It was horrible! Right at the beginning of the long weekend I pulled the KitchenAid coffee carafe out of the dishwasher and noticed… the spout had broken off! I tried making Reg coffee with it anyway but what a mess. A whole weekend without coffee? Reg would turn into The Coffee Monster and that would not do!
The Product
I bought this KitchenAid coffee maker last year and if you didn’t know, I appear to be cursed when it comes to coffee makers. They break on me all the time and this one actually works perfectly and is awesome and OMG, what were we going to do?
Asking For Help
I put the word out on social media of our kitchen demise and people got to work right away coming up with ideas. First my friend Kelly suggested the Melitta Universal Carafe. London Drugs carried it and it was on sale for just $15.99! The problem? Too short!
Buying Direct???
Shalaghhogan suggested buying the replacement via the KitchenAid website but cautioned that it was going to cost.
Yup! With tax and $9 in shipping, replacing the carafe with a KitchenAid one was going to cost me $45.46. More than half what I paid for for the coffee machine.
Alternatives…
We went to Canadian Tire that had two universal replacement carafes and one was too short and the other? Looked too tall! That is ours on the left and theirs on the rights. Reg was convinced he could make it work but no! I did not want to have to come back again if it was the wrong fit.
I went to my Value Village which had nothing and another one that was over in New Westminster. My friend Vicky had seen a lot of carafes there. We drove out there and there was one that looked kind of close but not quite perfect. Me, being stingy and stubborn, said no. Let’s keep looking.
Getting Creative
The big issue was money. I did not want to spend more than $25 on a solution… ANY solution… so I had to get creative. Reg’s mom had sent me a gift card for Walmart and they had a Sunbeam coffee maker on sale for just under $25. This way, I had a new coffee maker entirely and I did not actually have to pay a cent.
SUCCESS!
The Sunbeam coffee carafe fit into our KitchenAid coffee maker! I could not believe it.
I was not going to start celebrating until I actually saw the coffee brewing and sure enough… It worked! And has been working ever since.
Reg did not turn into The Coffee Monster and I did not have to pay a penny to replace the carafe. Of course we did spend an entire weekend trying to find a solution but what can you do?
Moral of the Story
Wash your coffee carafe by hand and skip the dishwasher! Yes, it is more work but I love our coffee maker and never want to go through this again.
The good news? If our machine breaks down, I have the Sunbeam ready to go!
What an odyssey that was! But yay for a happy and cheap ending.
You know, the cynical side of me wonders if coffee carafes are designed to break long before the machine wears out. But congrats on finding a reasonably priced solution!
I know! Right?! It’s like after a certain point they are just supposed to explode. Thanks Debra! It was quite the odyssey but we made it work.
Gift card, cool beans. That’s the best.