Our $4,195 Dishwasher

Our dishwasher died this summer.

It had been in the house when we moved in six years ago, and I have no idea how old it was before then, but it looked like it had been around awhile.  This summer it stopped draining; we had a plumber out to see if it was a problem with the drain line, because we were also worried about the kitchen sink not draining right.  Nope, he said, the drain line's fine, it's just stopped working right.  Oh, that'll be $95.

Sigh.  So we began a ritual of handwashing dishes for the first time in years, and I got in trouble for not having bought the right brand of dish soap (Palmolive, apparently, rocks).  We did the research, looked at options, and wound up going to Lowes in late July, where Mary picked out a nice new Bosch dishwasher. We bought the dishwasher ($640) and the installation-and-removal service ($100), and waited to be able to put away the inferior dish soap for good.

Came the day of installation, and Mary was home to welcome the plumber who dropped it off.  He took one look at our old one and said, "Uh oh," and went to get a tape measure.  He returned with the bad news: because of the way the previous owners had put down the wood floor in the kitchen (over top of the old one), there now wasn't enough clearance between the subfloor (that the dishwasher sits on) and the main floor to be able to pull out the old one, let alone get the new one to fit.  He measured and, yes, the space under the counter was big enough, but the flooring was just blocking the way.  His advice: we'd bought such a nice, long-lasting washer that we shouldn't return it, but we needed to (a) shim up the countertops all the way around, or (b) remove the wood flooring in front of it, so he could angle out the old dishwasher and get the new one in.

We discussed shimming up the countertops, which was perhaps the first choice as easier to do.  But after talking with our contractor, Harry, we changed out minds.  He pointed out that not only would there be plumbing challenges in raising the countertop, but our backsplash would possibly separate and/or tear the wallboard behind it.  Uck.  He gave us the name of a flooring guy; Harry's thought was we could pull out a patch of the hardwood floor, slide out-and-in the dishwashers, then replace the floor.

The floor guy came out Monday night for an estimate.  Oh no no no. Our flooring is tongue-in-groove, and so once they start pulling it out, they can't put the same wood back in...they would need to use new wood, in which case it would really look like a patch there in front of the dishwasher and sink.

Now, Mary and I had talked before about maybe someday replacing the wood floor in the kitchen and breakfast room, which takes heavy traffic and looks it.  So we looked at each other and then asked, Well, how much difference would it be between doing the patch and doing the whole floor?

The flooring guy made some measurements, did some calculator dancing, and came back with a figure of $3200 to do the entire kitchen and breakfast room.  We looked at each other again, sighed, and said, Sure, let's do it.

So yesterday was the ear-splitting din of contractors ripping out our old flooring (and the mid-80s vinyl and plywood that was underneath it), and correctly installing new flooring in the kitchen and breakfast room.  We arranged for the plumber to come back in the middle of the day to do the swapout, and so now we have our new dishwasher *and* a new floor to go along with it.

They say it's always something when you're a homeowner, and this just goes to show it for us.  It's amazing how a $640 dishwasher became a $4,195 project, but it did.  It's in, it works, the floors are gorgeous, and with the Bosch, it's our hope that we never have to pull it out of there someday.  But if we do, we at least have the flooring installed correctly, which should mean we can do it without repeating this whole saga.

And now to replace the rest of the windows, the front door, and the backyard sliding door...