The Great Laundry Maneuvre

I ended up uploading something like 100 MB of pictures last night, so I'm going to divide this into at least two posts so that various connections don't keel over. Today, you get the Great Laundry Maneuvre, otherwise known as the hole in the floor.


This happened exactly a week ago: my father-in-law cut a hole in my kitchen floor, family and friends carefully lowered the new laundry machines into it, and then hauled the old laundry machines out. We initially thought that the old ones could come out the old fashioned way — i.e., up the stairs — but then we realized that, a) we would probably have to remove the banister to the stairs, which would be more work, and b) we already have a hole in the floor.

The original plan was to lift up the linoleum so that there wouldn't be any seams. That ... didn't work out so well, so there's a seam, which is fine except for when the basement light is on and I can see the light shining through the cracks. Then it freaks me out.

I'm not going to bother writing a lot about this, as the pictures are fairly self-explanatory ...












And that was the scene I walked into when I got to the house. I seem to have a habit of walking in just after they've done something intriguingly dire to the house (like ... oh, take down a wall. Or part of a floor).

Then we stood around, waiting for people to show up after work to help us with the machines. From what I understand, there seemed to be a lot of jumping into and out of the hole, and playing with the camera, just for a lark.


And then the real fun started!

They began with the dryer, because — did you know this? — dryers are significantly lighter than washers. I did not know this. Then again, I have never tried to pick either one up.

The plan was to use two lengths of climbing webbing (which is rated for something like 300 lbs), parallel to each other and held at either end by a person, to gently lower the dryer through the hole. There was a little bit of a tipping problem initially, but that was easy to compensate for as the dryer is reasonably light. They put knots in the webbing for better grip.


Testing the webbing.


Liftoff! (You can see Marc and Pierre holding the dryer so that it won't tip.)






It happened remarkably fast, and was surprisingly painless. Then again, as Marcus pointed out, there were really only two ways this could end, and "catastrophically" is probably not the one I wanted.

And now, the washer. This one was heavier, and took longer; therefore I have more pictures.


The heavier load made them pause to reconsider their strategy...


... and triple-check their bearings.














Ta-da!

(I also have a 34-second video of them pulling up the old dryer, but it's on my iPod Nano and that necessitates hunting for an entirely different cable, so that will have to wait a few days.)

We now have a set of high-efficiency laundry machines in that beautiful red colour that no one will ever see, because it is in an unfinished basement that no one will ever go to. However, I will know. And it makes me happy.

Someone did point out that we were never going to get those machines out again, and ... I'm sort of okay with that. I mean, by the time we'll want to get them out, they won't be working any more and it will be okay to disassemble them ... right?

(Yes, when the time comes, we are totally going to sell them with the house.)