OMG I can't believe how crappy consumer laundry equipment is

sms · 2014-06-09T17:22:59+00:00

I've been out of the loop when it comes to repairing washers and dryers since for the past 30 years I've purchased only commercial machines for my own house and for one rental townhouse. These machines "never" break under normal residential use since they're designed for laundromats and everything about them is heavy duty from the motors to the tubs to the internal plumbing. They're also serviceable from the front if anything ever breaks. They have only a two knobs for choices for washes: hot/warm/cold and normal/permanent press/delicate. Yesterday my wife asks if I'll look at the machine in her mom's garage in San Francisco which is leaking water on the floor. Removing the back of this Whirlpool was a nightmare of plastic spring clips and electrical connections. I saw that the drain hose was leaking, an amazingly awful cheap, thin, flex plastic hose. Everything inside that could be plastic, was plastic. I ordered a drain hose and a pump hose on Amazon for $35 or so. I dread trying to replace these. I have a sister-in-law that must love buying appliances. This washer is only about three years old and it replaced a much better, still functional, washer. When I asked why they bought this she said that it was because it was "energy efficient and water-efficient." Well for washing machines, which use very little electricity, this really means that it's designed to sense the size of the load and reduce the amount of water, which is a good theory but rarely works in practice. Back at my rental unit, the tenants decided that they wanted fancy new front loaders which I told them that they were welcome to buy, but I wasn't going to buy them. That meant I had to sell my precious Speed Queen commercial machines since I had no place to store them. To buy those machine new today would cost me $2000. They are about 15 years old and I got $350 for the pair. They bought LG machines. The tenant (an Apple software engineer) and me (a hardware engineer) spent...

Jun 09, 2014 44 Replies

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clare 12 years ago

Likey true of some models, but not all. Your sample of one make/model/unit is hardly a representative sample to base a generalization on.

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sms 12 years ago

No, it's the one's made by the various Whirlpool divisions that have the auto-load sense. Can't speak for GE or the European or Korean brands.

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sms 12 years ago

You're right, it's the ones made by Whirlpool, under various brand names, that the repair guy was familiar with. It could well be that LG, Samsung, GE, Miele, etc. don't have this issue if they have automatic load sensing.

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trader_4 12 years ago

Part of the reason for trying to limit waste water like toilets is that it's a two part problem. It uses water and it creates waste water that then in many cases has to be treated. That takes energy, chemicals, $$$ treatment facilities, etc.

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trader_4 12 years ago

You better bolt her down! Otherwise it might have a mechanical malfunction or fire and go flying off to the Indian Ocean off Australia, if you believe some folks theories....

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