I was reading in Newsweek last evening that Maytag is developing a new
larger horizontal axis washer. In case you don't know what these are, they
are the front loaders that are used at that laundromats. It is also worth
noting that horizontal axis machines use less energy than thier top loading
cousins. So how likely are you to buy a new front loader?

25 responses total.

We found a front-loader.  They get thrown out once in a while.  The door was
leaking around the glass.  Taking it apart and putting it back together
properly fixed it.  The machine works fine, uses half or less as much water,
holds more laundry, uses less detergent too, of course, gets things just as
clean.  Maytag, Frigidaire and Asko are sold at Big Georges, quite
expensively, but our White-Westinghouse seems about as good.  Only proble is
sleeves and sheets tend to get tangled together.  Stabler Industries, which
has been doing repairs for all the manufacturers of commercial machines, sells
direct to consumer, a machine they have designed to last nearly forever, but
it costs $1200.  They are on the Web.  It opens from the top but is horizontal
axis, meaning it spins like the other front-loaders.  Claim to use 1/3 as much
water.  Our front loader washes more quietly but makes loud clacking sounds
when it is switching between wash and spin.  The only other problem is you
have to bend and stretch to get the clean clothing out (which is probably good
for people, improves flexibility) and newer machines are easier to unload.
Horizontal-axis machines are much less likely to rip clothing, as it is not
pulled around back and forth, but swept up and then dropped.  

(I *always* have troublp with sleeves and/or sheets, regardless of the
machine)

My mother always had a front-loader -- ah, that's not quite true.  I vaguely
remember a wringer washer, from when I was too small to be allowed in the
basement by myself!  But anyway, she never had a top-loading machine.  And
she routinely kept a small chair nearby, so that she could empty it while
sitting down, without the bending & stretching involved in getting stuff
out of a top-loader.

Don't wash your caving ropes in a front loader (perhaps the most useless
information ever entered in this conference for most people.....). I once
used a front loader at a laundromat (better than at home....) to wash a
*very* muddy 120 foot caving rope. Nowadays the technique is to put the
rope in a mesh bag, but I didn't know that then. After the wash cycle was
well advanced, a loop of the rope got between the drum and the door, and
stalled the machine. I therefore had a washing machine full of a thin
slurry of mud and soap, and no way "to go forward or back". In the end, I
opened the door - and spent some time thereafter mopping the whole
laundromat over and over and over.... ... 

This response has been erased.

        Someone is now making or soon will be making a horizontal axis
combination washer/dryer. Put em in dirty get em out clean and dry.

Sounds like a great way to save space, but i'd be mighty concerned about
the reliability & repair costs.

Pat, can you find more info on the Internet?  These might be in use in Europe
already.  The drawback i, I think, that dryers of the same size as washers
can only dry half as much clothing.  There are also dryers that will condense
the water vapor and drain it to the plumbing system, while retaining the heat.
Look for those on the Internet too, let us know.

One of the new front loaders, I think Maytag, has a hand-wash cycle or
attachment for woolens that somehow does not pull on the fabric and therefore
does not cause shrinkage (but you still have to use cool water, same temp for
wash and rinse).  Anyone know more about how it works?  Or have any good ideas
about how to wash wool sweaters?  We go through a lot of them and I have been
washing them in a dishpan and then semi-draining them in the dish drainer
before laying them out on a towel and then on a line, where they still drip.
Are there any gadgets for hand-spinning out the water?  (Like salad).  I have
tried washing them, then taking them down to the basement washer to run
through the spin cycle, then up again to wash in the kitchen sink, etc.

This response has been erased.

A friend and I both noticed that after you wash wool sweaters in the washing
machine a few times, even on the cold setting, you have *small* wool sweaters.
It is not noticeable at first.  The pulling causes the fibers to link
together, sort of like velcro, i. e., they felt together and get thicker and
warmer, but also smaller.  If you wear your sweaters oversized to start with,
you may get more life out of them, but I don't and have therefore stopped
using the washing machine on them.  Same problems with wool shirts.  Blankets
I don't care if they shrink and get warmer, I am short.  I will wash small
things like wool socks in a little mesh bag, if I don't care about a bit of
shrinkage in the machine.  My problem with the hand wash is I don't think I
can get out enough of the dirty water by just squeezing them, and they
therefore will not end up very clean, and not-so-clean sweaters when stored
in a warm place undergo the same reaction as hard-sausages, the proteins ;and
oils ferment and they actually start to smell like sausages.  (Also the dirt
attracts moths, which can't eat pure wool). Would it hurt the sweaters to wrap
them in a towel and then wring the towel?  Wringing the sweater alone pulls
on the fibers and stretches it out (or maybe felts it?).

        Wringing in a towel is how my mother always did it. Then lay it on a
spread, dry towel to dry.

This response has been erased.

Valerie, can you use my shrunk sweaters, if I shrink any more?  What length
sleeve would you like, I can arrange it for you.  How about some nice short
long underwear?  (Guaranteed not to come anywhere near your socks).
Anybody know why my down jacket says dry clean or hand wash?  I always wash
it in the machine, and have not noticed any problems.  Feathers don't shrink,
I also machine-wash pillows, but you have to either spend a lot of time first
pushing them under to get the air out, or give them a spin before the wash.
Why do some catalogs tell you to dry-clean everything, even the cottons?

Feathers tend to stick together if wetted - they matt. One has to refluff
them to regain the insulation. Dry cleaning does not do/require this.
I have always washed down jackets and sleeping bags in washing machines,
but you want to do multiple rinses to get out all the detergent.

I think one of the tricks with down is to dry it on the lowest setting 
and throw 3 (clean) tennis balls in with to help break up the matted
clumps of down.

        I keep an old tennis shoe to throw in the dryer to fluff my down. Works
great.

I don't have a dryer, but wait for a very warm dry day (or use the furnace
room) and keep spreading the feathers around inside the item by hand, and it
dries within a day or two.  Why should it make any difference if you do hand
or machine wash of down, both ways it mats?  Jim heard that regular dry
cleaning is bad for the feathers, they get stripped of oil and become brittle,
and thinks perhaps a very mild detergent would be best.

I think that's why I learned to water-wash down items. Machine washing
and drying does tend to break down/feathers, so over a long time one
has powdered down/feathers, which is not as good an insulator. But then,
I don't wash down items very often...

This response has been erased.

Make very sure there are no holes in the cases first.  They are  nuisance to
wash, and you need either a dryer or a very hot dry day to dry them, and keep
shaking/fluffing them or they will mildew.  I find that if I put three or four
pillow cases on them, and when I take off the top one, add a clean one on the
bottom, they stay clean enough without washing the pillow.  (That means take
off all the pillow cases every time before putting on a new one.)  I had
little luck washing the polyester (cheap) kind that sell for $4 at Kmart, they
just came apart, and are apparently designed to be disposable.  If the cover
survived, the contents shifted badly.  For feather pillows, one time I took
apart the seam, removed the feathers, just washed the case, and put it back
together, but this does not get the feathers clean after someone drools on
them or eats breakfast in bed on them.

I've got 1 pillowcase (wash regularly) over a zippered pillow cover (wash
semiannually) over my pillows (never seem to need it), but without any
kids, drool, breakfast in bed, etc.

You can wash wool garments is a washing machine, if your machine will
allow you to pick the temp. for the rinse cycle.  You need to use lukewarm
water, hot water or cold water are the biggest causes of shrinkage and
felting.  You might want to use the gentle cycle as it has a gentler
spin cycle.  Never dry in a dryer.

What I read was you need to use the same rinse as wash temperature, such as
both lukewarm or both cold, because temperature changes cause shrinkage.  But
the pulling motion of a washer also causes shrinkage, unless the wool has been
speciall treated to be machine-washable (the little hooks are either
chemically removed or covered with a film of some plastic).  I have definitely
shrunk sweaters with cold-cold wash-rinse.  The gentle cycle on my old machine
had a slower wash cycle, don't know about the spin, which should not affect
the shrinkage.  Maybe I should try sacrificing an old sweater to my
front-loader gentle cycle (measure it before and after - I have one full of
holes to experiment on).  I think the cycle is also slower, but have never
used it.  Clever idea.  Will report back eventually on this.  I meant I would
measure something like sleeve length before and after.  Thanks.

Top loaders have a warning not to wrap items around the agitator, front-
loaders don't have an agitator so there's at least one advantage.

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss