Broken washing machine? Try this first.

With a tight budget, the thought of a kitchen or laundry appliance failing is sure to cause heart palpitations. Imagine your washing machine is broken. What to do? Before you call the repairman who may or may not make it out within the week and will surely assess you just for the diagnosis, try a little sleuthing on your own.

Dig into your files for your machine’s owner’s manual. Come on, you can find it. Then look for the troubleshooting guide usually in the back of the booklet. If you can’t find your manual, try searching on the internet for a manual for your make and model. Often you can just download it as a pdf file and there it is. Then try another web search for the problem.

Appliance Parts Pros has a repair library that will tell you how to proceed if your tub won’t fill or drain, or if there is no hot water, no cold water, or just no water at all. There are forums for appliance repair and even some live help via the internet to get you going in the right repair direction.

If it is a faulty part, say the lid switch, enter make and model again and you’ll find tons of friendly and inexpensive parts suppliers that will help you with the repair. Then take the money you saved and buy yourself some clothes…that you can then wash in your newly operating washing machine.