A lot of planning goes into every How-To video we shoot. A general rule is for every day’s worth of filming we do, a day’s worth of planning goes in to it too. Usually, Gabe, the director/editor/cameraman/Mr. Fix It, heads down to the set a couple of days in advance.

Once he’s had a hearty sausage roll from Kucci Cafe just around the corner, he sets about literally deconstructing the whole appliance we’re due to work on down to the sum of its parts.

We source the cookers, dryers and everything else we work on locally from people, where the items are either unwanted or broken down. In this instance, it was a Hotpoint washer/dryer that we gave a home after its previous owner bought a replacement. Upon collecting it, he told us that the water in the drum was not heating up – a telltale sign that the element is damaged.

Anyhow, once it was back at our warehouse set, Gabe got cracking on it.

After what I’m told was an almighty struggle to remove the element from its housing below the drum, the cause of the problem was found. As it happens, a stray sock had somehow found its way into the element cavity and caused the element to fail. How it got in there, God only knows.

While it’s a shame the original owner of the washer didn’t solve the problem himself and save a few pounds into the bargain, we can at least hope that the videos we shoot will help people with similar problems fix it themselves.

Tags: eSpares, Hotpoint Washer Dryer, How To Videos