Appliances and Accessories

I’m about to give up on our DLP TV

November 10, 2009 by Tricia

I think some time in the near future we’re going to have to look into getting a new TV. Not that we can afford one!

Why? Well, about five years ago we bought a DLP TV. It has a great picture, but it has this special light that shines on this spinning disc in order to make the picture. Trouble is that, oh about once a year or year and a half, the light starts to burn out and it costs about $150 to replace it!

When we bought the TV DLP’s were fairly new and we were told the cost of the light would go down but it doesn’t seem to have reduced in price at all. So it’s an expensive TV to maintain. Oh and last year we had to replace the color wheel!

If and when we do get a new TV I think we’ll look into an LCD TV or one of those new LED TV’s.

Anyone else have a DLP TV?

Now our furnace thermostat is broken! What else can go wrong

October 3, 2009 by Tricia

It figures. We’re going through a rough patch financially and it seems like everything in our house is breaking down or not working quite right. Ironic isn’t it?

The latest thing in our growing list of household items and appliances that are breaking is the thermostat for our furnace! It doesn’t seem to be calculating the room temperature accurately. I spent some time on the internet trying to find out where we could buy a new one or figure out how to fix ours and I keep getting sent to a page for a Honeywell Barcode Scanner when I type in the thermostat model number. I guess our thermostat model is not being made anymore.

Last week the bottom of our shower stall cracked! LOL … Really .. I have to laugh or I’ll start crying. We just have no money to fix these things!

We’ve been trying to be very careful with our spending over the last few months (generally we are careful about our spending anyway, but we’ve tried to find other ways to cut expenses recently) and if we can keep it up for a few more months we should be able to fix or replace most of the things that have broken over the last few months. I just hope that nothng else breaks in the meantime!

The list of broken things includes our toaster oven, the washing machine, the shower stall and now our furnace thermostat. I’m sure there’s a few other things that have broken recently but those are the biggies. Of course we need to fix that thermostat now, since it’s getting quite cool here in Toronto!

Anyone else having things break down in their home that they can’t afford to fix or replace right now?

We’ve got to fix that darn tri-light that keeps fizzling out

September 10, 2009 by Tricia

I have one light in my living room that drives me nuts! It’s an old standing lamp that I got from my parents house when my mother died. I think there’s something wrong with the wiring in the light fixture.

It’s a Tri-light lamp and it seems to burn through bulbs every few months. Once a bulb starts to go it’s tri-light feature stops working. It will usually lose the low light setting first, then the high setting and only the medium will work. The light will also flicker on and off every few minutes too.

I think maybe this weekend (if we have time – see last post!) we’ll have to go and look at light fixtures. Maybe we can find a new fixture to put in the lamp that won’t fizzle lights so quickly. I’d get a whole new light for the living room 1. if we could afford it, and 2 if this one didn’t have sentimental value. I hope that we can fix it.

I don’t know if all tri-lights fizzle out like this when they go, but I figure that our bulbs should last at least five or six months instead of the three months we’re getting for each bulb on average. I don’t have any other tri-lights in the house to compare this one to.

Do you have any lights or appliances in your home that don’t work the way they should? Isn’t it frustrating?

There’s music in our house again!

August 22, 2009 by Tricia

I’m a happy camper today!

Our Home Theater receiver stopped working … oh, about two years ago. I think we had a power surge or something … anyway, since that time I haven’t been able to listen to the radio or my CDs. Well I guess I could have played CDs on my computer (but it’s already slow) or listened to a portable radio – but it’s not the same!

A few months ago my husband was all Gung Ho about buying a new receiver for our home theater system, but as it turns out that’s not so easy since we have a powered bass speaker and newer receivers don’t have that (or the other way around – non-powered?). Not to mention the fact that we have absolutely NO money to spend on things like this anyway.

As it turns out my husband was walking our dog early this morning and he passed by a house having a garage sale. He saw a Kenwood receiver and the people only wanted $10 for it. So he decided to buy it after the man he’d been speaking with assured him that it does work.

I had slept in and by the time I got up my husband was busy hooking the “new” receiver to TV, Multi-CD player (holds 200 cds!) and speakers.

That was a nice surprise … especially when we discovered that it did work! Now if only someone would “leave’ a few jars of the best face wrinkle creams for my dry skin outside my door that would really make my day!

We listened to music all afternoon as we did things around the house and it was great! Finally … our TV can have a bigger break each day while I listen to music or the radio.

It’s been so long since I was able to easily listen to the music that I love. Music also seems to make me feel a bit better when my Crohn’s is acting up … so who knows, maybe this will help my health a little bit too.

I’d say that the price of $10 that my husband paid for the receiver was a good deal when it made me so happy.

Tough times – bills are making us make some hard decisions

August 19, 2009 by Tricia

I swear, if one more thing in our home breaks down or we get one more unexpected bill we’re going to go downhill fast.

Yeah, finances are tight – really tight, and things in our home keep breaking down!

In July our toaster oven suddenly stopped working … well, it still works if you hold the “toast” button and hold the door closed at the same time. Not a fun thing to do when your kitchen is super hot in the morning from all the sun streaming in!

Then, about three weeks ago our washing machine developed a problem. We were trying to do a wash and while the motor sounded like it was working fine, the machine wouldn’t go into a spin cycle or drain the water at the end of the washing cycle.

Our washer and dryer came with the house but they’re OLD! I think we were told that they were about 25 years old when we moved in, so add eight years and they’re 33 years old or older! Amazing that they’ve worked this long I guess, but I know we’d save a lot of money on our electricity and water bills if we could afford to buy a new washer and dryer.

The problem is, we can’t even afford to try to get the washer we have fixed!

So … for now, we’re taking our clothes to a laundromat nearby. At least with the nice weather we can save some money by hanging the clothes to dry on the line outside.

Then, the other day I went to use the vacuum and it looks like it’s motor might be shot. I have to check, but I think we have a lifetime warranty on it … but if not we need to find a new 115334 vacuum motor. Good thing we have all hardwood floors. I guess we’ll be sweeping for now.

We also have a problem with our Hot water heater. Well, not a problem with the heater itself. You see, Toronto Hydro is fazing out it’s flat rate billing and our hot water heater was connected to a separate line in the house that connected to the Flat rate line. Now we have to connect the water heater to our fuse box.

Easy enough … except we’re renting our water heater and the Electrical Authority says that because we’re renting the water heater we can’t do the electrical work ourselves. So we have to hire an authorized electrician to do the electrical work and then the electrical authority will come in and do an inspection. All in all that will cost us about $300! Yeah, for something we could do ourselves! GRRRRRR!

Obviously I’m not making as much money as I used to through my websites. I guess the recession hit the advertisers.

It’s so bad for us right now that last month I had to decide between filling all my prescriptions or paying all of our bills in full. As it turns out I didn’t fill one of my medication prescriptions. I’m going to have to make the same decisions this month and if things don’t change, by September I may not be able to get my medications at all … or maybe we won’t be able to pay the mortgage.

Needless to say I’m getting really stressed. I wish I didn’t have Crohn’s and could go back to work – like NOW.

I’m seriously thinking about putting up one of those PayPal donate buttons. I’d hate to do that and I doubt it would help, but I’m at my wits end as to what to do to change our situation.

I’m about to give up on our DLP TV

Now our furnace thermostat is broken! What else can go wrong

We’ve got to fix that darn tri-light that keeps fizzling out

There’s music in our house again!

Tough times – bills are making us make some hard decisions

Meta

Search this site

Blogs I Visit

Meta

Search this site

Tags

Blogs I Visit