Today i’m actually proud of myself. I’m good with wood, textiles, gardening, trees etc. But metal, machines, electronics don’t come natural to me at all. I learned to take care of bicycles or chainsaws because I had to but those scary household machines never. Until today. The machine stopped midway, full of water and clothes. Panic ensued. I already saw myself forced to buy a new one. After mere 20 years!
But mommy raised not quitter, so i took the stuff out, drained the water (without flooding the bathroom!) and had a look at that debris catcher thing and the lye pump. Both a bit dirty but easily cleaned and the pump’s screw still moved. After looking into the waste tube I put everything together again and run an empty cleaning cycle. At first everything seemed fine but coming back from a short nap the machine was full of water again. So rinse and repeat it is.
This time i watched a few videos on how to dismantel the machine to get to the inner tubes. I had a hard time finding something since i’ve apparently got a rare top loader model. Luckily i watched one vid with a guy looking at the lye pump with a flash light instead of just feeling for coins or buttons with my fingers. So back down on the belly it was.
Lo and Behold! There was the culprit! A bloody rubber band had wrapped itself around the screw. Not nice. At all.
Being the good hoarder i am, it wasn’t difficult to find some long hooks (spare bike spokes) to fish it out. Doing it was though. But with a good amount of patience and some luck (and an astonishing lack of cursing) i managed to untwine it and ease it out, without leaving anything stuck around the screw. (Funny thing is I don’t use any white rubber bands, ain’t got a clue where it came from.)
All in all it took me “only” two hours. But I fixed my first washing machine!
I hope you enjoyed my little Saga of “The Washing Machine and The Rubber Band” and I wish you at least the same amount of success for your own projects. Be they voluntary or not.
The equipment ground is actually bonded to the neutral that comes in from the electric company.
You’re also supposed to ground the main water pipe within 10’ from where it comes in to the ground in the service panel.
The earth rod is a safety feature in case of a catastrophic failure and dissipates static electricity or lightning.
The equipment ground is designed to complete the electrical circuit if the common side shorts out to any metal on the equipment, which will (hopefully) overload the breaker and trip it immediately.
If you grounded to the water pipe and a short occurs it would have to travel the entire length of the water pipe to dissipate, and if the water pipe is not bonded to the service panel then it won’t necessarily trip the breaker. You’ll have an energized water pipe until it draws enough current to trip the breaker, hopefully.
You could have a scenario where someone fills the bathtub which has an older cast iron waste pipe. They get in the tub and touch the faucet which is energized.
Yeah, it’s a 1:100,000,000 chance, but there’s a reason why the code is written the way it is.