oh. and another interesting thing about the dishwasher bit. when the repairman, one of them at least, was at our house assessing our broken washer, after backing out of the washer, standing up and drying his hands on his rag, he explained that what we're experiencing is now rather common. he said
this has been picking up ever since the washington lobbyist got new rules in play about using smaller motors in dishwashers, motors to conserve energy. the part they missed, is they just changed the motors but nothing else and the new, smaller motors weren't powerful enough to drive the machines so the motors burn out quicker. and for reasons i can't explain replacing the motor most times cost more than buying a new machine. so first the old models would run longer and could be easily repaired which means after fifteen years you might send a motor to the dump. but now the machines break after five years, get replaced with a new machine, because that's cheaper, so now we're taking the whole appliance to the dump instead of just a motor. and three times as often.
f'ing brilliant.