I can’t even think up a good excuse. I’ve worked in that tiny room for hours at a time, and completely blanked on the very obvious presence of a vent stack with a very obvious fitting for an appliance drain. What’s more, I did it over and over.
Then when it all went wrong, I blogged about it to spread the embarrassment around as thickly as possible. Thank god hardly anybody reads the blog anymore.
Alert Reader Jerry is the one who noticed the actual cause of my pain – and the solution – though quite a few commenters were right in more general terms. We did it right after all, back in 2009. And then I forgot we did.
Anyway, I ran the washer through a cycle, of course now it works perfectly. (Oddly it seemed to work fine the first time I ran it before, too.)
Tobie did not approve of my sitting around in the Dark Place doing nothing while he wanted to finish his walkie, but such is life when you’re Uncle Joel’s dog. Ran the vacuum hose down into the cool air inlet as far as it would go to ensure that we weren’t accumulating any more water. We weren’t.
Then in an effort to dry things out down there to avoid mold, I dug out a duct fan Big Brother had sent me for another purpose. I’ll let it run for a while, off and on as the sunlight permits. For some reason that fan pulls a lot of juice and it looks like it’s going to be overcast today.
Anyway, thanks for the comments and suggestions, and for this opportunity to publicly air the most damaging senior moment I’ve had in quite a while.
ETA:
Anybody can (and will) make idiot mistakes. The bigger question is, why is there an air pipe between those two places? And is that only part of a network? And, finally, since it’s too small to actually move any air, was this cast in the concrete simply as a future expansion path to feed water pipes, electrical pipes, or ethernet through eventually? (And as we all know, “eventually” usually never shows up…)
Forgot to add: if it was an outside air inlet for fire combustion, why does it come from the utility room? Maybe it was intended also as a vent for a dryer? In any case, it will be sucking air for the stove from the inside, not the outside.
No, there’s a pipe that goes through to the outside of the dome, above the sand. The idea was that the woodstove would probably draw air. What our reasoning was for extending it to the utility closet, I don’t quite recall. Probably had something to do with the water heater, but since we ended up with an inline heater that hardly makes any difference now.
Sometimes all you can say is, “All’s well that ends well.” You bobbled the ball, but you got it into the end zone. Well done.
Even that in-line water heater needs combustion air, and if that cave is as sealed up as I imagine it is, that’s something that deserves consideration.
Joel and Ben, that is the bit that escaped me. I’ve always used electric water heaters, and the notion of having a gas one just zipped right on by. Thanks!
Another suggestion is to bypass the lid closed or lid lock sensor. 90% of initial failures were that, for machines that run 18+ loads per day in the milking barn. With 180 degree water & no cold, just hot, for the rinse.
Finally bought a real commercial washer. Dang, I wish I hadn’t wasted 10+ years with a pile of house duty ones.
Welcome to the Dumb Ass club, we have plenty of room and many fellow travelers. I don’t know what your numbers are, but this is a “must visit” site daily. i’m glad you drag us along. Unless the webs go down, I’ll be back
@Tree Mike: Dumb Ass Club. Nice. Have to remember that one. 🙂
@ Tobie: Your master is quite something. How old is he? In human years, that is. Yeah, several generations of your ancestors have come and gone since he was born. Wow! And he’s just now succumbed to becoming a member of the Dumb Ass Club. He’s finally made his first move into idiocy. You should be impressed. Maybe give him a good nose nuzzle. Or maybe he’s a bad memory, or maybe lying like hell, in which case, go pee on his leg. Hah!!