[QUOTE=gotpasswords]
Which is better at washing braaaiiinnnnnnnss?
I thought most zombies did their laundry at the all-night laundromat, rather than buying their own washer and dryer.
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Maybe double-zombies need a double shot of bleach? 
I had a top loader for nine years (before that, just used laundromats) and now I’ve had a front loader for six years. (So it’s 15 years or so since I went to a laundromat =D )
They wash equally well. I still have the same dryer. It’s been deteriorating the entire time, and now barely heats up, but it’s still enough to dry clothes from the front loader so I don’t bother to replace it.
The front loader is good because the clothes are not as wet, and also because it uses less soap. We do need to put borax into every load - both to eliminate the pet odors and to help it wash better with so little soap - but not any more borax than we did before just for the odor reduction. In the top loader we could substitute ammonia for the borax, which was a bit cheaper and reduced odors almost as well, but ammonia does not work in the front loader.
The front loader cost a little bit more but probably about the same given inflation in the interim (500$ for the top loader 15 years ago and 650$ for the front loader six years ago). They were both discounted some amount or other and reviewed for being decent quality in Consumer reports, but I don’t even remember the brand names.
Wow.
Moderator Note
Louize, insults are not permitted in General Questions or most other forums on this board. Since you are new here, I am making this a note instead of a formal warning. However, don’t do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
PS. You might consider hitting the Enter key every once in awhile to break up your paragraphs. It would make them easier to read.
Mine has a SOAK option.
I also have a RINSE option.
I guess if I had something especially muddy or gross, I would put it in and use the SOAK option. Then RINSE it, then do a normal wash.
Or I’d just wash it twice.
That’s what I was going to say (and yes, I know this thread is a Zombie). We just bought a new washing machine a few months ago. It’s a top-loader, but it has no agitator. It can hold far more than older top-loaders while using much less water.
(We were thinking of getting a front-loader but upon measuring we discovered that there wouldn’t be room to open the door.)
It sounds like maybe the prevalence of (and in some cases, preference for) top-loading machines in America is leaving room for apathy in the supplier market and a general lack of drive towards excellence
Mine has a prewash/presoak function, with a separate compartment in the detergent drawer for prewash solution. Every machine I’ve seen in the UK for the last 20 years had this - it’s just a missing feature on your machine, I’d say.
I remember hearing about problems with water trapped in the folds of the door seal on older machines, and this causing it to perish if left standing, but that doesn’t seem a problem any more.
No reason why it shouldn’t - the drum has to be symmetrical along the axis of spin, or it would be a very bad thing, but the vessel in which the drum spins can be any shape, and can include a funnel-shaped or sloped bottom to facilitate (pumped) drainage. If yours doesn’t drain, it’s just bad product design, not a fundamental failing of the concept of front loaders.
It’s never been a question of going green, for me. I did choose an energy/water-efficient model last time I had to replace the washing machine, but that was a choice between different kinds of front loaders - that’s all there is on the market here.
None of the issues you’ve described is a fundamental flaw of front loaders. Your machine (and maybe most machines in your market area, for all I know) must just be poorly designed - because none of the issues you describe are common complaints here, ever.
Machine capacities vary quite widely - the bigger ones cost more. Given that there’s usually a need to separate colours and whites, and that the machines run unattended, it just isn’t a problem to do multiple washes (unless you have a shortage of spare clothes, I guess)
That’s another name for the not-wanting-water-all-over-the-floor problem. You can’t open the door when the machine is mid-cycle, for the same sorts of reasons you can’t get off a train between stations. I’ve never found it a problem, really - anything that gets dirty just after the start of the current wash just has to wait for the next one.
I bought a front loading Kenmore HE3 washer and dryer about 10 years ago, and it’s still working. Never have had to have it serviced. Probably need to upgrade soon, but they clean the clothes great haven’t had a single problem. Hardly a fad.
Since she’s only commented on this thread, and her opinions have been so extremely strong, I’m half-expecting her to come back and shill for her “favorite” top-loader brand. But maybe I am just getting cynical… (Colored diamonds, anyone?)
As for myself, I’ve washed the same clothes in my front-loader here in Troll Country, and my mother’s top-loader in Pennsylvania, and while I’m grateful to have the chance to do laundry for free while we’re in the States, there’s no doubt in my mind that the clothes get cleaner and are rinsed more thoroughly in the front-loader. Of course, it also takes four times as long, but one learns to plan ahead…
I agree with this. We have a front loader and the clothes get completely soaked. Not just ‘damp’
Quite - dunno where people were getting this ‘damp’ notion from. In every front loader I’ve seen, the thing fills up to something like 1/3 or halfway full of water/detergent, then the drum does its thing - the clothes are being lifted/sloshed in and out of the wash water repeatedly - so water is alternately soaking into/draining out of the fabric, and carrying dirt out with it.
This is interesting. What’s a typical wash-spin cycle time for a standard wash on American front loaders? Mine takes about 45 minutes, I think - it has a ‘time remaining’ countdown, which is reasonably accurate - changes a bit as it goes, subject to fill times (varies subject to water pressure) and water heating times (varies subject to temperature of mains water)
You don’t need to cover your clothes in water to soak them, and bleach still works in a front loader (though I’m thinking you might be using a bit much, even so).
I’ve got friends who regularly clean diapers in their front loader. It just involves using the right settings and also using bleach.
My folks ran a dry cleaning business, and it was never an issue with their industrial sized washers (always front loaders). But you can’t wash that stuff like normal clothes, either. Temperature settings and pre-washing (i.e. getting most of the “solids” off first and spot treating the worst stains) are always going to be important.
The truth is, most people know just enough about how to use their washing machines to get reasonably clean clothes. But most people still don’t actually use them properly.
The worst sin seems to be too much detergent. I know the temptation is “more soap = cleaner clothes” but after a certain amount, you’re actually making things worse. Top loaders are great for demonstrations of this. Try putting your clothes in a wash cycle without any detergent. Most people will start to see suds forming from all the detergent residue from previous washes. In the worst cases, my folks sometimes got clothes that hardly needed any detergent from all the residue and had to go through 2 cycles - one to remove the residue and one for the actual wash.
The “four times as long” was a bit of an exaggeration, I’m guessing. A top loader might take 20-30 minutes, while a front loader might take around 45 (longer depending on the setting and load, of course). That’s compensated a bit by the shorter drying time.
Many complaints about front loaders end up being “it’s different than what I’m used to, therefore it’s bad”.
The shortest cycle on my mother’s top-loader, a fairly standard American washer, is just a hair shy of 30 minutes.
The typical cycle on a front-loader for the Norwegian market, which takes in cold water only and heats it to the desired temperature, is about two hours, depending on the temperature you select. Mine does have shorter cycles, but I don’t really trust them for normal laundry. (Well, the cycles for woolens and delicates are shorter, and I do use those.)
Still, in two hours, my washer is using less electricity and water than my mother’s machine does for a half-hour cycle. I don’t grok.
That’s ridiculous. There’s been tremendous innovation in washing machines in recent years, both among front-loaders and top-loaders. I just mentioned that I bought a new high-efficiency top-loader earlier this year. It has no agitator – it uses a completely different washing mechanism than older top-loaders, so it uses much less water.
Our top loader does a full load in under 20 min. Time is more precious to me than the price of water. I cannot see how barely making something damp can get something clean. Suppose I have a sweat soaked t-shirt. It’s already damp. Is your 2 gallons of water from front loader magically going to substitute clean water for my sweat? Or rinse away the salt?
Someone said their front loader fills up 1/3 to 1/2 of the drum; I’d like to know the brand/model because all the one’s I’ve looked at while shopping seem to brag about how little water they use (seeming less than an 1/8 of the drum).
We tried one of those and dumped it in a week. They’re just as slow as the front loaders, and also try to get away with using 3 gallons of water in what appears to be a 30 gallon drum. The worst of both worlds. Not drinking the kool-aid.
Many have pointed out that clothes in a front loader get soaking wet. I will add my humble voice to that chorus. It’s really really true. Wet.
Yep, the whole of Europe stinks. 400 million reeking people in filthy stained clothes. Me? I smell of sweat, and wee, and poo, and my clothes stand up all by themselves. I gave three people cholera last week just by driving past the on the street. They didn’t mind, though, because they were filthy and reeking and already had every disease known to man.
Or, alternatively: obviously they work just fine.