About a month ago, our washing machine quietly died, with a tub full of clothes and water. Not entirely unexpected, it certainly hadn’t been running well for years, but it did run, so the time never seemed right to replace it. The dryer was still working, but again, not all that well. They were over 20 years old, and not terribly expensive when we bought them. In hindsight, we really should have considered replacing them years ago, rather than just doing the standard ‘run them to death’.
Wednesday, we brought home a Samsung set, mid-priced at around $1,200. (I know, still a lot of money!) That pain in the pocket is one reason for the ‘run them to death’ business. Having finally gotten them installed on Thursday, and starting to catch up with the insane amount of piled up laundry, oh, I wish we had done this years ago. You just don’t know how very badly your old machine works until you get a brand new, updated one. I am hoping these will be the last we have to buy, but if they start working as badly as our old ones at some point, I won’t hesitate to get new. I’m not used to having touchpads, or a separate power / start-pause system, so I keep setting them, then turning them off, but I’ll get used to it eventually. They are wonderfully efficient, quiet, and have the best machine feature ever – the capability to mute all sounds. For every load of wash, the readout lets you know how long it will take (same as the dryer), which is a nice feature. I have not bothered with the “OMG, you absolutely must use this special detergent” stuff, I just cut way down on the amount of the regular stuff, as I have a whole lot of it, and I’m not tossing it out. Now it will last even longer.
Very nice machines. Now to get on with all that laundry…
My machines, though they are several years old, have the displayed time, but I have found it to be approximate. Not way off, but it sometimes takes a few more minutes than the originally displayed time for the cycle. I think the difference is usually in the spin cycle (on the washer). It probably senses the amount of moisture still coming out of the clothes and spins until it falls below a threshold. Similarly for the dryer, the clothes probably must meet a “dryness” threshold before the cycle completes. I usually just set my phone for about ten minutes longer than the cycle time, then come back and it is done.
Ours seem accurate to me, but I haven’t actually paid attention to the time. If I’m not sitting in front of my computer, I don’t have the slightest idea of what time it is. I just look at the machine read out, think “cool, I have an hour” and wander off.
Well, I can get absent-minded and forget that I have a load in the washer or dryer. I set the timer on my phone because I usually have that in my pocket. I would not want to leave a load of damp clothes in the washer and take a chance on forgetting them overnight. Front-loaders are notorious for getting funky if left closed. When I am not running a load in the washer, I leave the door open to make sure it airs out.
Johnson catman:
Yes, that was a big complaint when Rick was asking people about their machines prior to our shopping. This one’s a top loader, but all machines are subject to the funk. I hadn’t realized how deep this one was, I’m not short, but I have to be on tip toes to get all the laundry out.
I really like my front-loader. When it spins, it can really sound like it is about to take off! But it spins more water out of the clothes to make the job of the dryer easier.
When growing up, my family had a top-loading machine. For the spin cycles, someone always had to sit on it to keep it from walking around the floor. Everyone had to take their turns on it. That was one of the factors I considered when I purchased my own machines. Leaving the door open is not an inconvenience for me. Also, most top-loaders have the agitator running up the middle of the tub, which takes up some room. Gravity and the natural tumbling action act as the agitator in the front-loader. Not trying to convince you that you are wrong! Just my personal preference. Any new machine would be better than a broken old one.
Oh, the new top loaders are the same as the front loaders -- no agitator. I was absolutely insistent on that, the one thing I hated most about the old machine was that fucking agitator. They are made to ruin clothes.
[best Ed McMahon voice] I did not know that! [/voice]
Obviously, it has been a few years since I looked at washers. The agitators were also something I considered when purchasing my machine because I have seen my share of shirts, underwear, etc shredded by them. Good to know that the option is more open now. I still like my front loader though because I can use the tops of the machines for other things, like sorting and such. Besides, I like “watching the clothes go ’round”. (Not really, just wanted to include a gratuitous Pretenders reference!)
I love that new appliance smell, it’s like freedom. Kinda makes it all fun again, pressing new buttons and seeing what it can do! :D haha Good luck with the stacks of laundry, and yay for new efficient stuff!
Johnson catman:
The one thing that bugs me? The top is glass, but it’s bloody black. It would have been so cool if it was clear glass, so I could see! There’s art in there, great photos, but noooo, make it impossible to do. Thanks, Samsung.
Congratulations on the new machine!
Is the drum horizontal or vertical?
AFAIK, no machines here have an agitator and the drum is horizontal even in top-loaders.
Ice Swimmer, it’s vertical, with an almost flat impeller.
Caine@9:
For “artistic purposes”, you may be able to find out how to bypass the door switch so that you can have the door open during the cycle. Of course, such a bypass is discouraged by almost everything you read and may void your warranty, but there are written instructions on the internet, as well as YouTube videos showing how to do it. The reason such instructions are out there are because if the switch fails, you may have to bypass it somehow to allow you to finish a load.
Johnson catman @ 12:
Thank you!
We got an LG top-loader a couple months ago (similar story). Its top is glass, which causes me to spend way too long watching it and trying to reverse-engineer the algorithms it uses. It is also too deep for my wife. To get the last socks out she has to strike a commedia pose.
I was ready for the lack of agitator, since all machines in Japan (at least in hotels and stuff) are like that. Although ours has thrice the capacity of any machine I’ve seen over there.
A common-ish machine here is a front-loading combined washer-drier.
I hate them with a passion. They are evil.
The invariably eventually leak, funk up, and can’t handle powdered detergents (it gunks up in the soap tray). But the stooooopidity which drives me up the wall and out the vent is you can’t not have a drying cycle. For feck’s sake, this is Southern France. Sun. Hot Sun. (Since there are few times you can’t use the Sun to dry, and the smallest size of many flats, etc., is perhaps why separate machines seem rare?) So after washing, and perhaps spinning out the excess water, there’s rarely a point to consuming power to dry.
(And don’t get me started on sodding scented soaps!)
Caine @ 11
So it should be a gentle giant.
It’s so weird that even with the same megacorporations making washing machines they can be so different in different areas. The kind of machine you have is almost unknown here. The only laundry appliance with a vertical drum here that I know is centrifugal dryer, nowadays getting a more and more rare sight in laundry rooms of apartment buildings.
Johnny Vector @ 14:
That would be me, just different reasons for washer gazing. :D
Blf @ 15:
Holy fuck, that sounds awful. At least the mini-sets for apartments here are stackable, and separate. And I can’t stand scented laundry soaps, conditioners, or dryer thingies. All clothes need to be is clean.
Ice Swimmer @ 16:
Well, here in Amerika, you can’t have any of that durable, long-lasting, energy saving, efficiency. That would be liberal commie pinko socialist type stuff. Much better to put out a new design every year, minimally different from the 5 previous iterations. Gotta do these things incrementally.
I’ve never been able to figure out how that washer-dryer combination is supposed to work. It sounds awful, never mind trying to use it!
I prefer front loaders but only because it’s a lot nicer on the back. I grew up with top loaders, and I’m not tall, and I can’t imagine trying to fish the last socks out of those while pregnant. :/ That could be… very interesting.
Re: socks: That’s what these are for! Alternately, tongs.
I am seriously jelly and stoked for your new w/d set! We had an opportunity to get a lightly used pair of front loaders last year to replace our cheap, loud, crappy set, and had to pass because there was no way the new ones would fit through the doorway into the laundry room. Boo.
Onamission5:
That sucks. We couldn’t get our old ones in our current lav, door’s too narrow, so it’s around the side, through a hall, into my studio, and through the other door into the lav. Had to do that with these, too. If the former owners of our house had any damn sense, they would have put the damn things downstairs, where there’s a fucktonne of room, not only for machines, but a folding table, a hanging rack, random furniture, and about 30 people.
One of these days, we’ll get the plumbing re-routed and do that, because there’s also enough room down there for a big walk-in closet.
The top-loaders here have spring-loaded doors/hatches on the side of the drum. With some models, forgetting to close them before starting the washing program can destroy the machine. The top-loaders are sometimes called Laestadian* model washing machines here because there’s an urban legend (not true) that Laestadians aren’t allowed to use them.
I’ve never kept a washing machine in my apartment (not enough room for one). Since I moved on my own in ’94, I’ve used the big front-loading washing machines in laundry rooms many apartment buildings have here. They’re on average quicker (because they can both use hot and cold water and have a heating element) than the smaller consumer quality stuff and wash just as well. Also I’ve bee lucky in that there’s been a laundry drying room with a hot air blower in the buildings I’ve lived in. The problem with these is mostly social, people forgetting their laundry in the machine or in the drying room, hoarding machine time or not respecting other people’s reservations. The social stuff is luckily mostly harmless.
The in drying room this building features one of those condensing hot air blowers that has a cooling system to condense the moisture out of the air and return the heat of condensation back to the dried air.
__
* The Laestadian religious movements (there are multiple, bitterly disagreeing over some point of theology) are basically fundamentalist Lutheran laymen’s movements (for example contraception, alcohol and premarital sex are sin, tobacco and coffee aren’t). Mostly they have deemed watching TV broadcasts as a sin. So people have thought that watching women’s underwear tumbling behind the window of a front-loader must also be a no-no.
Me @ 21
That was a teal deer.
Ahhh, the simple joy of spending a metric fuckton of cash on a shiny, sophisticated washing machine…
We needed a washer/dryer for space reasons and the only one that seemed any good was the most expensive on the market (Surprise! Front loaders in this category are notoriously crap)
The thing is a goddammed computer with a washer attached to it. It measures the load weight, moisture content, temperature and even detects when the detergent is sudsing too much!
The only down side is that you need to halve the washer load when doing a wash/dry, but it tells you if you have overloaded it when you are putting the load in.
Despite the eye-watering cost I could never go back to a “dumb washer” -- laundry should be a “set and forget” thing!
Ice Swimmer @ 22:
It was interesting!
Gobi’s @ 23:
Yeah, ours does all that too. I actually had to read the effing manual.
gobi’s sockpuppet’s meatpuppet @ 23
And the irony is that the computer control part and the block of concrete used for weight to stabilize the machine are probably the cheapest subsystems to manufacture.
Read the manual!
(Clutches pearls, collapses onto chez-lounge)
I keep telling the other half to follow the load process. Efficient German laundry scientists have created that process!
Do not deviate from the process!
@25 ice swimmer:
Concrete! Not for what we paid! That was one of the differences between cheaper brands -- ours is cast iron. 100kg of it.
Caine @ 24
Thank you!
If somebody wants to get a headache, there’s a lot of stuff in Wikipedia about Laestadians, their theology and schisms, they aren’t as headache-inducing as the Christology schisms in early medieval/late antiquity Xtianity, but it gets close.
We bought our top-loader with an impeller a few years ago.
(Caine: we had a bit of a discussion at the time)
It is a *wonderful thing* and can do “hand wash”, “heavy duty” and everything in between.
After I hang it, God® does the drying.
Chigau:
Did we? I don’t remember. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was moaning about having an agitator. I hated that thing.
Ice Swimmer @ 28:
I planned to look them up and do some reading, I’d never heard of them before. It’s always interesting (to me anyway) to read about the seemingly endless permutations of christianity. Every time I think I’ve heard about all of them, I’m wrong.
Caine
Yeah, we did.
My recollection is that we were also contrasting squatting vs. leaning.
#12 Johnson Catman and #13 Caine
When I read the Manual for the washing machine, I did find instructions for opening the top glass lid, and re-starting the washer with the lid open. I thought: Why? at the time, so just filed it away. Never thought of photos of laundry.
It is right after the explanation of the Child Lock option.
Have fun with an open Tub!
One day my 45 year old Whirlpool top loader washing machine will no longer be repairable. For an up front cost of $40 at a garage sale in the mid 80’s plus a dozen or so drain pumps it hasn’t done too bad. They don’t make them that robust any more.
Once as a small child I was mesmerised by all that soft clothing spinning around in mum’s machine, the one with the faulty lid switch. I put my hand inside and was lucky to escape with a severely sore wrist. Some things are better hidden from inquisitive little eyes.
I had to look.
Our machine has a “Pause” button, which I have never used, but the Manual assures me will pause anything that is happening.
.
.
.
fun experiment for another day
Lofty @ 35:
We’ve never had inquisitive little eyes. Unless you count rats.
Aah, yes, big round eyes. Little peoples eyes of course.
We had to replace a well aged washer/dryer about five years ago. Got high efficiency models. Uses just at tablespoon of he soap per load. The high speed spinout makes it easy for the dryer. Speaking of which, time for today’s load….