ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 26, 1996 TAG: 9601260100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Above
THE REPAIRMAN may not have been busy, but the Maytag sure was. It ran almost nonstop for 3 1/2 years.
The Energizer Bunny might not be impressed. But the folks at Tarpley's & Mac's Appliances & TV in Salem are pretty darned proud of a Maytag washing machine that ran continuously for nearly 3 1/2 years.
Three years, five months and five days to be exact.
The store invited customers to guess how long the washing machine could run without breaking down. Minor repairs didn't count, as long as the total costs to fix it never exceeded $100.
Chapman McGuire, co-owner of Tarpley's & Mac's Inc., said he got the contest idea from a Maytag dealer in Pennsylvania.
McGuire started running a brand-new Maytag machine on March 16, 1992, at his former store, Mac's Maytag in Salem. After about a month of running it only during business hours, he rigged the machine so it would bypass the "Off" setting on the control dial. Then, it ran continuously.
McGuire estimated that it could have washed 56 loads of laundry per day.
To keep the water bill from running the store out of business, McGuire connected the washer to a laundry tub full of water, giving it a recyclable water supply.
But the machine even outlasted McGuire's store.
In April 1994, McGuire merged his business with Tarpley's TV & Appliance, becoming Tarpley's & Mac's Inc.
The machine was shut down for about two weeks until a suitable place was found at the new location.
Then, "we just plugged it in and let her go," McGuire said.
And it kept going. And going.
About a month later, a seal that held water in the machine's tub broke.
That cost only about $86 to repair, so the contest continued.
After about seven more months of continuously washing, rinsing and spinning, the tub seal broke again in December - bringing the total repair bill over $100.
McGuire figured that the machine ran for 70,636 cycles - a total of 30,005 hours of operation.
Because he had to calculate the time the machine was not operating, McGuire announced the contest winner just this week.
Quincy Caveness of Salem came within three days of predicting how many hours the machine would last.
Caveness wins a brand-new Maytag washing machine.
McGuire isn't quite sure what he will do with the broken washer.
"It still runs. But it won't hold water," he said.
Fixing the machine and then giving it to charity is one option, McGuire said.
"I might just keep it for sentimental reasons," he said. "It probably doesn't have a lot of life left in it."
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff. At his Salem store, Chapman McGuireby CNBshows off the washing machine that he put through the wringer.
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