Better And Better

If you don't draw yours, I won't draw mine. A police officer, working in the small town that he lives in, focusing on family and shooting and coffee, and occasionally putting some people in jail.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

So I've got this cool washing machine.

It's a Whirlpool Duet front-loader. It has more controls than an Apollo command module. I've wanted one for awhile, and after we went through two used washers just since moving into this house (one, we had bought used 5 years ago and it finally died. The other, we bought used at an auction, and it died before the first load was through.), we just went out and bought one, right before Christmas.
We shopped around, played the stores off each other, and got it deeply discounted at Lowe's, with no interest, no payments for a year. They delivered, installed it, and even carted off the other two washers. All well and good. Yes, I'm paying for this service, but not very much, and it's my first new washing machine that I've ever had, in the history of ever. You're damned right, I bought the extended warranty.

So back to what this thing can do-- it centrifuges your clothes dry at 1050 rpm. If you have someone take sick in the house, it has an on-board water heater that will kick your house hot water up to 165 degrees farenheit. It will tell you, at any given moment in the cycle, exactly how many minutes it has left to finish. It will throw in an extra rinse, if that's your game. It will give you different chimes to tell you the cycle it's on, or not. It will let you adjust the volume for same. It uses half the normal amount of detergent, and less than half the normal amount of water. It makes your drying time take about half as long. And, with it up on the wooden home-made pedistal (I'm not paying $120 for their store-bought one.), I can move clothes from the washer to the dryer all in the same motion, with everything on the same plane of interface.
The very observant reader and picture-viewer will be able to detect just how proud of this thing I was, when I first got it.* It seemingly could do anything.
What it will NOT do, is run without power. When the ~40 year-old electrical outlet, which has held a plug in its teeth for probably all but one of those years, decides that it has no spring tension left in it, it drops the electrical cord right out of itself. This can somewhat interfere with one's getting-ready routine, when one can't even open the sealed door to the washing machine that has stopped mid-cycle. I tried three times before jumping the cord to another outlet.
Bah. Time to replace all of the house electrical outlets. Snarl.
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*Note the date of the pictures. 3 weeks ago. The plug hadn't given up the ghost yet, but I was some freakish fellow, taking pictures of his washing machine. What? Was I going to put them in my wallet??!?

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15 Comments:

At Thursday, January 08, 2009 7:02:00 AM, Blogger The Lily said...

Thanks. Now I have serious appliance envy. Pain compounded by serious appliance back-up, as I can't have a washer/dryer per the covenant of my condo association.

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 7:03:00 AM, Blogger The Lily said...

WHICH, is not to say you don't deserve such a fabulous machine. Please do not interpret the above as anything less than deliriously happy that you have such an AWESOME machine. :) need moar coffee.

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 8:52:00 AM, Blogger Walrilla said...

Dude! I've got that same washing machine and dryer pair! It is absolutely amazing, isn't it?

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 9:40:00 AM, Blogger closed said...

Be careful.

A lot of vendors ( leviton included ) are putting crap on the shelves with the "UL listed" logo.

"Listed" does not equal "Approved".

If you want decent outlets, you will need to find a contractor's supplier, and get commercial grade ones.

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 9:41:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Matt -

I'm fairly new to your blog. Love your new washing machine! My husband bought me a similar set for Christmas, but didn't get the pedestals either. We've been talking about building something to get the machines off of the floor. Would you be willing to tell me how you built your platform so that we can build one too?

Heather

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 10:19:00 AM, Blogger MedicMatthew said...

My folks have this same pair and it is quite impressive. A buddy of mine has a similar product from LG, his dryer though will run without power. Apparently it has an on-board generator so that if you reach in and give the drum a good spin it will power up the unit. Pretty impressive

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 10:52:00 AM, Blogger Sabra said...

If I had one of those, I probably would carry pictures of it around in my wallet. That's what I daydream of when I'm trying to kick my elderly washer through one more load.

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 12:39:00 PM, Blogger Mike Sierra said...

Congrats on the awesome new washer.

You may want to put your new-fangled washer on a surge protected circuit. A buddy has a similar washing machine and it was fried by a surge. The replacement circuit board cost the equivalent of two good, used Glocks. He was able to find a used board on e-bay for considerably less but it was still a headache.

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 4:46:00 PM, Blogger Crucis said...

Some thirty years ago, I got an unexpected bonus just before Christmas. I bought a Sears washer and dryer and had Sears deliver and install them while my wife was away at the laundromat. I put a red Bow on each.

To this day, my wife keeps the bows on the washer and dryer. The washer croaked a few years ago and she transferred the bow to the new washer, but the dryer is still working and its bow.

 
At Thursday, January 08, 2009 10:22:00 PM, Blogger Ninja Pharmer said...

I have a front loading washer too. I grew up in England, where they're very common, so coming to the US for the first time many years ago I was somewhat shocked at what I considered to be water and power hog top loading machines and jumped at the opportunity to purchase a HE front loader.

It uses less water, less power (I did a comparison study of the water and electricity usage from when I was using a traditional machine and then switched to a HE) and it spins the clothes MUCH drier than a top loader does. Plus, there's that handy dandy dispensing drawer for the detergent and bleach and fabric softener.

I'll never go back to a traditional machine again.

 
At Friday, January 09, 2009 8:36:00 AM, Blogger LauraB said...

Congrats! I LOVE a front loader!! I bought those lovely Whirlpool Neptunes W/D. It's been 10 yrs or more and they still run just fine.

But I have to admit some appliance envy - yours definitely has more bells and whistles. And good on ya for the extended warranty. Few items are worth the expense - those are.

Ditto on the mounting schematics - would love to mine to higher ground...

 
At Friday, January 09, 2009 10:52:00 AM, Blogger Tam said...

The last time I've ever seen someone geek out that hard over a washing machine, it was me. :p

 
At Saturday, January 10, 2009 5:45:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

We got the Samsung units with VRT (Vibration Reduction Technology). Part of that is a set of ball bearings in the rim of the drum that counterbalance the load. I love hearing it start to spin up out of balance and then just smooth out to that high-speed whirr.

Lowes didn't have the model we wanted in stock when we bought ours so we wound up getting the slightly newer set where the dryer can steam refresh your clothes. Great for 'hand wash only' clothes because you can refresh them four or five times before having to wash them.

Oh, and our washer has a 'Silver' tech where it will electrically chew some ionic silver off of a bar to sanitize your clothes. The bar's good for about 1,000 loads but it adds about 15 minutes to the wash time. This way you can sanitize even in the hand-wash cycle without having to use the extremely hot water (which it will do as well if you want).

And yes, we did sit there and watch the first few cycles of each machine. Used flashlights for a better view too.

 
At Saturday, January 17, 2009 7:42:00 AM, Blogger Julie said...

hehehe, i just found your blog and I discover photos of a washing machine ... right?!?

Okay, so it's not your most recent post but it is certainly the oddest topic i've seen blogged about.

 
At Saturday, January 17, 2009 8:11:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Matt,

Congrats on your purchase! If you find over time the spinning vibration annoying, I used 1/2" closed foam cell on top of 1" plywood to dampen it. In your case, I recon you could just put it on top of your pedestal.

I second what Milspec said, get a plug in surge protector.

Steve

 

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