Bought a SpeedQueen 2 years ago, been very happy with it, zero issues. Top loader, it has the electronic controls. I was going to buy the model with the mechanical controls (they still sold it then) but this was $50 more and the warranty is longer. Reason? The electric panel is more reliable than the mechanical controls. the whole deal has a 10 year warranty, stem to stern.
Still no fancy sensors or anything. You tell it exactly what you want it to do. Does a good job cleaning everything we've tossed in it. We cloth diaper, so at least 2-3x a week it does a heaping load of poopy diapers, and they come out clean as new. I also run my foul-smelling shop and yard clothes through it. And we have hard well water.
On the dryer, we're still using a 20+ year old Maytag that came with the house. Every few years something breaks, and I fix it. All the parts are like $20, and I can take it apart and put it together in under an hour.
So there's my recommendation: $1000 Speedqueen washer and a basic $100 dryer. Also, line dry whenever you can- saves a bunch of energy.
Speedqueen household here.
Something I was told is Speedqueen really uses hot water where all the others "hot" is a mix of hot and cold...for economy.
I was also told Speedqueen doesn't have a good efficiency rating because it uses so much water...not a concern where I live, but of course it may matter to some..
Previous Washer was GE Profile Top Load which lasted about 14 years. Had a bunch of buttons we didn't use, and started rusting bad around the fabric softener? trough bad enough to start staining clothes. Tub was stainless.
Ugg, now I feel old.
I have a whirlpool that has to be at least as old as my house (16 years). I replaced the agitator gears once for <$20 IIRC. Its basic, but it works well. Eventually some part will 'total' it, but until then I doubt I will upgrade. The end of cycle buzzer on it will wake the dead.
The only feature that new ones have that I wish it had is the high efficiency/no center agitator. Clothes seem to come out of the washer dryer with those, and they use less water.
I hang dry 95% of my stuff. My dryer is a basic whirlpool.
In reply to ProDarwin :
I remember the smell and softness of line dried sheets etc. Those fabrics softener sheets don’t come near the same thing.
However like many urban communities we can no longer hang the wash outside. Especially in inner city’s where pollution is so dominate.
More’s the pity,
frenchyd said:
In reply to ProDarwin :
I remember the smell and softness of line dried sheets etc. Those fabrics softener sheets don’t come near the same thing.
However like many urban communities we can no longer hang the wash outside. Especially in inner city’s where pollution is so dominate.
More’s the pity,
I hang dry most of my stuff inside. Just a simple drying rack. I put it right over a HVAC vent in the closet so dry air blows across all the clothes whenever it runs.
I would like to do it outside more, the problem is A) rain, B) not being home and forgetting the clothes are out there.
Fisher & Paykel, made in New Zealand. I asked the local appliance repair guy what brands he never works on and they were his recommendation. Have had our washer for probably a dozen years now with never an issue.
In reply to ProDarwin :
Those are good solutions to problems. It also helps put humidity into the house during the dry winter months.
But still never as nice as summer outside drying on the line. Wind shaking the clothes/sheets to get them soft, Yet urban/ suburban communities restrict the practice.
I messed up when I designed my home. Sure I put the washer/dryer right next to the master bedroom with the potential for a clothes shoot from upstairs. But doing that made the laundry room too small to hang clothes to dry.
In reply to ProDarwin :
We line dry inside too. It works especially well with the drying rack near the wood stove in the winter.
Our laundry machines are in the basement, so it's a hike to get clothes down there. But being an old farm house, we also have a set of Dorothy doors that open right next to the clothes washer out into the yard where the outdoor clothes line is.
We have Samsung HE top loader and matching dryer. 2 years old in September (we purchased new when I bought the house).
Occasionally, the washer gets upset if a heavy blanket is in the drum and gets out of balance. Other than that neither have given us a problem.
LG front loaders here, probably 5-6 years old at this point, all the electronic doodads. They've been pretty much trouble-free, though we do get the mildewy smell if we don't leave the door open. Our next (and hopefully last) pair will be top-loading Speed Queens.
Speed Queen. Someone might have said that already
In my mind we need 1) a washer that washes, and 2) a dryer that dries; reliability is critical and at low a price as possible. However, my wife continues to insist on appliances with high-tech features and thus we have recurring headaches with every one of them. Learn from our mistakes.
mark_elliot said:
We've almost 7 years old LG front load washer. It works flawlessly. Before that, it was Samsung and after about half a year, problems with the drum began. In that year,we bought a Whirlpool dishwasher, while it works without problems, but as I heard there are a lot of negative reviews from the owners. I hope everything will be fine, but maybe I'd choose Bosch
Let's see, necro post from a first time poster, oddly formatted - I'm thinking this could be:
A washing machine canoe!
