New Appliances...New Noises

Okay, by now, I'm sure many of you are well aware that we had a house fire.  It has now been just about 7 months.  We are slowly getting back into our house room by room.  We have our kitchen, bathrooms, our bedrooms, our dining room, minus the table & chairs, which are due to come in next Friday, we have our laundry room, and the girls now have their toy room.  We have spent countless hours looking into what brands are more reliable, what gives us the most bang for our buck, what will fit, what won't fit, what color, what features, what, what, what...The list goes on and on. 

We found out last week, that our washer machine that we have had for the last 7 years was not a "Belt Driven" machine, but what you call a "Direct Drive" machine.  I did not know that there was such a difference.  Let me first say, when a belt goes, you may expect to pay, like $50 for a new belt, but when a Motor goes, you can expect to pay more than $200 for a new one.  Okay, fast forward to our conversation...  Why would we pay for a new motor when we just fixed two other things on this washer?  What else will go wrong with it once the motor has been replaced?  Dear Hubby opens the machine up to find soot inside the motor.  This is not a good sign.  The washer to, was affected by the fire.  I guess we now have to go Washing Machine shopping.  While we're at it, the conversation continues to... well the dryer too is 7 years old, it too was in the fire, we DO have to sometimes run it longer to get towels dry... lets just break down and by both. 

After reading countless reviews and articles on washing machines and dryers, I chose NOT to go with a front loader.  There were just too many complaints about musty smells and having to run loads to "Clean" the machine.  We chose to go with the new Whirlpool Cabrio washer and dryer, with low H2O, sensing technology and energy saver.  I did my first load of laundry in this machine last night.  I must say that I am impressed.  My clothes have never smelled cleaner or looked whiter!  Watching the first load was all so new to me, as this machine does not just "Turn on", no it spends a few minutes "Sensing" the laundry, how full it is, how much water it will need etc.  It was quite impressive.  It does not constantly turn, but moves in short bursts of churning, which again is all very new to us. 

Now after having watched it for quite some time, my husband and I went back upstairs.  While in the kitchen, we heard a chiming beep telling us that it was finished.  I half expected the machine to call out to us that it was done, in a robotic voice, that's how impressed I was with this machine.  As we were talking, we noticed another beep, only this time it was coming from the kitchen, this one was from the coffee maker.  Telling us that the coffee was now 30 minutes old.  Later on that night while cooking door in our Whirlpool Gold Oven, we heard yet another type of beep.  This time, well it was the oven telling us that the multi rack baking option was on. 

Point of this story... with technology comes distractions and new noises.  Every machine in my house now has some noise telling me that it's there, it's on, it's done, it's mad, it's hungry... I fully expect one of these machines to start talking to me.  I almost feel as if I should be giving them names now, and that these are no longer just appliances but fully functioning members of the family!  With each machine able to "Sense" something, I'm hoping that one of them will be able to "Sense" what the Powerball numbers will be, or at the very least help my daughters with their Algebra homework.