Must be something in the water

Recently our washer/dryer has been acting up and stopping 6 minutes into the dry cycle. It also hasn't been drying very well either... and was taking like 4 hours to dry things. Which is silly because they'd probably air dry in that amount of time. So we called the repair man to come.

While he was here, he did general maintenance as well. He cleaned all the electrical connections which had fuzz on them, and then sat on the floor with a coat hangar and scraped all of the gunk that was stuck inside the discharge cavity. It was gross! Tons of wet lint gunk came out. No wonder there was a damp smell! Because the machine hadn't been taking enough water out of the clothes when it was on the dry cycle it wasn't washing away the gunk. Ewww.

Then he replaced a water valve. For some reason the water in certain areas in Tokyo eats away at the seal and then the valve doesn't work properly. Hunh? What exactly is in the water that is easting away at plastic?? Makes me glad that we use a good water filter. Geesh. I have heard that there is dirt in some water in Tokyo. One of my co-workers said today that the water in Shibuya and Minato wards is the worst in the city. But I don't live there, and as far as I know, there isn't any dirt in my water. So, that leaves the question, what is happening to the valve. Is it really the water or just an excuse?

It gets weirder too. Apparently, from what I understood of the Japaense conversation between Hiroshi and the repair man, this only happens in buildings with water towers (as opposed to water tanks) and only happens in apartments in the 5th thru 8th floors. Umm, is that freaky or what? And this only happens in Japan - the washer is a European model, and it doesn't happen anywhere in Europe. Which brings us back to, what exactly is in my water??

When we first called they gave us a quote of about US$150 to fix the thing. Hiroshi flipped, but I thought this was quite reasonable. I expected a couple hundred. What do you guys think? How much does it normally cost to fix a washing machine or dryer (mine is combined so it is a bit different). The good news is that they fixed it for free! How's that for lucking out? They said that next time we'd have to pay for the repair though. I'm just happy that we saved 150 bucks! Cuz that offset the price of buying my plane ticket to Phuket direct from Thai airways. We got it from the airline because we can upgrade it if there is space available on the day... but it was about $120 more expensive than the discount travel agency's quote. I figure $120 is worth the possibility of a fairly cheap upgrade to business class.