Our first week here was full of excitement and anticipation. There were so many things to do to execute the move, yet we were somewhat paralyzed because we could not move in to our home until our furniture arrived from the U.S. Fortunately, our shipment arrived swiftly, and we were had our move-in about a week after our arrival. The excitement of the move quickly dissipated when we found we had no hot water! What to do?!
Well, of course, the first thing to check is the water heater, to ensure it was on. A simple task, eh? Maybe if you served in the engine room of a WWII destroyer!
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| Our Furnace/Wasser Heater |
New to the country with the most minimal of language skills, we were initially hesitant to call anyone for help. We didn’t want to look foolish if it was as easy as that. So we studied the buttons, dials, and knobs. We translated the words to no avail. We were stumped and getting sick of cold showers.
After a few days of cold showers and staring at the furnace in hopes of an enlightenment that never came, we attempted to contact our landlord to explain our situation; however, he was not returning calls. Now, this was a problem.
Fun Fact: August is the month that just about everyone in Germany goes on holiday.
And that is exactly what our landlord was doing. He was getting back to nature in the Swabian Albs, with no phone connectivity.
Now, in the U.S., you would probably never even notice if the owner of a shop or business went on vacation, because the shop would remain open and staffed and the owner would be available in dire circumstances. But here in Germany, many businesses lock up tight like a hurricane’s coming (sans boards). You can really feel the difference!
Eventually, we took action and called the company that had previously serviced the furnace. They sent over a team, one of whom spoke excellent English. The furnace was, in fact, broken, and there was nothing we could have done except call the repairman. Speculation was that some severe storms had come through after the June servicing and fried the board and a few other things. They made the repairs, billed our landlord, and life was back on track, until . . .
Wasser [Water] Woes, Part 2: The Dryer
Shortly after moving in, and concurrent with my previously described “wasser woe,” we bought a European washer and dryer. I’d had the European-style set previously many years ago when I had lived in The Netherlands. Back then, a front-load washer was quite an oddity to most Americans, but both washer and dryer gave me no problems.
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| German dryer? Kein problem! |
This, combined with the fact I already had been using Texas-sized front-loader back in the States for quite some time, left me feeling pretty expert about the whole thing. I didn’t even give it a second thought, other than to wonder what the different points on the dial meant.
After several instances of success washing and drying, I was quite surprised one day when I found a wet load of clothes in the dryer. “Hmmm, I thought I had pressed the Start button. Oh, well, I’ll do it again.” The dryer started up without a hitch, but when I returned to the basement, the load was no dryer than the first time I had put it in. Well, that isn’t cool. I noticed a small, red light on the control panel labeled, “Behälter.” “Behälter” means “container,” according to Google Translate. Clearly there was something wrong with the container. Perhaps the load was off balance, though I’d not seen that in a dryer. I opened the door, shifted the semi-soggy laundry about, reset the controls, and hit Start. As before, the dryer started up as it should, but within a minute, the cycle had stopped and the “Behälter” light was again lit. Think, think, think… Aha! I must have overloaded the tiny dryer drum. Though it was a rather small load, I dutifully removed everything except a few pairs of socks and some undies, reset the dial and hit Start. Same result. What the heck? I re-cleaned the lint catcher, which I do after every load anyway. I translated all the dial options and tried every one. I would go downstairs several times a day and attempt different combinations of settings, but always with the same discouraging results. The angry little red “Behälter” light glared at me in a stare-down that I was bound to lose. Who has time for this?
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| A reenactment of my despair |
I really couldn’t believe that my new dryer was broken, but we had just experienced the furnace being broken, and it had been well maintained. Once again, I was faced with whether to call someone, and if so, who? The store? A repairman? Bosch? Processes are different here, and I had no idea what option was the best. How much would it cost me? And, constantly interacting with the natives was an exhausting experience at this point. (I say this with no offense to the Germans, because we have found them to be most helpful and understanding of us.)
You may be thinking that I should look up the problem on the Internet. In the U.S., I would do just that. However, there were Internet issues that were compounding my life as well. At the time, I was relegated to Internet on my phone, and I wasn’t feeling like doing detailed research on a tool not much bigger than my hand. Eventually, my desire to escape my laundry prison outweighed my avoidance of tiny print, and I discovered the key!
I always thought that a dryer was a pretty simple thing, especially compared to the washer. Pretty much other than the timer, the dryer is all about the heat, right?
Fun Fact: As usual, German dryers are more advanced than most U.S. ones.
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| Doing laundry German-style |
Modern German dryers do not discharge air through hose/vent system. These new-fangled dryers use an air-cooled condensing coil that draws out the water and collects it in a container (behälter), which must be emptied out once full! Who knew?
Giddy with excitement, I dragged my hubby Arnie with me to share in the potential resolution. I easily found the so-called behälter, and it was, in fact, filled to the brim with wasser! Freed from its water-logged existence, the dryer was up and running again. Problem solved!
