I do think that these are the best built AND easy to service machines available today and should be good machines for your laundry situation. Even a main bearing job can be done by a avid do-it yourself-er. You may have also read that SQ engineers consider that a SQ FL washer can last up to 25,000 loads, so you should [ with some repairs ] get 20 years of use out of one [ this is over twice the life that Miele estimates that their washers can last ].

I do wish they still had the boosted hot water option, my 8 YO SQ FL has it and I use it frequently. One other way to get a good hot wash in a Hi Efficiency washer is to use a small 3-6 gallon electric heater near the washer. You can either install it permanently or hook it up with washer inlet hoses and plug it in, connected to the cold water inlet of the washer it would allow you to turn it on 15 minutes before you start a load and then select cold fill for wash and get a really hot wash as you can set many of these small heaters up to 170 degrees. By connection it to the cold inlet you could switch it off when you start the washer and then the cold water for the rinses will cool it off. You of coarse could connect it to the hot side and use it as a booster, this may make more sense if you want to leave it on all the time or if you houses hot water is heated in a more economical way than resistance electric.

You are exactly correct about it not making any difference in the cost of operation of electric heaters on either 120 or 240 volts. But when it comes to motor operation the SAME is true, a 240 motor is not necessarily one cent cheaper to run than a 120 volt motor. It is cheaper to build an efficient 240 motor, but if they were actually cheaper to run you would have seen the blower motors in gas furnaces etc all changed over to 240 volts long ago. On window ACs again there is no difference in the cost of operation between 120 and 240 volt units and in fact historically 240 volt units used to cost much more to run for the same amount of cooling performance, but that was because the manufactures were being lazy and could get away with in the old days, now they have to meet the same standards.

Malcolm, I suspect you are correct that the boosted heat model was just not selling, it was funny how many people we could get to buy a &1300.00 FL washer but would not pay another $90 for the heater, the last one we sold is the one Jon C has.

Jon your old 1955 Bendix would likely have a 220 or 230 volt water heater in it [ check the name tag to be sure ] not a 208 volt one but because you are now operating the machine on 240 volts the heater is doing its job faster and better than it did in 1955. Your new SQ FL washer has a 900 watt 120 volt heater in it and I am sure that you have 120 in your homes.

It doesn't concern me that the machine has been sitting for two years.

You can buy the basic SQ Gas dryer and swap the parts and then you will end up with your  SS Gas dryer and then you can sell the basic electric model. The only problem is you might void the warranties on the dryers, but even with the heavy usage you give the machines you still only have about a one in five chance of needing the three year full warranty.

The SS pair that I got for Jon in Boston will have to be converted to gas when he places them in there final home.

I would have paid extra for the heat boost if it was still offered on the SQ that I recently bought. I purchased mine from AJ Madison and it took over a month to arrive, part of that was a scheduling issue with the shipping company - it sat in Houston for two weeks before they put it on the truck to my house, 80 miles away. Based on what I've heard about SQ's back orders, I feel lucky to get it as quickly as I did.

The major reason for the delay in getting NEW SQs is that they are becoming the victim of there own success, their sales have increased by large margins each of the last three years as more and more people are becoming interested in either purchasing an old fashioned TL washer or as we have found that many of our customers once they have had A Hi Efficiency FL or Calypso type washer that gave a lot of problems they were very interested in buying a very high quality FL SQ washer with a great warranty.

Converting a dryer to gas, it might be easier to just buy the gas burner and related parts to do the conversion, it is very easy to convert to Gas if you have the parts. You could also Pierrot parts from any SQ or Amana gas dryer built in the last thirty years to do the conversion, I have done it many many times. Get in touch if you need more information by emailing me your Phone # and best time to call, John.