Damp damper

Our washing-machine went phut the day after we returned from our house-swap in Dublin. Luckily I was first up and had successfully run a load on the 30' superquick cycle that I always use on stuff that isn't dripping with mud or bolognese. We weren't tempted therefore to blame The Yoof who had the run of the house for the previous 3 days.

The LED console was showing a flashing faucet to indicate "low water pressure". I forthwith cleaned the grit-filter at the well-head and convinced myself that water was flowing goodo up to the back of the machine. It was therefore not Roy the Plumber territory but rather a job for Joe the Wash, who rocked up [asap] two days later. His multimeter said that a transponder [there are two] on the water inlet valve was broken and wash-machine central-command read this as insufficient water incommming. Joe didn't have the spare part in the van [dang!] but did have one at head-office and his Effective came along first thing on Friday to swap out the old and plug in the new.

While the lid was off I noted a couple of engineering essentials. The first is that the business core of the machine is suspended from two enormous bed-springs indicated by [↓] and also a huge lump of concrete - cast and serial-numbered to fit Bosch wash-drums. It must be a damper [prev] to provide some inertia to the system. A load of socks or knickers is not a problem because they are granular and can distribute themselves evenly round the drum for the spin cycle. A great wet floor mat not so much? 

When spinning things are unbalanced they can get into a resonance cycle and rock back and forth until the whole caboodle busts off its spindle. As happened in an ex-place-of-work with a steel ultra-centrifuge bucket going through the casing and a 10cm solid concrete wall beyond. The concrete block in the machine overwhelms any trifling wet-blanket unbalance.

Whatevs, I am delighted that [as with the central-heating oil-burner at Christmas] we don't have to trek into DID electrical to buy a new appliance because this one is beyond economic repair. Inside dope note to self: NEFF are the same as Bosch; assembled from the same parts in the same factory but twice the price. I heard it from a chap who is in the trade.

Oddly enough the two meanings of "damper" come from the same etymological root [M.E. dampen, like German dampf]. The reduce-amplitude concept indirectly through soggy → gloomy → depressed → less volatile. All the gases that displace oxygen in mines are also -damp.