I have never purchased a washing machine or dryer before, so I’m a total ignoramus. We’re getting (have been offered, my parents are buying us) an apartment-sized stackable set as a baby-shower present.
We’re looking for small, and doesn’t require fancy plumbing, since we rent, and can’t do renovations to accomodate. The dryer, ditto. We can arrange things to stick a venting hose out a window. I’m not sure if we’ll have a secondary heavy-draw plug, but if we stick it in the kitchen it can share the outlet with the stove.
So, tell me about small washers and dryers. In as much detail as possible.
My wife, before she was married, had some sort of combo thing that did a great job. She said it was from Europe and it was small. If you’re curious, I can ask her what it does and reply.
Washers need plumbing to supply and drain the water. There are portable washers that don’t need dedicated plumbing connections but they’re generally fairly small and relatively expensive. I’d also be leary of just sticking a dryer in the kitchen and venting out a window. I’d suspect it’d be prohibited by your lease and considered a fire hazard. Most places prohibit using flexible tubing for dryer venting due to fire risks and require a semi-rigid metal vent pipe.
Actually, loking further, one of thse ventless washer/dryer combos might work. They’re expensive but it looks like you could hook one up to your sink and move it as needed.
Is it difficult for a layman to fit the rigid tubing properly? I have a house and we use the the flexible tubing. It came that way, so that’s what we used when we replaced it.
I have a washer with no gentle cycle. There’s “permanent press” which has different times, but they all agitate the same. I think it would be worth paying a little extra to have a gentle cycle.
Nah, it’s easy. I just replaced the tubing on mine and researching it, that’s when I discovered that almost everyone cautions against the flexible tubing even though it’s still sold. You can get lengths of the semi-rigid stuff at Home Depot which you can connect with a clamp or there’s a kit which comes with connectors, which is what I used after snipping down the length of tubing. If you’ve got 90 degree truns, you might want to use the rigid stuff but it’s easy to customize with tin snips.
We bought a pair of front-loading Samsung machines last year that are designed to be stacked. They work beautifully, and I think they were bought on-sale at Future Shop for about $1200 (for both).
In Tokyo, I had a pair of Sanyo machines, but I’ve not seen the same models over here.
Any standard American washing machine needs plumbing like this:http://db.inman.com/inman/sknkwrks/pix/hookups4.jpg which includes a drain line into your main house drain. Maybe Canada is different. Do you have a hookup like this? If not (assuming things are the same in Canada) you’ll have to get a portable unit like tremorviolet describes.
I’ve used the cheap over/under units with no problems, for what it’s worth.
My daughter has one in her small apartment, and says it is wonderful. One of the best things about it is that you can put your clothes in, go to work, and when you get back they are washed and dried - one step.
As a former appliamce salesperson I will say this.
Meille. They are European, and expensive. They use less water, less electricity (Utilities are usually very expensive in European cities).
BUT… They are very reliable, durable and hold resale value really well.
Down sides include
Small loads (Common to all apt sized units)
You still need appropriate hook ups (Plumbing/electrical)
Ventless models can have problems with mould/fungus
Did I mention expensive?
Upsides
Use very little soap
Cheap to operate
Very gentle on clothes
Quiet
Its been yrs since I sold them, so I have no info on current models
I stayed in a flat in London for a while that had one of the washer-dryer models. As has said before, the thing took very small loads (I mean, very very. The two of us could wash the clothes we’d been wearing that day. That was all.) It also took a very very very long time to wash and dry that one small load–on the order of three hours. Its action was not reassuring; the drum would spin once, pause for two or three seconds, then spin again. It made me angry. Also, the dryer cycle got very hot, hotter than the American dryers I’m used to, which made my worry about what it was doing to my clothes.
At the end of the stay, my clothes were noticeably more worn looking than they had been before. Part of that may be because some dyes intended for the American market can’t stand up to the enzyme detergents in England, but I can’t help thinking that part of it, too, was the very hot drying cycle. I also wonder how clean the clothes would have gotten if they hadn’t been washed with an enzyme detergent.
All in all, it left a sour taste in my mouth. Didn’t like it at all.
Years ago I had one similar to the one linked in post #7, and it worked great. It connected to the sink faucet, and I rolled it out of the way when I wasn’t using it.
I was a little jumpy about running it while I was at week, but nothing bad ever happened. The ventless feature heated up the apartment slightly, but that wasn’t a problem. The newer ones are far more efficient than mine was.
The only downside was that you can only do one load at a time, so it’s not good to let your laundry build up. Hard for a bachelor, but I managed.
It was quite small.
Peace,
mangeorge
No, I wish I could. It’s been more that 10 years. It looked a lot like the one in tremorviolet’s link. though. The load was maybe closer to medium than small. It was ventless, as I mentioned, and I never had a problem with mold/mildew.
Read the description (I’m sure you have), it says it has a moisture reduction feature. If I was home I uaually opened a door or window.
I didn’t see a brand on that site, but I might have overlooked it.
