Sunday, August 17, 2014

washing the washing machine

hi there

one of them sort of practical, borderline pointless blog posts for you. this might, in a remote sense, be of some use to someone somewhere; one can never be sure just how many people do a google about things related to washing machines and end up here. i think that i have done a fair few posts on all things washing machines, in truth.

today seemed to be the perfect day to clean the washing machine. why? well, it's a sunday for one, and as i had no pending laundry (of consequence) i figured it might as well go ahead and get cleaned. apparently this is an important thing to do. few, if any, things in this world, after all, are better for not being cleaned.


in respect of products, chemicals, detergents and devices that one can select from to clean a washing machine with, well, it's fair to say that there is a wide, wide choice in this world. there are probably hundreds of different products to choose from. or, maybe, there are only a handful of brands. i don't know and i cannot be bothered to search to see.

i, as i am pretty sure even the most partially educated of you have worked out by the time you are reading this, decided to use the Dr Beckmann "original" method. why? well, it sounds a bit like Dr Venkman, does it not? anything that sounds a bit like the name off of an imaginary character out of a fictional film in which the bust ghosts, the name of which escapes me for the moment - The Ghost Getters or something - is bound to be sound for washing machine stuff. also, as far as i can recall, the name Dr Beckmann sounds a little bit like the name of a minor but all the same important character out of Trading Places. well, Trading Places or some other significant Eddie Murphy movie. there are, as point of fact, a number of insignificant Eddie Murphy movies, alas. as great as he can be, in some movies, he is not.

mostly, though, i went right ahead and used the Dr Beckmann Service-it Deep Clean method of washing our washing machine because this particular product happened to be the one that my (considerably) better half went right ahead and ordered off of the internet. a nice man in a van delivered it, too, which was nice. it would have been rude of me not to have used it, then, him having driven all that way.

for some reason a good many of you really, really like having video to watch on here, in particular when it relates, or if you like pertains, to washing machines. in many respects, then, this blog post is awesome for such people, as it is a little bit of a video festival. here's the first one.



there is a school of thought, of course, that these washing machine washing things are a ruse. some believe the devices to be, in a very real sense, self-cleaning, owing to the nature and purpose of what they do. yeah, right. the theory behind CD and DVD was that you didn't have to clean the discs, as the laser inside the players would blast anything on them. go on, then, shove a disc covered in chocolate spread, or similar, into your stag or set up, see if it gets all cleaned.

as a chap who has knacked a couple of washing machines, i can assure you that the devices do indeed need a clean and service at some points, in particular when your (considerably) better half insists and buys all the stuff to do it with and that. this is not some sort of bizarre scaremongering scam, dear reader.

how long does it take to wash a machine? a very good question.



it says on the box, as we will sort of see just now but it is a bit blurry, that you need to do a "regular wash cycle" with the temp on 60C. this is something of an issue with fancy new washing machines, as there is no such setting, of the myriad of ones you can select, called "regular". i figured that cotton was pretty regular, so went with that. also cotton was one of the few settings that the machine let me pump up the temperature on.

as you can see in the above, my machine, one of them LG things, decided an empty washing machine, bar the special powder of Dr Beckmann, would run for one hour and ten minutes, or seventy minutes if you feel obliged to live a life free of hours.

except it actually started off at one hour seventeen minutes, but it was only after seven minutes that i thought to take some sort of picture of it.



yes, yes, more video coming up, be patient, or scroll down and just watch them out of context, then scroll up and read the text, or simply don't bother to.

this is the back of the box for the powder. it is one of the single most pointless pictures i have ever uploaded here, i suppose. it's quite blurry and it is of little consequence. but i have put it here now, so there you go.

what does all of that say? basically it tells you to hoy the powder in the machine, select a regular wash cycle (see above points in this respect), don't put any clothes in with it, switch it on and let it do its thing.

the packaging also makes all sorts of promises about cleaner clothes, helps the maintenance and longevity of your machine and things like that. will it deliver on such a set of promises? i would imagine that yes it will, otherwise they would not be allowed to say that sort of thing. as i have only just done the cleaning thing, however, i am in no position at all to comment on what it does to the longevity of the machine. as for if it produces cleaner clothes, well, the machine does a reasonable job of that already, but even cleaner must surely mean it makes them even better.

you people don't want to read my musings; you want to see video. then let the people see the video, i say, here is another one for you.



is it an exciting or interesting thing to do, watching a washing machine cycle go downwards in time - yet also forward, in a linear sense - and take pictures and videos of it? not especially, no. it does, i suppose, give one time to focus their thoughts, and evaluate matters. i am, for instance, wondering how Spiros has got on with that goth bomb chilli sauce. i have not heard from him since he tried it.

also, it is a time which allows me to receive, look at, evaluate and indeed appreciate images of my Uncle Colin stood in a car park, or some sort of dealership, looking at cars. well, what would you look at a place designated as being for cars, really?



i do wonder if i should be worried about not hearing from Spiros. it would be most unfortunate if he had succumbed to some ailment, injury or illness as a consequence of the goth bomb sauce and i were not allowed to learn of it to be most amused by it. seldom is it, however, that i hear from him on a weekend. usually he is under some hedge, or passed out in an alley, wearing filthy, partially soiled pants as a consequence of large volumes of cheap alcohol.

he could probably benefit from a washing machine kept in prime, pristine condition by the use of cleaning products, then.

oh look, 6 minutes to go.



not 6 minutes for you, of course. you can use as much, or as little, time as you want with all of this. i am simply saying it was 6 minutes to go when i took that picture.

yeah, go on then, another video for you.



so did this Dr Becker stuff work on the machine? it hasn't broken the machine, this much i at least know. it looks like it has done a decent job, for it is all shiny and that inside. it was pretty shiny anyway, but it seems to be even more shiny.

i did not, alas, take a picture of it before i began, but never mind, here it is after the cleaning stuff had finished.



yes, i know. calm down, i have done it. many of you, like me, like the fact that my washing machine does an ace little happy song when it has finished its cycle run.

here's the video of it doing its thing, then.



yeah, i know, i missed the start of the song. sorry for that, i timed it as best as i could, but missed those all important opening bars. sorry. rather focus on enjoying the bits that made it on to the video.

who knew that 'jedi black' was an actual official colour?

want another look at how all shiny it is? sure you do, here you go. it is of course even more shiny than what it looks like in this picture, of course - remember in your viewing to compensate and allow for the fact that this was taken with a blueberry camera.



and that's pretty much it, really. it seems that this cleaning stuff serves its purpose, in that it cleans the washing machine in a fuss free, decent enough way.

would i recommend that you use the same stuff on yours? yes, and indeed, no. check what will work best on your machine, or simply just use whatever your (considerably) better half orders off of the internet and has delivered. that's my advice.

hope you are all having or had an amazing weekend.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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