fun is never too far away.
What has been a bit of a quiet patch here has been busy at work...and waiting for dishwasher repairmen.
I ordered this tiny 18-inch dishwasher after giving in to pressure (read: sick of being nagged) to make sure I added one to the kitchen renovation. It will increase resale value, it will make your life easier, it will be great.
Two out of three have not been true.
I was trying to keep as many big, bulky appliances out of my house while I did not have a kitchen. The living room, dining room, guest room and garage were at their max. So holding delivery at Lowe's was working to my advantage...although they were anxious to get rid of it.
I did not anticipate the cabinet maker to needing the physical dishwasher when they installed the rest of the cabinets. I still do not quite understand why, but it resulted in a panic that day and them going to pick up the dishwasher so they could fit everything around it. And then added it to my dining room because the rest of painting and flooring still had to happen.
It sat there for several months while I waited for this project to finish and for the plumber to come back and install it. Once he did, he could not get it to run. Everything the directions indicated should work did not. I called Whirlpool for help and after trying to troubleshoot on the phone without success, they sent out a warranty technician to repair. He came up with a cause of a faulty panel, confirmed everything else was properly installed and ordered a new part.
It took a few weeks to arrive and finally a new technician came to install it. Who then identified that the new part still didn't solve the problem. He thought the issue was misdiagnosed and that a new wiring harness needed to be ordered. He said it would again be a few weeks to order. A few weeks came and went with no notice. I called the repair company, and found out the part was never ordered and they would place it and let me know. Several calls for weeks later only got transferred to voicemails. Almost two months later, I reached someone who informed me they were not longer servicing Whirlpool warranties and I would have to call the manufacturer to find someone else. Swell.
So I started over again, spoke to a loving customer service rep who could not believe this craziness and was happy to help me out. She was able to also extend my warranty since I had been stuck without a functioning dishwasher and time was ticking. She set me up with a new service company would called the next day to arrange a service time and find out what was going on. The repair tech came out. He said some additional parts needed to be ordered and would be here in two weeks and set up a time for repair. Sounded great. The day before, when I was supposed to receive the call with the service window, I instead received a call that the appointment was canceled. When I called to find out why, apparently the part had not come in. And then came the familiar line of "...and you'll need to call Whirlpool to figure out next steps."
Grrreat. Back to Whirlpool I spoke with someone who said they were going to have to transfer me to an escalated issue department (never good). After 30 minutes on hold, they told me what was going on. They were going to send me a new unit. They issued a return authorization number and had me call Lowe's to start the process. I was kind of relieved. Lowe's got me set up to have the old unit picked up so they could process the new order and scheduled me for today. I got my pickup window call last night and was ready to wait all day. They showed up at 2:45, just 15 minutes after the window start, and were ready to pick up the dishwasher. That was apparently supposed to be outside. Huh? How was that supposed to happen? I told them it was in the kitchen and they came inside to look and discovered it was still installed. Apparently they only pick up, they did not uninstall. And no one mentioned that. So they took their photos to prove it and told me to call back Lowe's again.
Cue a call to Lowe's who said they would resend the pick-up crew when I was ready but I would have to have it uninstalled. I was not about to spend anymore money on the dishwasher that wasn't, so I phoned up dear old dad...who is always itching for a home improvement project (especially not at his home) and some quality daughter time. Mom came along for moral support...or perhaps she was already en route with him on the way to a shopping trip. We pulled it out and disconnected it. The amount of water that kept draining out was surprising. The trickiest part was trying to figure out how to uninstall the custom cabinet panel. So out it was and there it sat ready for the Lowe's crew. I tried to get them back but they were already deep into their route (those guys move fast), and rescheduled for another pick-up a few days out.
Part two to follow with the recap of how the reordering went.
