I just bought a new house, pretty much our dream house. Beautifully built in the 80's (which is saying a lot!) and well maintained.

After living here a few weeks the washing machine, and dishwasher shit the bed. The washer is a speed queen that keeps throwing an error code: Fl:Er which means that it basically takes too long to fill on the rinse cycle. The dishwasher gets nothing clean.

There is a lot of scale on everything, so I'm thinking that has something to do with it. The previous owners had no softener installed for the well water.

Why do machines always break together? They must have secret relationships we don't know about.

They were bought at the same time and programmed obsolescence raised its ugly head.

I've owned a couple brand new homes in the incandescent light bulb days. After 3-4 years, all the light bulbs burnt out very close together.

Houses, and the stuff in them, tend to have similar "maintenance/replacement internals". Kind of like maintenance schedules on your car, where every X thousand miles something is going to need work, with big services due every 100k or so. Every X years (usually ~10-15ish), expect several big things associated with the house to need replaced or repaired within a short span.

Sounds like you just hit one of those intervals in the life of that house and its appliances, likely an accelerated one due to the unaddressed hard water/sediment issue.

I know this is something that gets a lot of new homeowners (though this observation is not directed at the OP specifically). They stretch their budget to afford a bigger/nicer home and stock it with nice stuff, and don't factor in savings for these kind of big expense intervals throughout the life of the house, like appliance/water heater/HVAC replacement, roof replacement, fence repair/replacement, repaints/remodels, etc. Everything's good for the first several years, until an interval hits, and then they're in a financial bind because their water heater went out at the same time as their stove broke and a portion of their fence collapsed. I even knew one guy who complained loudly when he found out that his homeowner's insurance didn't cover that kind of expensive routine maintenance stuff... He thought it was like a car warranty, where if something broke they just fixed/replaced it for free.

I think it was Arcwelder who once posted something like: "Home ownership is a constant battle against the relentless forces of entropy."

It could also be spikes in the current. Surges, high or low. Electrical things like their food in steady doses. Surges, high or low, can be a cause of trouble. Ask your neighbors if any of them have had similar problems recently. Or maybe the Gods of magic things just are mad at you. Sounds like your supply lines are clogging up.

We've lived in this spot for 25 years, but only 10 in this house. It shocked me how good the water flow was with new pipes. Never was like that before. Hard water can be a pain. Pressure low to hardly running at all. I foolishly tried to upgrade to 3/4" pipe. The old black iron 1/2" was so filled up with sediment it would barely pass water. Hmmm, I wonder if I have that problem these days.

I wonder if this is just the start of things for you. Are your supply lines copper, plastic, or black iron?

Sounds like your issues are scale related, perhaps try taking the washer fill lines off and raising them up and pouring white vinegar in them and let them sit a while and connect them and running a load of nothing with two cups of vinegar in the washer, do the same with the dishwasher, you might get lucky on one of them.

Everything has a life span, appliances included. Many things break from age more than actual usage.

quote:

...pouring white vinegar in...do the same with the dishwasher, you might get lucky on one of them

I agree; however, watch the underside of the dishwasher carefully. Years ago bought a house with an existing dishwasher that had dish cleaning issues. Its age was unknown and area had hard water. Wife used vinegar and small holes opened up in water lines under the dishwasher after the vinegar had dissolved the minerals away.

quote:

Are your supply lines copper, plastic, or black iron?

Copper. I ran CLR through both appliances, have a call into the well guy for the softener install. Went to clean the supply hoses to the washer, and the damn packing on both shut-off valves started leaking like a sieve!

quote:

big expense intervals throughout the life of the house, like appliance/water heater/HVAC replacement, roof replacement, fence repair/replacement, repaints/remodels, etc.

You must have been a neighbor of mine at my old house! Built in 1908, spent 140k in 4 years rehabbing it. Plumbing, electrical, complete cedar shake tear-off and re-roof with all copper flashing, valleys, etc, waste line to street, rebuilt main chimney from roof up, the list went on. I knew what I was getting into with that one tho. This one totally tricked me.

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Originally posted by Rev. A. J. Forsyth:
Went to clean the supply hoses to the washer, and the damn packing on both shut-off valves started leaking like a sieve!

Yeah, mineral buildup inside infrequently used valves are silent killers. They'll sit there for years with no symptoms until the valve is finally operated, which moves the jagged bits of sediment inside and shreds the internal rubber/plastic gaskets, causing a leak.

Common issue with rarely used shutoff valves for sinks/washers/etc. I've run into that a couple times myself, when I've had to shut off a sink to replace a faucet or cartridge, only to have the shutoff valve under the sink spring a leak shortly afterwards.

Apparently, going through and operating all your valves every 6 months or so will reportedly help prevent this (when new). But in a house with 40ish years of hard water issues, it's likely that most/all your shutoff valves are packed with minerals already, and are probably going to leak when used (at least until you've replaced them all one by one ).

Luckily, replacing shutoff valves is relatively straightforward, most of the time. Hopefully you're able to get them replaced without further incident.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RogueJSK,

RE the clothes washer: it's inlet valve may have a screen/filter for each connection, which will slowly plug and choke off the supply if you have real hard water. I found this out after I replaced the inlet valve, thinking it had failed... After replacing it, I found that the problem was just a blocked screen.

It's time to take mine apart and clean it; the cold water supply is now just a trickle.

It may very well work to your advantage , in the long run.

Back when I was selling /installing home appliances .
it was advantageous for the customer who chose to purchase three appliances at a time, because we offered them a discount ,
if the total came to more than $1,200.00

depending on what they purchased , between 12% and 20%.

When you are out shopping around get the three prices and add them up.
ask about factory rebates or energy savings discounts and quantity discounts.

and on top of all that ask again about free shipping, installation and haul way of the old appliances .

as also about the cost of hoses, electrical cords.

look for damage on the appliances prior to installation,

This is preventable.

Appliances will fail one day after warranty runs out.

Replace them at random intervals so the warranties don't all come due at once.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
This is preventable.

Appliances will fail one day after warranty runs out.

Replace them at random intervals so the warranties don't all come due at once.

^^Lot a truth right here^^ They always go tits up right after warranty goes out.

Get your water tested for both hardness and ph. Both were off in ours.

I installed both softener and nuetralizer with pre and post treatmen filters. Now water taste good, minimal spotting and no blue tint in water fixtures due to copper erosion.

Got the prognosis from the appliance doctor. Both are completely clogged with mineral scale. He was able to clean the sprayer arms on the dishwasher, and the Speed Queen has replaceable filters behind the water supply lines. All is functioning properly now.

Time to go softener shopping!