Our dryer went out months ago.. in the early spring, right in the middle of the 3rd wave and locally It seemed the few peaple that recommended someone who normally would be able to order parts and do the required fix where all not open, not taking clients or in the one case.. would need us to haul the dryer to him over a hour each way.. 

I went online to order the part needed and was told it was out of production and nope..  (now as it turned out that was not true.. instead it had changed hands and so the parts numbers were not the same under the new system as what I was looking up online) 

We were not really keen on having anyone come to the farm at that time so I just let it go..  we have the two big outside cloths lines and we have the certainly big (compared to apartment size) indoor dryer that fits perfectly in the small bedroom to use the heater and or the window for sun and breeze to dry things..  and we sure could tell that we were not using the dryer on the drop on the power bill.. it was lovely month after month to see that same percentage drop in use and given the only thing that changed was the dryer it had to be it..

Only one real issue.. PET HAIR..  while some types of material of clothing  seems easy enough to take hair off, others I swear that hair just digs in and you can fight and fight with it and its still got pet hair on it.. sigh! If you have dogs or cats, or horses you know what I am talking about!

Trying to keep the big dog bed covers looking good without the dryer is also a challenge, I wash them just as much as normal but they just do not fluff the covers back up without the dryer, no matter how much shaking I do.. same with my feather quilts.. 

Two weeks ago, I finally went ok before the “4th” wave really hits in my province and area, I wanted to try one more time before winter to see if I could get a fix done as the idea of buying and replacing my 5 year old dryer instead of fixing it just makes me cringe.. 

I knew that the place I had bought my machines from had closed down (as has I would guess 40 plus percent of all the small business within 45 of the farm and I just got news this morning that in the one little town very close to us, the single only grocery store is closing very soon as well, that will push everyone at least 18 to 20 plus min of extra driving time to get to the next town and the next store)

Are you seeing this in your area? If you are rural are you seeing lots of closures? if you are in the city, more or less locally of things closing?

Must to my surprise I pulled up a business that I had not seen in the spring that said appliance repair.. and called it.. someone that used to work for a business with help of mom (on the phone) and dad and son doing the service instead of being put out of work, turned to being very small indeed, no overhead, no building, no fancy work van and so on.. just getting it done.  good for them!

Are you finding that in your neck of the woods, less store front, less overhead but some of the folks that were laid off, found a way to take their skills and work within the community. 

Called and I am in the son’s cover area, he ordered the parts in and was here and able to get it fixed in under 20 minutes and voila, I have a working dryer again and he thought I would need to replace all four of X but only needed to replace 2 and so he was like, no reason to change them and charge you for it.. 

Still that was a 130 dollar rural service fee on top of parts, labour and tax..  still worth it.. as we head into winter so I can dry cloths, wash and dry jackets and can finally get all that hair off things..

Whoot! but I will still put as much as possable on the lines and use the dryer to finish things off or only use it for the things that hold the hair more.