disposal, dishwasher saga

As I mentioned in my last post, our disposal went out.  This caused our dishwasher to flood our kitchen floor, because the water in the dishwasher couldn't drain into a full disposal, that also couldn't drain.

When Ben got home from his bike race, he bought and put in a new disposal.  We used youtube and my dad to figure out how to do it, and we got it all installed and done.

That evening, I ran the dishwasher through.  I was so excited to not be doing dishes by hand anymore.  I know, I know, we are a spoiled generation.  BUT, doing 7 people's dishes by hand all freaking day long, is actually a lot of work.  Not to mention, we ran out of dish soap, so we had to do a few loads with baking soda and vinegar.

After the dishwasher was on for a little bit, it flooded the floor again!!  What the??  I soon realized that the dishwasher was not draining.

I called my dad and asked him if he knew what the problem could be. He mentioned that maybe the hose was blocked with something when the disposal wasn't working.  So, Ben and I pulled the dishwasher out, which made a huge flooded mess all over the floor, because the dishwasher was full of dirty water that was not draining.

We used every towel in the house.  Nice.

We too the tube off, and nothing seemed wrong.  ugh.  Ben called some plumbing places, but didn't really get answers as to why our dishwasher wasn't draining.  We finally accepted the fact that we had horrible luck, and that our dishwasher broke within days of the disposal also breaking.

Two days later, and two days more of doing dishes by hand, I took Molly to home depot to buy a new dishwasher.  I was so frustrated.

I picked out the dishwasher, someone had come to put it on a cart to get it in the car, and I was on my way to pay for it, when an employee walked by and asked me about our "dishwasher situation."  He ended up being a plumber, and for some weird reason, I told him about our disposal also breaking.  Right after I told him we had just installed a new disposal, he asked me if we had punched out the stopper in the disposal so that the dishwasher could drain into it.

Doh!  No, we definitely had not done that.  We didn't even know that was something you had to do.

This man saved us $550.  Not only that, but we would have taken our old dishwasher to the dump, unpacked the new one, installed it, and then been right back to square one, because it would not have drained either.  Who knows how many floods, how much money, and how much frustration it would have taken before we realized the problem. 

This little tiny piece. 

I am sooooo grateful for this man, and for his perfect timing.

I came home, told Ben, he punched out this little piece from the disposal, and BAM, dishwasher drained, disposal worked, and all was back to normal.  Hallelujah!

Kinda crazy that a few days later, I got in the car to go to the gym, and this was the scenario.

Tire was irreparable, and we had to buy a new one.

Things happen in three's right??  So, we are done.

Geesh.