Which type of washing machine causes the least amount of wear to clothing and other fabrics in general: a front loader or a top loader?
I speculate that the front loader is the best because there is no agitator to get snagged up on, and there may be less friction, correct?
Yes. A top loader without an agitator would also be fine, but wouldn’t do as good a job as the clothes don’t get as, well, agitated as a front loader. The rotate-and-drop motion you can see does the same job in a front loader as the agitator in a top loader.
Front loaders also use less water for the same size wash; my impression is they only come in smaller sizes that top loaders though.
In my experience, the Miele brands do the best job. Last time I used one, I was able to go two loads fully washed before I needed to use any soap besides that which was left in the clothes from the previous washing machines. Wish I could afford one in my current place!
Warning: Opinion below
I’m quite happy with my Whirlpool 's ability to clean fabric while not beating it to death. I’ve noticed the biggest difference in denim. Without all the friction of the agitation, the lint filter in the dryer doesn’t get full as quickly. Also: I can put an insane amount of stuff in the barrel. It’s huge.
The only problem with the duet is that the bleach compartment doesn’t always get flushed out thoroughly so I’ve had a few bleach spots on dark clothes. My solution: put the bleach in the detergent compartment & forget the laundry soap for whites. Easy fix.
The Whirlpool Duet is a fantastic machine. A little pricey but I say worth it. The flexibility for setting the wash cycles means that you can adapt it to the job. Water usage is low and wear on the fabric is minimal. It has full size capacity. One really nice feature for some people is that you can stack the dryer on top of the washer.
We have the Maytag Neptune (a front-loader) and believe me, it has a larger capacity than our old Maytag top-loader.
In terms of cubic inches, yes, tumblers are smaller. But, the effective size is pretty much the same.
For starters, you don’t have an agitator taking up space. With a top-load, the clothes need more space to swim around and circulate around the tub - tumblers don’t need all that space.
Another way tumbers are better on clothes is when they kick into that hyper-speed extraction at the end, the clothes come out nearly dry, requiring much less time banging around in the dryer. This is part of why there’s less lint coming off.
I forgot to add:
Which type of washer gets your stuff the cleanest?