Recently, a coworker offered me front loading washer and dryer. They were moving into a new house and the W/D came with it and they didn’t want it. The only caveat was we had to pick them up and they lived about 30 minutes away. Really no big deal. From the pictures, they looked like they were in really good shape and practically new. Mine were over a decade old and I knew the dryer was going to die at any minute.
The husband loads up his truck with his moving gear and we head out on beautiful Saturday morning. I showed up with a thank you gift of wine and a restaurant gift card because in my book, it’s just rude to show up empty handed when you’re getting something like that for free.
The pictures didn’t lie—they were in extremely good shape. The dryer was fairly easy to get into the back of the truck and went in first. That was probably our first mistake. The washer weighed about 300 pounds and took four people to load into the back of the truck. This thing was a monster. Oh, I should mention they came with the pedestals already attached, so I’m sure that added to the weight.
So we head home. And because of the load, he took side streets so he wouldn’t have to go 60 mph on the highway. We made it!
And then the issue became, how the bloody hell are we going to get it out of the back? Husband backed into the driveway. He had ATV ramps and attached them to the tailgate, but the problem was the incline. It was a long way down with the washer. He got on one side while I stood in the bed of the pickup. It’s on the dolly. He tells me to push it so he can wheel it down the ramp.
I tried to push. It didn’t budge. He said, “PUSH, honey.” And I said, “I AM PUSHING.”
I finally got it to move and suddenly had visions of my husband being flattened by a 300-pound washer. I stopped.
“NOPE. Not doing it,” I said. I told him I didn’t want to have to explain to the cops I didn’t kill him on purpose by dropping a washer on him. We had a good laugh about that.
It was about lunchtime by then, so while he mulled over how to get the thing out of the truck, I made lunch. We sat on the tailgate and ate a sandwich. I guess tuna was the brain food he needed because he decided to back up to the side of our driveway via our neighbor’s yard (pictured above). It was a much shorter drop, after all. At least if the thing fell off the truck, it wouldn’t have far to go. Ha.
He placed the ramps on the back of the truck. He dragged a piece of old plywood we had in the garage over the ramps and secured with nails.
Now we’re getting somewhere!
He climbs back into the bed of the truck and inches the thing onto the edge of the plywood. We each get on one side and “walk” the thing down the plywood. He was able to use the dolly to roll it into the house. Now that sounds easy, but I had to rearrange the entire house to make room for the behemoth.
The dryer was no big deal after that.
And the old washer/dryer was like picking up a piece of paper and moving it out to the driveway. He did that like it was no big deal.
It took us the rest of the day to get the thing hooked up and working right. The washer needed a significant amount of cleaning before it would work. Apparently, it was dormant for about a year. But with our brains, Google and YouTube, we managed to get everything working properly. In fact, a shout out to Wayne with Sears who taught us how to clean the filter!
In an effort to pay it forward, the neighbor across the street needed a dryer and took ours. A neighbor behind us needed a washer and took our old one. I was very happy the old pair went to two people who really needed it and not someone who just wanted to make a buck.
