Cross post - my washer is dying.....

[steph2003]

And I'm gonna need a new one. Sniff, sniff - I guess that is what santa is bringing me this year. No new diaper bag & no new CDs :( for this mama.

It is time though, with all the baby laundry & now CD laundry I really do need something more energy efficient & uses less water.

So....please post what you have & if you like it for CDing (or just washing lots of clothes in general!) I know this has probably been covered before so I'll do a search as well but any quick responses would help get me started! I keep hearing front load washers are the way to go but I don't know much about them or what makes them the cat's meow.

I told my DH I would not make a purchase until I had consulted my CD board moms!!!!

[lizajane]

ok, kind of a weird brand to get... but it had the features that made me sing, so-

i have a frigedaire washer/dryer. the washer can be set to do a: soak, power scrub (super aggitation cycle), regular wash AND extra rinse ALL AS ONE CYCLE!!!!!!!!!

so i load the dipes and hit go- they machine aggitates to get everything all swished about for soaking. then it soaks them for 20 minutes. then it does a power scrub where it aggitates like crazy. then it rinses and spins. then it automatically starts up the regular hot wash (the longest wash setting). so i listen for the water pouring in after the soak cycle's rinse and spin, then i add my detergent and close the lid so it will keep going. then it washes, rinses, spins, rinses again and spins again. TA DA!!! so while i do have to add detergent after the soak/power scrub is over, i don't have to keep messing with the machine. SO EASY! it just all happens on its own. it makes me very happy and i have only gotten to the machine to add detergent late ONCE, so i just pushed it back to the beginning of the hot wash and let it go again.

it has a lot of load sizes because the knob will rotate around to all different choices, instead of just "small, medium, large." so i can save water if i need to do a tiny load. it has a "handwash" cycle that i use for washing handmade baby afagans and etc. and it has water settings for hot/cold, warm/warm, warm/cold, cold/cold and for the winter when the water temp is often screwy because of the cold pipes, it "makes sure" that your hot water is actually truly hot and your cold water isn't TOO cold.

so i love it. and my dryer can dry a load of 3-4 days worth of dipes in just over one long dry cycle. (i haven't even tried doing the timed dry yet, thought, just realized i should see if that is long enough to do it in one cycle! duh!)

so there is my washer story. yes, weird brand and maybe not the best brand out there. but the ONLY one i could find that would soak/wash/rinse all as one cycle without going back and telling the machine what to do.

[steph2003]

That is indeed helpful - I had not considered Frigidaire!

I keep hearing about Kenmore HE3t but I've got to admit I'm so-so on the Sears stuff because I hear their service/repair stuff is sketchy. Of course this thing had better NEVER break down :)

I think I remember Neve having problems with her Kenmore awhile back? something with streaking....

[mudder17]

I have the Kenmore HE3 that I got from the Sears Outlet and I haven't had any problems at all with it. I really do like it! But that's just my experience. We also have a Kenmore canister vac that we love and we've had some other Kenmore appliances, all with good experiences. But again, that's OUR experience.

In general, now that I've washed CDs in both front loaders and top loaders, I would definitely go with the front loader. The top loaders tend to leave stains on my dipes, and they also are pretty rough on them to the point that the velcro laundry tabs sometimes come undone. So they're not great for dipes (and probably not great for clothes, either). It is true that with the top loader, I was able to do the soak function, but even with the soak function, I would get stains. Anyway, that's just my experience. Oh, and if it makes any difference, the top loader had very hard water (FL), while the front loader at home has fairly soft water (MD). For Christmas, I'll be doing the dipes in an identical machine (or maybe it's the HE3t) but with California water, which I think is on the hard side (Juliet?).


Eileen

Mother of Beautiful Kaya, www.chemicalgraphics.com/kaya
http://www.babysfirstsite.org/newtickers/ticker/16994.birthday.png

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_garnet_6m.gif Breastfed 8 months and counting

[toomanystrollers]

Rejoice that your washer is dying!!! Because my handy-man hubby will keep my old clunker machine running FOREVER!!!!!!!!! No new HE machines for me, sigh....

[supercalifragilous]

We have a Maytag Neptune that we bought at Sears and the "stain cycle" gets everything out. I don't know what it does in there but it works. I love how it's a front loader but it has that angled tub so getting things in & out is really easy.

My mom has a Kenmore Calypso and she loves it to death, though I feel like that agitator doesn't agitate well enough to shake the dirt out, if YKWIM. I'm partial to front-loaders anyway.

One thing - We got the Neptune dryer too and I absolutely HATE IT b/c the lint trap doesn't catch all the lint. The Sears lady said this has been a common complaint from her customers and they forwarded it to Maytag. I don't know if you're also in the market for a dryer but since usually people buy them in pairs I thought I'd throw that out there...

Good luck!

[steph2003]

Pam -

you are too funny. I suppose I could look at it that way but geez, bad timing on my washer's part I mean right before the spending frenzy of the holidays???! eeeek! Well this definitely forces me to cut back in some other areas which actually might be a good thing!

[steph2003]

thanks for pointing that out about the Neptune dryer. We actually will be replacing the dryer as well. I figure with my luck that will go next since we bought both washer & dryer at the same time.

[steph2003]

Thanks Eileen -
can always count on you for a good answer/post. I am considering the Kenmore, maybe there is a Sears outlet in my area. Have to check that out.

I think I have hard water. Ironically with my crappy ole' washer that cost oh I don't know maybe $350 way back in the day - works really well in getting my CDs clean. I've haven't had staining issues yet! But the thing is truly just fizzing out.

[mudder17]

Our washer died, so we bought the Kenmore HE3 at the outlet. Then Kaya came, and we started doing a lot more laundry. And our old dryer, which is actually only about 3 years old, was taking twice as long to dry as the washing cycles, which was a big pain. So we broke down shortly after Kaya came and bought the HE3 dryer. :)


Eileen

Mother of Beautiful Kaya, www.chemicalgraphics.com/kaya
http://www.babysfirstsite.org/newtickers/ticker/16994.birthday.png

http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_garnet_6m.gif Breastfed 8 months and counting