My wife stopped our dryer to take a few items out and hang them up. Our cat, sensing a warm soft place to lie down, jumped in without my wife seeing it. My wife shut the door and restarted the dryer. The cat went around for a few revolutions, but my wife could hear that something was wrong and she immediately stopped the dryer. The cat (an elderly, obese cat) was none the worse for wear, although its dignity and fur were both temporarily ruffled.
Top Loaders start at about $250.
Front Loaders start at about $400.
Americans are notoriously short sighted when it comes to cost over lifetime compared to cost up front.
My first washing machine lasted 30 years. My most recent has needed major repairs after 4.5 years, and if we hadn’t fixed it ourselves, it would have been almost as expensive as buying a new one. It’s just been recently that the price of front-loaders plus pedestal has come down enough to compete with the top-loaders. Until now, the reliability of the front-loaders was pretty spotty, too. I know people whose front-loaders died after 3 years. With such a short lifespan, it just wasn’t cost-effective until recently. It has little to do with shortsightedness. (Lowes’ cheapest front-loader is $550 not including pedastal.)
Not a chance - I watched one through most of its cycle the first time I used it. Stupid things are hypnotic!
We have a front-loader that is about six years old. Although we leave the door open to dry the interior and wipe down the rubber door gasket, we have had problems with a funky smell in the washer that transferred to the clothes. Over the years, I’ve tried a number of things to deal with this problem:
- Running cycles with vinegar
- Removing, cleaning, and replacing the door gasket. Several times. For some reason, this gasket is constructed in such a way that it always holds about a teaspoon of water at its lowest point. Lint collects there and stays damp. It’s just a poor design as far as I can see; the shape of the gasket could have been made differently so that there would not be a collection point there.
- Remove and clean the drain filter.
- Change detergents.
For my birthday this year, I bought the repair manual for this washer and spent the day completely disassembling it and cleaning everything. The stainless steel tub is inside a two-part plastic housing. Although the metal tub looks all shiny on the inside, to my not-great surprise the outside of the metal tub and the inside of the plastic housing were coated with waxy gunk. This was probably six years of accumulated soap residue, lint, skin flakes, etc. It took me about an hour to scour this stuff off, then I reassembled everything. I’m hoping that regular vinegar use will help to prevent this buildup form forming again.
Our model has a vent pipe running from the back of the plastic housing to the back of the washer; it’s about 1.5" in diameter and probably is supposed to let the thing dry out if you don’t leave the door open. It also had a collection of scummy gunk inside it, and it looked to me like another inoculation point that re-contaminate the washtub if the tub was cleaned out.