Thread Number: 90296  /  Tag: Small Appliances
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Post# 1148711   5/14/2022 at 12:28 (711 days old) by 37Saratoga (Gatineau)        

I work in the arctic where just about everything is flown in and very little flown out. Knowing how modern appliances often don't last as long as the old ones, I'm wondering what would be the recommended brands that would be best brands of all types of appliances to bring there that would be the least maintenance and most durable? For washers, it seems Speed Queen is the one to go with as far as I've read, although are they that economical as far as amount of water used as compared to some other brands?




Post# 1148716 , Reply# 1   5/14/2022 at 17:15 (710 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.)        

dadoes's profile picture
 
Majority of toploaders nowadays, both agitator and HE/impeller models, typically auto-sense the fill level and offer a Deep Wash or Deep Fill option.  A control for manual selection of multiple fill levels is rare.

Speed Queen TC5 which is often recommended to people looking for a durable, old-style transmission/agitator toploader is not particularly frugal for water usage.  It does not have a water level control for choice of multiple load sizes. All cycles fill to a fixed level ranging from 13 gals/9" depth to 16 gals/11" depth (depending which cycle), or 3 to 4.5 gals more (11" or 13" depth) with the Deep Fill option selected.  These figures are specifications dating to 2019, there may have been some programming adjustments since that time period.  The TR series, which is a different, simpler mechanical design and completely different wash action, auto-senses by default.  Current TR3 and TR5 versions also offer a Small and Large selection.  TR7 has Small, Medium, and Large.

Post# 1148787 , Reply# 2   5/15/2022 at 19:07 (709 days old) by henene4 (Heidenheim a.d. Brenz (Germany))        
How "arctic" are we talking?

 Cause if we are talking research station, more than just durability comes into play.

At that point, it's probably a lot about voltage and amperage requirements.
Since such locations are usually government endevours, which government will play a huge role as in what that looks like.
That of course means that theoretical government contracts would also play into it - if for example the military already has a supplier, that might be chosen due to already agreed terms.



The most remote location I know the laundry situation of was an old settlement at the tip of Greenland (I think it was Greenland) I saw a documentary about.
It was only reachable by ship or plane and not all time of the year.

They had a central coin laundry in their town centre (where the community showers were situated - only place with running hot water) with Electrolux/Wascator equipment.



Another way to go about it is if cheap and cheerful but keeping one (or more) backups in storage is feasible and cheaper than going commercial.

If you have no around the year backup like a very expensive service technician visit, air shipping a part in and repairing yourself or a community to rely on OR are completely unreachable for more than 2 weeks out of the year any form of backup is a must in my opinion.
The backup might be a cheaper option - like a run of the mill cheapo washer - since it just has to bridge these few weeks or months.

But from there situation just varies widely.
If air shipping a washer in is 1000$, paying 3000$ for a compact commercial machine might make way more sense.
If however you can ship in 5 300$ washers for 1000$, that might be a better deal since the commercial unit still needs some sort if backup.

You would also have to consider how utilities are billed.
If water or energy is expensive, a TL would be out of question.
Maybe you would want to go heat pump dryer to reduce current draw - though in cold climates the air is so dry that hang drying indoors might actually help climate in your habitat.

Space is also the question.
Are we talking arctic temps where houses are smaller simply to save on heating - or are we talking arctic where you just spend double on insulation when building and adding a good, efficient backup heat source to a heat pump.
Cause you might want or need a compact machine as in 24", and if you go from the US market as source, since such appliances are already up market no matter what, going professional might be better.



There is no general answer to that IMO.

Closest thing I can offer is what I learned during mechanical construction classes.

If you ask yourself if a cheap, often overhauled system is cheaper than a robust, low maintenance but expensive system, you make a few assumptions.

First you estimate which amount of safety has to be build in.
For example, for somebody designing an elevator, certain systems have to have failure rates measured in thousands of years.

Interestingly, it's usually not the human life cost at that level, but reputation.
An elevator company would face complete loss of all business of any of their systems caused human death due to cost saving.

Many big airlines are the closest to human life cost calculating for engineering topics: In certain situations, failures that would lead to probable loss of life dictate the service intervals. Then, it might be that they have staff on hand calculating how long to extend intervals between such services so that the cheaper less frequent service is a certain percentage less likely to be more expensive compared to the average plane crash.

If no such situations exist, you create use cases - depending on what kind of product and markets you aim that might be one if it is a single installation, 1-3 for highly specialised equipment (like many machines for production) up to a few dozens for mass products.
That use case and related target group usually dictate a price point and certain durability requirements.
Then you more or less guess if within that price point your construction would end up cheap or expensive if you used the very best practices.
Than you pic values for calculations either tight if you think you will have cost trouble or lenient if you think cost won't be an issue.

From there on you do your first construction steps.
Depending on scale either cost monitoring is done simultaneously by specified team specialists or is done after a first functional design exists.
From there on it's iteration.

Post# 1148790 , Reply# 3   5/15/2022 at 19:18 (709 days old) by iej (.... )        

For something like that you’d really want to be talking directly to a supplier who works with unusual requirements like ships at sea, oil / gas platforms, military etc

In Europe probably Miele, Electrolux or similar commercial machines. Domestic/
Residential machines of any brand may not be suitable or may be unserviceable in such a location.

You’d also be better to talk to your facilities manager as the location is likely to be built to European, North American or Australia / NZ or perhaps Japanese or other specs. They should be making decisions on purchase and installation of something like that as they will inevitably have preferred supply chains, contractors and so on.

A commercial supplier would very likely have a solution for this - but it’s unlikely to be cheap.

You may also have issues with weight / size to transport something to a location like that. I assume it has to be air frighted, shipped and probably brought by helicopter or something. None of that is straight forward or off the shelf supplier stuff.

I wouldn’t really think heavy power / water usage machines would be very welcome at remote locations either.

All of this is a question for your facilities manager.


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