Tumble Dryer repairs in the internet age

Our tumble dryer stopped working recently and today it is repaired and seems to be working again.  Nothing interesting in that.... except as I reflect on how it happened I realise just how much the emergence of social computing, mobile devices etc has changed life.   Allow me to explain...

I first discovered that the machine was broken when I spotted a facebook update from my wife

One evening a few days later I took the back off the machine to try and diagnose what the problem was.  In this I was assisted by the advice on various forums - found by doing a Google Search.

Advent of wifi and tablet means of course that I was able to stand over the opened machine, iPad in hand, reading the forum posts and looking at wiring diagrams.

Following advice on the forums was able to check that the 3 thermostats were all OK (who'd have thought there'd be that many).   So deduced that it was most likely a problem with the element.

Later that evening, iPad in hand once more, sitting on the sofa I search for suppliers of spare parts.  Light upon a supplier on eBay who seems to offer a good price and has lots of good feedback (score of 291617 and so few negative comments that they show a 100% positive rating!)

Part duly ordered I wait a couple of days and it is delivered to me.

Today I open the machine up again to replace the element.   Once I have it opened I can take a quick photo

of the situation as I find it (iPad again) before I start undoing any wires.

Remove the old element and start fitting the new one - referring to the nice big photo on my iPad to ensure that I have things right - discover I don't and rejig to get it right.

Close everything up and test all is well and as an added bonus thanks to @davenice I have a suggestion on what to do with the old one.

... and to round things off I blog about the whole thing !

Ed's Circuit

Ed's Circuit is a series of 16 geocaches laid on a circular walk from Compton.  It is clearly a popular series of caches to do as the footfall of previous seekers has worn extra paths to some of them....



Last weekend we did the first 7 caches and today we decided to risk the rain and return to finish it.  Started with an extra one in the grounds of Compton Church and then headed down the road to No 16 and from there round the circuit in reverse order all the way back to where we finished up last weekend.

On the way round we liberated an African Mask trackable which headed out on its travels at the start of this year in Rhône-Alpes, France and we will now move on to a new home.

We timed it well, only having a few mins of rain now and again to interrupt the sunshine and had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours walking through some really lovely countryside.

Logged a total of 10 cache finds - a new "personal best" daily find score :-)

Also pleased to note that the number of caches left to find to complete my 2012 challenge ( to find all of the ones within 5 miles of our house) now stands at 99 - first time below 100.