Another joy to owning a house

Something is always breaking or about to, this time the washing machine decided not to finish the laundry. In the old days you would turn the dial to drain, have the water pump out, then start over. New machines are computerized, so where they are and where they think they are can be different. It's about unplugging and rebooting. The use of a boat siphon pump took the water out of the machine. Having the water not drain lead to the possibility that the line between the house and the septic system may be frozen. A little digging, some new insulation (original was all rotted), 

a new heater cable 

and a lot of tracked in mud found the line was clear but now all the warming systems were new. Watching the machine as it worked through the various modes of washing laundry determined that the cold fill water would run for about 10 seconds then the valve would close allowing water to drip instead of flow. Switching the machine to hot water allowed the entire system to run correctly. I came up with the idea to take the back of the machine apart, swap the hot and cold water valves and buy a new valve. 

Doug suggested it would be easier and cheaper just to swap the incoming lines. 

So the machine is now set to run hot water, the hot water valve is working fine, but the feed line is cold water. All is well and it involved no disassembly or replacement parts. Sometimes you over look easy for complicated when you actually need working instead of replaced. 
If money weren't so tight, I would have gone the other way.