[N/A] HE Washer Rant

I've had a Kenmore front-loading HE washer since 2002, and it's been fine. Maybe the action of a front-loader does a better job of making sure all the clothes get sloshed through the water effectively, but I've been very satisfied with its cleaning ability. I use very little detergent (an acquaintance in the appliance repair biz tipped me off to that), but clothes always come out clean. Occasionally I use one of the heavier-duty cycles when I'm concerned about something that's dirtier than usual, but even then stuff always comes out clean unless it's stained beyond help.
 
With the HE washers, you have to get the HE detergent. Also, you have to use the recommended amount, which is substantially less than the regular. It makes a huge difference in your results. There is definitely such thing as too much detergent, which will counter-intuitively result in less clean clothing. RTFM!!
 
We had an HE washer back in The City. I didn't like it. Sometimes it seemed like the clothes came out dirtier than they went in. Now I have an old-school GE I bought at Lowes. Works great.

I'm sure some of them are better than others. But until they start metering my well, I'll stick to the old-school washer.

Rich
 
Our HE is a front loader. When it agitates it turns at whatever RPM it needs so the clothes get carried to the top of the loop and then fall straight down. It's quiet so all you hear is the "slap-slap" of wet clothes falling over and over.
 
Everskyward said:
I bought a washer and dryer when I bought my house in Colorado in 1992. They were still working when I gave them away with the house in 2017. I can't remember that I ever fixed anything on either one.
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I bought a new Maytag over/under washer/dryer in 1992 also - and still use them nearly every day. Had to replace the washer solenoid valve once, and have to
tighten the clamp on the dryer blower wheel occasionally (when it starts making noise). hard to beat reliability like that!

I wonder about those who say they are on their second or third HE unit (never even heard of them before this thread).

Dave
 
I dunno if this is the same model we have, but it's a Maytag high efficiency and someone filmed a whole cycle.

Skip to the 11:00 mark to see and hear the wash cycle (the spin really gets going around 47:00):

 
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Matthew said:
Our HE is a front loader. When it agitates it turns at whatever RPM it needs so the clothes get carried to the top of the loop and then fall straight down. It's quiet so all you hear is the "slap-slap" of wet clothes falling over and over.
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Also helps not to overfill the thing. The pieces have to have enough room to fall back into the suds. If the horizontal HE is stuffed beyond rated capacity, it won't be able to cycle all pices trough the puddle of suds at the bottom of the drum.
 
The confounding factor between HE-lovers and me might be that I don't pad around a living room all day. I get some serious grime on my clothes; rolling in a muddy pasture or getting intimate with an aircraft engine is not unusual. So I do demand a lot from my washers.
 
I didn't realize there were top-load HE washers. From the video above it doesn't look like they work too well.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
The confounding factor between HE-lovers and me might be that I don't pad around a living room all day. I get some serious grime on my clothes; rolling in a muddy pasture or getting intimate with an aircraft engine is not unusual. So I do demand a lot from my washers.
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I may not do it every week, but there have been plenty of times I've loaded up the washer with seriously grimy clothes, and it still does the job. Dunno what to say.
 
I’m not an HE lover, we bought one when our 20+ year old Maytag crapped its expensive parts. The new one is expensive, heavy, and takes a long time to wash. But it uses very little water, gets us clean clothes, is extremely quiet, and spins the clothes nearly dry at about Mach 2. And if we don’t get to them right away after it’s done, it tumbles them every few minutes.
 
dmspilot said:
I didn't realize there were top-load HE washers. From the video above it doesn't look like they work too well.
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My mom has a top load HE washer. It works well once we found the manual setting for water levels. It only takes about a third as much detergent to get everything clean. But it takes about an hour to do one load.

As Mathew said, it spins at approximately mach 2 which is fun.
 
I didn't read all of the posts but have a friend that sells appliances. He says the biggest problem with washers is that people use WAY TOO MUCH SOAP! He says use about 10% of what the directions call for and the washer will work much better. The soap people just want to sell more. I've been doing this for yeas and my clothes come out clean.
 
When I bought my house, the previous owners left the washer and dryer. The dryer is fine, but I hate the washer. It's a top loading HE unit, and it ALWAYS throws UE (uneven) errors with almost every load, no matter how small. I even ran it once without anything in it, and it still threw an uneven error on the spin cycle. I've verified it's level, so that's not it. I've even found a few YouTube videos on people having the same problem doing things like putting in springs to try and secure the tub better. I ordered a new set of suspension rods to see if that fixes it.

And the stupid thing is, when it gets the uneven error, it will try (up to three times I think) to add more water and slosh the clothes around to try and even it out itself, so it ends up wasting more water.

I looked into replacing it, and found where Speed Queen made some good washers, but then read they changed the design a few years ago. I then found some video or article saying Maytag has a commercial coinless unit (I think somebody mentioned it earlier in this thread) so I'd probably check out Speed Queen and Maytag.

I'm all for saving energy and water where it really makes sense, but when it comes to household appliances that can't even clean a load of clothes, I call BS. I remember my Mom's old washer from the 70s. Clothes came out clean and I never remember that thing causing problems. It ran forever. I think I'd pay big bucks to get an old washer like that just to have something that works and does its job without all the energy saving crap these new appliances have. Give me a basic washer that fills up the tub with water, agitates the hell out of the clothes, and just works. Keep the rest of this HE crap boxed up in the warehouse for all I care.

EDIT: Almost forgot... if you have one of those washers (like mine) that weighs the clothes at the start to see how much water to use, but it doesn't put enough in, I read a good tip that works. Put the clothes in, then dump a bucket of water on them. That makes the washer think you've got a heavier load in there, so it fills the tub with more water.
 
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