I’ve had misgivings about buying a HE washer. Consumer Reports only gave the best model a 79 rating on cleaning. There’s very mixed reviews too. Even that top rated model had comments about it constantly breaking. Other users praised it. That pretty much left me confused and bewildered.
Our Kitchen Washer & Dryer gave us 24 wonderful years of faithful service. Never required a service call. We didn’t want to wait until it actually broke to replace it. Something that old would be almost impossible to buy parts for.
We got the top line Maytag Bravos XL series that both Lowes and Home Depot were running on Black Friday sales. $200 off the washer and $200 off the dryer. Free delivery. I wanted a gas dryer and that was an extra $100 and it includes a steam feature.
Lets just say watching this HE Top Loader washer do its thing is surreal. First it screws around ten minutes just spritzing water, spinning, spritzing water, spinning. Then it goes into the “wash” cycle. I paused it to see how much water it was using. Not very much. I mostly saw suds and about 2 inches of water. :dubious: The wash cycle requires 1 hour 25 minutes. :eek: My old Kitchen Aid took 45 minutes.
Any tips on actually getting clean clothes from these things? I used Heavy and a 2nd rinse. 2 pair of jeans, 6 T-shirts, and a couple of Polo shirts. I kept the load small since these things aren’t rated for cleaning all that well.
How about dumping a bucket of hot water into it during the wash cycle? Anyone tried that? I just hope I didn’t blow $1400 bucks for something that only frustrates us.
The biggest thing I’m going to miss is filling a tub of water, turning off the washer, and soaking whites in a bleach solution. You can add bleach to the Maytag through the bleach dispenser, but there’s never a tub full of water to soak in. We may have to do that manually in our laundry sink. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?
Perhaps I missed it, but does the washer actually deliver sub-par cleaning? That is, after the machine has done it’s thing, are your clothes noticeably still dirty?
This was just my first load with the new HE Top Loader. I was concerned because the user comments on Lowes, Home Depot, and Consumer Reports had a lot of complaints about HE’s in general. Spots on clothes. Pet hair still on clothes. Maintenance problems etc. There were happy, satisfied customers too. So who to believe? Especially when Consumer Reports top rated model (a Samsung) had reader comments saying it broke pretty often.
<shrug> I’m just glad our diaper days are behind us. I can’t help but wonder how these HE’s would deal with diapers. I suspect you’d have to soak them first in a laundry sink with bleach. Thankfully that’s something I won’t have to find out.
I hope the machine does a good job. Saving water is a good thing. But if we end up washing the clothes twice then that sort of defeats the design of HE. I mentioned earlier my Kitchen Aid agitator model required 45 minutes to wash a load. The HE was 1 hour 20min. How is that saving energy?
Guess I shouldn’t complain. My wife and I talked it over for awhile. Maytag still sells atraditional agitator model that with effort we could have found and bought. We wanted to do our bit saving water and energy with the new HE’s. They’ll probably be the only option to purchase in a few more years.
Soon after I had purchased my HE front loader washer I read similar reviews about poor the cleaning quality of these machines. I’ve had a front loader for about 15 years and never experienced any cleaning issues. Although you have a top loader, it may be wise to evaluate your machine over a period of time before grading its ability and/or reliability.
Overall, my ownership and use have been positive and if you crunch the numbers and compare your operating costs between HE and standard washers (savings of detergent, water and fuel to dry clothes due to high spin speed), the HE machines don’t really cost that much more over the life of the appliance. Hope your operates in line with your expectations.
It may turn out ok. Our kids are adults and we’re just washing for two. No need to ever over fill the washer or wash more than three loads a week.
I got rattled by the conflicting reviews. Usually I can pick a product & brand based on Consumer Reports’ lab testing and online reviews. I feel like I’m making an informed choice. But these HE washers can’t be pegged that easily. There isn’t any one brand that everyone gushes over and loves. It seems to be a product some really like and others hate.
I just want clean clothes. No stains or pet hair on them. No sweat stains on my T shirts. No skid mark stains in my drawers either. Doesn’t take much to make me a happy consumer.
We’ve had this thread, more or less, 3 or 4 times now. What I picked up from the previous iterations was some people understand intellectually that you don’t need a lot of water to get clothes clean, but emotionally it just doesn’t feel right to them and they really want to see their clothes floating in soapy water.
The typical exchange was…
Q: Do you agree that much of the world uses low water washing machines?
A: Yes
Q: Do those people have clean clothes?
A: Yes
Q: Can low water washing machines clean clothes
A: No
I had the impression it was like someone who understands the physics of falling objects in a vacuum, has seen the video of the astronaut dropping the feather and the hammer on the moon, but against their better judgement would still bet money on the hammer if someone opened book on a hammer/feather moon race.
For what it’s worth we have a top loading, low water, HE washer. We have lots of kids and pets. We fill it to the brim all the time and our clothes come out looking and smelling just fine. My “tip” on getting stuff clean would be, “Throw stuff in, hit the on button, come back when it’s done.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the OP has yet said whether the new machine did a good or poor job on cleaning his clothes. And my understanding is that if it’s a HE machine, you really, really should use the special HE detergents.
Keeping the load small won’t help since those machines automatically adjust the amount of water to the load size. That’s what the spritzing and spinning was all about.
We have a top loading HE machine for a year now and our clothes seem clean to me. And we have three dogs, two quite big so lots of dog hair. It is cool how it weighs the load and adds the water just enough for whatever load it is. Then again I may not be so observant of spots. And my work out clothes had stains already from with the old washer.
Be curious to have you return after month with your compare contrast.
The load I ran last night seems ok. Hard to really know until after a few weeks of washing. It takes awhile to notice if whites are getting dingy or whether stains are coming out. The next load will be sheets. The washer has a special setting for that. I plan to continue taking blankets to the laundromat. I’ve always washed bedspreads and blankets there.
I’ve used All Free & Clear since it was introduced (2000? or maybe 2003?). Turns out its HE rated. So I can keep using it.
I have the same washer and am quite happy with results after going through a slight learning curve. What I have learned:
Be sure to distribute your wash items around the base leaving the center slightly open. This does matter. I like the wrinkle-free cycle for my lightly worn clothing.
Use “bulky” for heavily caked soil such as mud. This cycle uses more water for better saturation and soil removal.
I have found that the white cycle is the hottest and longest so use this for wash items needing bleach.
Obviously, you need to use the HE detergent. I use both the Tide HE with Febreeze and the Tide HE Free and Gentle.
People, appliances have changed a lot. You can’t buy a new-gen one and keep using it the same way you did your mother’s old clunker. You have to read the usage instructions, and ideally some general tutorials on the new tech (HE, low water, etc.) or you will be bitterly unhappy. A zillion DW or washer cycles used to be a marketing joke; now you really need to understand the differences and use the right setting for each load.
Mrs. B., unfortunately, is convinced that all appliances work the same as they did when she first learned to use them ca. 1975. It’s… an issue.
Thank you. I was hoping others could better help me figure out these power cycles. The different power cycles are what I’m struggling to learn. Which ones are a bit more generous in filling the tub with water. At least this Maytag has an extra rinse feature that only requires a button push.
I used Heavy last night. I’ll try Bulky with a load of towels. There’s quite a few cycles to experiment with.
My HE doesn’t get clothes as clean as a real washing machine does. Grease spots do not come out without pre-treating, and towels smell weird when they’re done (yes, we’ve done the vinegar thing and cleaned the seal). It seems to clean things about 75% as well as a real washing machine. I think the problem is, the agitation is too soft. The machine is good enough for normal-worn clothes that didn’t have anything spilled on them, but not good enough for towels or spills or heavy-duty-dirty clothes (like work clothes or diapers). And a washing machine that isn’t good enough for 100% of dirty clothes is worth 0% usefulness to me.
This, in spades. I have an HE front loader. It’s got some special requirements (there’s a drain at the bottom, and a filter, needs HE soap, and you have to leave the door open so it dries out after a load) so more fiddly than my older front loader. Cleans great.
I briefly saw a commercial for one new washing machine that suggested a useful new feature. If what I saw was correct, the machine has a compartment for detergent that holds more than you need for a single load (like perhaps a quart or more) so that the machine can measure and dispense whatever is needed for each load. That seems like a clever idea. No more measuring out a capful each time.
Our HE front loader has been going strong for 12 years. Did cloth diapers just fine for about four years. No issues, other than installing a switch to turn it off with the door open. I assume the newer models are smarter about that.
If you have some washing powder you want to use, put it in first, at the bottom. There will be water at the bottom, so it will disolve. (At least there will be water and it will disolve if you use the low-effeciency setting). This is true even of low-suddsing front-loader powder. (I use liquid now).
If you put powder (or powder in a bucket of water) in last, as I used to do with the old agitators, you just get white specs of washing powder on the clothes at the top. Using the soap tray is just as bad, since it splashes the soapy water out on top of the pile of clothes.
Which is also true of food or dirt: my HE top loader cannot wash food off of clothes.
My sister-in-law has the same HE top loader as I do, and loves it. She loves that she can put all her clothes into one load. She loves that she can take all her clothes out and hang them out to dry in one load. With no agitator, and very little agitation, it takes a huge load.
I hate it. I don’t like white lint on black clothes, or black lint on white clothes. It wears the fabric much faster and, it can’t move food off the kid’s clothing. I’d much rather have many small loads to hang out so I can come inside and check other tasks and other people, and even on slow spin it creases all my drip-dry shirts.
Clothes that go in dirty don’t come out still stinky or stained: I think of the HE top loader as like a big soaking machine that soaks my clothes is soapy water for 1 hour, then rinses and spins for 30 minutes.
Anyone tried that? I just hope I didn’t blow $1400 bucks for something that only frustrates us.
My wife and I talked it over for awhile. Maytag still sells a
Doesn’t take much to make me a happy consumer.