Saturday, August 27, 2011

How to fit a dishwasher

  1. Remove freezer from spot in kitchen (moving it down the cellar) to free up spot for dishwasher.
  2. Stare at plumbing under sink for half a day, carefully listing all the parts you'd need, then go to shops and buy everything you need in one go.
  3. Get home and start job.  Realise you haven't bought everything you need, and make 90min round trip to shop for one more £2 part.
  4. Realise that dishwasher is 2cm wider than the space it should go in. Shit.
  5. Decide you need to move upright piece of board, in order to expand the space. Realise that said board is screwed to wall, glued to floor, and notched into skirting board.  Sweat a lot, as you change these things.
  6. Finally, slot dishwasher into place.  Dishwasher sticks out by 2cm.  Shit.  Realise those 2cm are the depth of the plug and socket behind the dishwasher.  They're going to have to go.
  7. Determine which fuse is for kitchen sockets (of course, realise it's the final one you try)
  8. Remove socket from wall, safely taping up cables left behind (it's a spur, so no joining required).
  9. Run dishwasher and washing maching flexes to a different socket, drilling hole in aforementioned upright board to facilitate. 
  10. Realise washing machine flex has been extended using bare terminal block. Rewire (using junction box thankfully found in cellar).
  11. Re-fit dishwasher, and washing machine.  Hurrah, everything fits. 
  12. Do test run of dishwasher.  It will leak water on floor, but you'll just need to tighten a few things.
  13. Mop up.