Thread Number: 15877
The era of traditional TL's(coming to and end?) |
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Post# 265777 , Reply# 1   2/19/2008 at 23:17 (5,882 days old) by launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Top loading washing machines with central beaters (agitators), will indeed die a slow death if water and energy restrictions get anymore tighter in the United States. Top loaders need enough water to move through the laundry, too little and you are beating clothing against itself and the beater, which causes fabric damage, besides poor cleaning results. Of course the problem could be eliminated by using less than full wash loads, but setting the machine to it's highest water level, but that just prolongs wash day. Problem right now is that washing machines like many other major appliances are more and more becoming "consumer" goods, rather than durable goods. It's rare to have a washing machine last five years, much less the ten or fifteen our grandmother's units had for a lifespan. With such short lifespans, consumers are not willing by and large, to pay huge sums of money for new washers, and that hurts R&D into keeping top loaders alive. No company is going to pour the resources into designing a top loader that can deal with energy regulations if they cannot forsee selling enough units in a period of time to recoup costs. |
Post# 265788 , Reply# 3   2/20/2008 at 02:23 (5,882 days old) by twinniefan (Sydney Australia)   |   | |
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Tuthill and Laundress, As well as mandated water usage and energy efficiency standards,the state governments of Queensland,New South Wales and now South Australia offer consumers between $150.00 and $200.00 cash back for purchasing washing machines which have a minimum 4 star water efficiency rating and I think the same for energy. Now the only top loading machine available here which is eligible for this rebate the the Fisher And Paykel Aquasmart models,no other top loader meets these standards so if you would like this rebate you most likely will go for a front loader,although funnily enough there is also a national standard which requires a minimum level of proper rinsing which actually some front loaders fail to meet,so what do governments want I wonder?. Do these type of inducements exist in the U.S.A.as well? Cheers. Steve. |
Post# 265797 , Reply# 4   2/20/2008 at 04:04 (5,882 days old) by launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Post# 265813 , Reply# 5   2/20/2008 at 06:47 (5,882 days old) by toggleswitch (New York City, NY)   |   | |
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Post# 265819 , Reply# 7   2/20/2008 at 07:28 (5,882 days old) by gadgetgary (Bristol,CT)   |   | |
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Post# 265821 , Reply# 8   2/20/2008 at 07:35 (5,882 days old) by gadgetgary (Bristol,CT)   |   | |
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Post# 265826 , Reply# 9   2/20/2008 at 07:51 (5,882 days old) by frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie)   |   | |
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Post# 265841 , Reply# 12   2/20/2008 at 10:04 (5,881 days old) by rp2813 (Sannazay)   |   | |
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Post# 265892 , Reply# 13   2/20/2008 at 15:38 (5,881 days old) by toggleswitch (New York City, NY)   |   | |
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~I wonder why US market haven't considered yet the TLHA like a solution to this problem... It is my understanding that the interpretation of the American consumer maket at the time front-loaders made their latest "grand en-masse debut" was that we would not (easily) tolerate: 1- Small porhole/openings. 2- Small cpacity machines. 3- Slow time-consuming machines ("Time is money") 4- Inconvenience of bending/awkward loading. 5- Poor performace, lack of bleach and excessive temperatures. (Cultural norms are hard to change!!!!) So the classic and well-known front-loader was Americanized. (Super-size it for only 99 cents!). A- Bigger drum and door. Outer cabinets reconfigured to be approximatley 27" x 27" (the existing "standard"), some even deeper. B- A quick cycle/programme time of 30+/- minutes. C- Hot and cold fill. D- On-board heater only on TOL models, not mandatory. E- Wattage/amperage draw tempered to work on our 120v circuitry/system. [NOTE: washer and GAS dryer were traditionally configured to work on ONE 20a 120v circuit (1,920 watts where 120v x 20a x 0.80%) (1,920w = 16a total, with a 10a washer + 6a dryer. Here is a news-flash. Compacts and portables have not yet been hit with mainstream and name-brand front-load washers. So where is everyone with 21" square (53cm2) front-loaders? In the past essentially only Whirlpool made compacts domestically and slapped everyone else's badge on them. To get 21" machines we may HAVE TO begin seeing HAFL-ers. and that is not a bad thing! And to get them at 18" wide (40cm) would be even more fabulous! |
Post# 265901 , Reply# 15   2/20/2008 at 16:10 (5,881 days old) by laundramatt (Youngstown, Ohio)   |   | |
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Not as long as I have breath in my lungs and enough money to buy toploaders!!! |
Post# 265924 , Reply# 17   2/20/2008 at 18:08 (5,881 days old) by launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Problem with vertical axis top loaders grows as one tries to design uber sized units that hold what Americans consider "standard" capacity for a top loading washing machine, about 18lbs. Consumer Reports panned Staber's unit because of "capacity" issues. There are great washing machines out there, both top loading and front loading that have more features than any of us could ever want, and are built for the duration; problem is they are mainly commercial units that would set one back several thousand, which is what a domestic washer would cost built to those specs. Sadly Amercian consumers, for the most part, have a hard time getting their heads around washing machines that cost upwards of one thousand dollars or more. |
Post# 265948 , Reply# 19   2/20/2008 at 22:36 (5,881 days old) by laundromat (Hilo, Hawaii)   |   | |
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Post# 265994 , Reply# 20   2/21/2008 at 09:05 (5,880 days old) by kenmoreguy64 (Charlotte, NC)   |   | |
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I remember a time in the 70s, more than once actually, when I came home from being at a friends's house (I was about 10 maybe) and my mother and several of her friends/neighbors were on the back porch talking....I'd hear someone say "I just had to buy a new washing machine". It was a huge deal, the cost outlay, the difficult decision to get rid of the old one, the expectations of the new one, etc. To some it seemed like a stressful purchase. Yes, they sure were durable goods in those days. If we look at prices of a Kenmore mid-line machine through the years, the prices have remained relatively fixed, even with inflation, so there's no alternative for the machines to have become cheaper and cheaper from a quality standpoint, and thus switch from durable goods to consumer goods. In 1962 a Kenmore 60 or 70 was priced around $225 or so. My folks paid $269 for a 70 in 1974, and $330 for another 70 in 1983. I paid $359 for mine in late 1986. I also bought a new Mustang in 1986 for $9,000. In 2004 I bought another new Mustang - that one cost me $21,000 and I got nearly 25% off the sticker. I could have bought a Kenmore 70 though for $399 at about anytime in 2004. The prices for washers and probably appliances in general have not kept up with inflation, which I'm not complaining about, but consumers have forced this to happen, but at the same time have allowed their expectations of machines to drop. People ask me frequently what I would recommend in a new washer purchase. I usually suggest a Whirlpool made direct drive top loader. Years ago I felt they were junk, but now they look quite good comparatively speaking. I do not believe that a small family or single person would reap the energy saving benefits of an HE machine as compared to the price outlay vs. a well-proven design top loader. A big family or in areas where energy and/or water is expensive, yes. For the rest of us, not yet anyway. Then again I still hear complaints about the Maytag Neptune's durability and stuff about the class-action lawsuits regarding the HE Whirlpool top loaders (can't remember their name at the moment). For the moment, and until a front loader is durable enough that we can get $1000 worth of service from it, I'll stay with a top loader as long as they're still made, OR keep working on repairing old ones. |
Post# 266899 , Reply# 22   2/27/2008 at 14:11 (5,874 days old) by brant_ix (Westford, MA)   |   | |
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You might want to look at the MayTag Epic 9700. It gives you a lot more options, spin speed, Deep Soak, and Rinse and has better reliability over the Duets since they were the old KitchenAid Models retagged. Consumers and Consumer Reports give them 4.8 and 4.9 *'s out of five for satisfaction and options. CLICK HERE TO GO TO brant_ix's LINK |
Post# 267132 , Reply# 23   2/28/2008 at 21:04 (5,873 days old) by conate ()   |   | |
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Thanks, I will! Nate |
Post# 267335 , Reply# 27   2/29/2008 at 21:54 (5,872 days old) by passatdoc (Orange County, California)   |   | |
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Prego, prego. |
Post# 267406 , Reply# 30   3/1/2008 at 10:53 (5,871 days old) by kenmoreguy64 (Charlotte, NC)   |   | |
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Actually, many many good disposed of machines, top load or otherwise, do go on to reconditioners and rebuilders. Many a store and individual in Charlotte has made their livings doing this. I think with the more "disposability" of the newer machines and the cheaper (relatively speaking) prices of some top loaders, there may not be as much of a niche as there once was with used appliances, but MANY do go on to have second lives. The situation varies in municipalities throughout the country, but here our disposed of machines that do go to the landfill/crusher are set-out for a while for others to scavenge parts from. In some cases I have heard where people have arranged "deals" with the site managers for whole machines. When machines are hauled away by appliance stores such as BestBuy, HH Gregg, Sears, whatever...they usually have deals arranged with local people to pickup their stache each evening or specific days and the haulers can sell or dispose of the stuff at their leisure, almost always to guys like me who like to tinker and repair/restore. I rebuilt more than 50 Kenmore and Whirlpool belt-drive washers in the 90s for fun. I arranged a deal with the Sears store manager in town at the store that was responsible for all the appliance distribution in Charlotte. When I found out they were putting ALL their haul-backs into a compactor like that in the video, I gasped and asked if I could have them instead. I was shocked that nobody had asked this before, but the manager was thrilled to be able to decommission the compactor and lower his liability insurance. It was a small personal victory for me to see the compactor itself hauled away! A friend of mine, who repaired and sold appliances for a living, lived nearby the Sears store. He went by there every weekday to get whatever Sears had accumulated. Sometimes he'd get me to help. I always wanted to keep EVERYTHING, but he'd occasionally force me to dump something in the crusher that probably did belong there. We did this for about 6 or 7 years until Sears changed their distribution method and farmed out the deliveries to an outside company as a cost savings. But, for the time we had the deal, we saved hundreds and hundreds of good washers, dryers, and refriges from going to waste. I went thru the 50, plus I have 30 more still to work on. That's 80 machines, and my friend I bet went thru a couple hundred a year, at least. As a side bonus, at least as I see it, the parts divisions of Whirpool, GE, Maytag, etc. got a deal too because we had to purchase repair parts for those machines. I spent thousands on Whirlpool FSP parts that would have otherwise gone unsold, and I am pretty sure that those who got my washers would NOT have bought something new if they didn't get mine. I know similar stuff like this happens all over. Yes, some good stuff does get dumped and wasted, but it isn't as bad as it might first appear, thankfully. |
Post# 267634 , Reply# 37   3/2/2008 at 17:54 (5,870 days old) by tuthill ()   |   | |
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The debate won't go on forever, I'd say in 10-15 years, top-loaders will no longer be made. |
Post# 268268 , Reply# 39   3/7/2008 at 11:25 (5,865 days old) by brant_ix (Westford, MA)   |   | |
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... they just won't be the Traditional Top Loader that we all know and love. F & P, Whirlpool, now even Hoover/Electrolux are all starting to make more efficient top loaders. My PERSONAL opinion, the next generation of washing machine will incorporate some sort of sonic wave vibration to get clothes clean. Kinda Like Star Trek and Sonic Showers. :) ~Brant |
Post# 268417 , Reply# 43   3/8/2008 at 06:22 (5,865 days old) by launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Front loading washing machines by nature of design cost more in terms of R&D because of water soundess and balance issues. Top loading washing machines basically are tubs with drains and pumps. Water can also drain out quite easily by gravity as well. Front loading washing machines require complicated designs to keep water in the tub (door seals), balance and distribute loads properly, as well as support the weight of several pounds of wet laundry as well. As for direct drive versus mechanical, considering how many Amercian front loading washing machines "die" because of circut or mother board problems, and are chucked or require expensive repairs, I'd take my chances on belt driven mechanical machines. L. |
Post# 271215 , Reply# 46   3/21/2008 at 13:16 (5,851 days old) by iheartmaytag (Wichita, Kansas)   |   | |
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I must chime in on this thread. I think the change over to FL machines in the US will be slower than many expect, because TL machines are what we are most familiar with. As long as a good Top loader is available for a nominal cost people are going to overlook water usage for checkbook conservation. The price difference between the two types will have to be much closer before people will flock to the front of the machine. If the time comes when they outlaw the TL machines, I will say only this. . .They will get my TL Dependable Care/Plus Maytag after they pry my cold dead fingers off the mechanical timer. |
Post# 272178 , Reply# 48   3/26/2008 at 06:24 (5,847 days old) by toggleswitch (New York City, NY)   |   | |
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~And the simple mechanical timers are better than the electronic ones-esp in the thunderstorm ridden area where I live-my KA dishwasher with electronic timers has gone thru two of them so far- My 6-week old new lower-MOL GE came with a defective eletronic timer RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. The second timer was installed under warranty (also Chinese-made)does the same thing. I ahd a hissy-fit. Service will call me today. FEH! This device may help avoid damage. It is a DIY project if you work with electricity. Add two circuit breakers (one per pole or hot-leg for American 220v) and install in your main circuit-breaker panel (UK=> consumer unit). |