For Want of an Ignitor. . .

. . . the dryer was nearly lost.

Yes, my gas dryer, which died shortly after the family reunion in late July, was nearly scrapped.  DH took a quick (not very good) look at it, and decided he had no clue what was wrong with it.  So, since it was summer and I have a very serviceable clothesline in the yard, he proceeded to do nothing.  For a month, when I reminded him the dryer still did not work, and that fall would be coming, which would mean less favorable weather for line drying all our laundry.

At that time, he decided that I should call up north, to the friend with the appliance store that he purchased the dryer from in 2002 when we were building our house.  I was supposed to ask said friend a few questions:

1. if there were any known issues with that model of dryer (and could DH diagnose which part had failed and just order a replacement part)
2. if said friend was going to be making a trip down near us any time soon and could said friend take a look at our dryer?
3. if not, could DH haul the dryer up to said friend's store for diagnosis and repair?
4. what kind of price could said friend give us on a new gas super capacity dryer (to replace mine)

Uh, yeah.  Sure.  That's exactly what I want to do, DH.  Thanks.  Isn't there some unwritten rule in marriage that the husband has to deal with repairs to home, appliances, and vehicles?  That he, not the wife, has to call the repairman? 

But I did call up there.  However, when I called, said friend's wife (who runs the office of the store) told me that said friend was out of town for a conference or some such.  She suggested DH look at the ignitor and the coils on the dryer, as those were the two more common problem areas on a gas dryer.

I relayed this info to DH.  Who proceeded to do absolutely nil with the dryer for another month. Until DS1 and family had moved in with us, we'd had a cold rainy week, and there were loads of wet laundry draped all over the basement failing to dry in a timely fashion. Until DS1 and I both made a trip to the laundromat with loads of wet laundry in order to use the dryers there.

Yeah.  For some reason, it took me spending $3 to pay to dry DH's clothes (so he would have enough clean laundry to take with him on a work trip) before he felt the impetus to take a second, better, look at my dryer.

And found that all that was wrong with it was that the ceramic portion of the ignitor had cracked.  When I called back up to said friend's store, said friend's wife happily told me that yes, they did have an ignitor in stock, and that she would run it to the post office right away to ship out to me.  

As you can see, it was a horribly expensive part.  Definitely worthwhile to wait over two months to replace.  

(Do you see the sarcasm dripping from my words?)

To think, for want of an ignitor, my dryer was almost lost. To think, that for want of someone semi-knowledgeable about machines to spend ten minutes diagnosing the problem, the dryer was almost hauled 200 miles north for someone else to pull the ignitor and put in the new one that cost all of $6 to ship down here (fuel for the vehicle to haul the dryer up and back would have cost about $100).  To think, that had it not been possible to haul the dryer north for repair, we would have had to spend over $1000 on a new dryer of the same capabilities.

Moral of the story:  Always take the time to do a little research and see if you can figure it out yourself rather than taking the 'easy way' out and shuffling the task off to someone else.