Craigslist for the win

When Brian and I bought our house back in 2007, the washer and dryer were not included as part of the deal. However, the previous owner offered to sell them to us for $200. This was a decent but not outrageously good price, since they were both old Maytags that looked like they might conceivably have been with the house since it was built in the 1970s. But it was still much cheaper than buying a new set, and it saved us the hassle of shopping for and installing replacements. And, being of an ecofrugal bent, we figured it made sense to keep them as long as they were still running. 

Although these old workhorses have served us faithfully over the 15 years since, I've grown increasingly dissatisfied with their performance. The dryer, for instance, has never worked reliably on the auto-drying cycle; sometimes it shuts off when the clothes are dry, but sometimes it just keeps running until someone shuts it off. So we've had to rely on the timed cycles, which aren't always easy to gauge. The washer doesn't make this easier, since it doesn't do a great job removing all the water in the spin cycle, so the clothes usually go in still dripping. Years ago, we started routinely running a second spin cycle to remove extra moisture, which also helped the clothes dry faster when we hung them on the clothesline. But even then, they were often too wet to dry completely even in a full day on the line.

So for several years now, I've had a hankering to replace these old clunkers with newer ones. I particularly liked the idea of replacing the washer with a front-loading machine. These newer models get clothes cleaner in professional tests, are gentler on clothing, and use less water and energy (even compared with new high-efficiency top-loaders). And most of all, they spin so fast that the clothing comes out nearly dry, so we would surely have no more difficulties with line-drying. But I just couldn't justify the expense of upgrading to a new washer and dryer while the old ones were still working — and despite their annoying quirks, both machines stubbornly refused to die.

Over the course of the past few weeks, though, the quirks turned into legitimate problems. The dryer started it by suddenly starting to shake violently whenever it was fully loaded. We got around this problem by drying only half a load at a time, but we knew we'd eventually need to repair or replace it. And before I got around to calling repair people for quotes, we started having trouble with the washer too — or rather, one of its long-standing problems became more problematic. 

We'd noticed for a long time that any time we washed anything large, like sheets, they tended to come out of the washer dirtier than they went in. This problem arose because they would cover up all the drainage holes on the tub and filter the dirty water as it drained out. Usually, this wasn't too big a problem, since the lint would come during the drying cycle and end up in the dryer's lint trap. (Even line-dried laundry would always get a quick spin in the dryer on the air cycle to remove dust and pollen.) But the last load we did, the sheets looked so bad afterwards that Brian decided to run them though an entire second wash cycle by themselves, and they were still dirty. 

When I ran a search on "clothes come out of washer with lint," the Internet told me the problem was that the washer's lint trap needed cleaning. In fact, The Spruce said we should be cleaning it regularly throughout the year to keep lint at bay. Well, as far as I could recall, not only had we never once cleaned it in all the years we'd owned the machine, but I didn't think I'd ever so much as seen it. And when I checked all the places the sources said it might be — the top rim of the tub, the middle of the agitator, the end of the drainage hose — I found nothing. Brian, figuring it had to be somewhere, pried off the machine's front panel and felt around, but he still couldn't find anything. And then he couldn't figure out how to put it back on again. He finally managed it after about twenty minutes of wrestling with the thing, but by that point it was too late: I'd decided these old machines had become more trouble than they were worth. Even if they were both technically still working, they weren't working well enough for our needs.

Since ConsumerSearch no longer does in-depth product reports, I checked a few other sites, like Good Housekeeping and U.S. News, to find suitable replacements. (I focused on the washing machine, since these vary more in performance and energy use than dryers.) And here I ran into some serious sticker shock: nearly all the recommended models were over $1,000. Even the "best value" model at Good Housekeeping, an old-school top-loader, was $900. And a matching gas dryer would probably add another $1,000. (Electric ones typically cost about $100 less, but switching from gas to electric would require us to install a new 220-volt outlet — and since our circuit board is pretty full already, that might in turn require us to rewire the entire panel, which would cost more than the washer and dryer together.)

So I decided to take a quick look on Craigslist just to see if there was anything suitable there. And luck was with me: a post had gone up that very day for a front-loading washer and a matching gas dryer for a mere $300. The post said they were 7 or 8 years old and still working "great," but were being replaced because their kids had bought them a new set for Christmas. Of course, we'd have to rent a truck to pick them up and haul them home, but even with that extra expense, they'd still cost much, much less than a new set.

I knew that at that price, we'd need to move fast to get our hands on these appliances before someone else snapped them up. Unfortunately, we couldn't pick them up that very day, as we already had a commitment to be somewhere else in the afternoon. So I replied to the post asking if they were still available and offering to come get them on Sunday afternoon. At first, the poster hedged, saying he was tired of dealing with scam calls and lowball offers, so "The first person who puts cash in my hand gets them." In other words, we were welcome to rent a truck and drive over, but he couldn't promise the machines would still be there when we arrived. I made a counteroffer: If he would let us drive down tomorrow and confirm they were suitable, we would pay him on the spot, provided he would then hold the machines for us to come pick up later in the week. I added that we would also require a written contract saying that he had sold the machines to us and would not sell them to someone else later. At that point, he agreed to "go out on a limb" and hold the machines for us until today.

Getting the new washer and dryer here was, admittedly, a bit of an undertaking. First, Brian got the old washer and dryer disconnected and pulled out of the way to make room for the new ones. Then we rented a truck and an appliance dolly from the U-Haul just outside of town. Then we drove down to Hamilton and checked the machines to make sure they worked. Then, with the previous owner helping, we loaded first the dryer and then the washer onto the dolly, hauled them up the steps and out the milk doors leading out of the basement, hefted them onto the truck, and strapped them down. Then, after driving home, we had to repeat the process in reverse, now with just me and Brian: maneuvering the giant boxes off the truck, onto the dolly, down the steps into the back yard (with the aid of the ramp Brian built for our patio project), and into the laundry room, where we manhandled (and womanhandled) them into place. And since we had the dolly, we took advantage of it to haul the old washer and dryer out of the basement and up to the driveway, close enough to the curb to be pushed out there on the next trash day. (Fortunately, these old monsters contain no electronic components, so they don't need to be treated as hazardous e-waste.)

So, all in all, the process of deciding to buy, finding, buying, and transporting our new washer and dryer took up most of this weekend, and we still need to get them hooked up. But it also cost us a mere $429 total: $300 for the machines, $109 for the truck rental, and $20 worth of gas. That's less than one-quarter of what we'd have paid for new ones, and a more eco-friendly purchase to boot. (A new washer and dryer might have been a little bit more efficient than these 7-year-old models, but surely not so much more as to offset the environmental costs of manufacturing them.)

In short, we have confirmed yet again that Craigslist is the best place to shop for our home needs. The price is right, and shopping secondhand is the right choice for the planet. And if it requires more physical labor, well, we could probably use the exercise anyway.