Ultra-bougie confession Sean M Puckett 11/10 '19

We spend a lot of money for laundry appliances today. Since I won't buy Samsung or LG anything (because their after-sale support is notoriously shit) and really nothing on the inexpensive side seems to be super reliable or particularly gentle on clothes, we bought Miele; made in Germany.

I mean yes, I can feel good about the fact that the dryer only uses 110v so will cost us a lot less in electricity and is ventless which will save us both on electricity and vent cleaning (like a hundred bucks a year, strongly recommended by the condo board because a 30' dryer vent duct is a frigging fire hazard).

Honestly, though, if these machines will 1) get our clothes actually clean, without random blorts of lint, and 2) not quickly ruin the very nice business clothes that d needs, and the very nice statement pieces that I need, then it will be so, so worth it.

It's a Vimes Boots thing. You buy the good tool not only because it saves you money in the long run, but it also does the job better day-to-day.

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11/10 '19 16 Comments
I used to have to "fix" my mom's computer for her once a month. Then I convinced her to buy a significantly more expensive Apple desktop. I never had to "fix" her computer again.
Lindsay Harris Friel
My washer and dryer are old enough to vote. I bought them at the scratch and dent because they live in the basement and who am I impressing with a washer and dryer? Recently, the dryer went on the fritz. It would spin but not dry. After nearly two decades of service, no complaints. Five minutes of Googling and ten of ordering from Amazon and the next day the parts to repair the problem were in hand. The hard part was disconnecting the dryer from the hard duct (flexible ducts are a fire trap), tilting the machine forward to work on the back, and the parts were installed. Total working repair time? Twenty minutes.

New washers and dryers do not fill me with confidence.
Ray Conrad
I had the same problem with my dryer last year. It felt so damn good to just fix it myself with a few parts.

And yep, the reason it died is likely because of a clogged dryer vent way downstream. Replaced that effer with non-flex tubing and I now feel significantly less flammable.

Fireman Jay (my dad) said that he put out sooooo many house fires that were caused by lint in the dryer duct. He also said that it is mindblowing to learn how many people don't clean their lint trap with every load, and worse, how many people don't know that cleared out their dryer duct is a thing.
Jill "xtingu" Knapp
This ductless dryer will be interesting. It has a water tank to catch the condensate (they say it's essentially "distilled" for use in e.g. irons) and like four levels of lint trap to keep stuff out of the heat pump. Makes a lot more sense than heating up a lot of air just to blow it outside.
Sean M Puckett
Wow, that's a neat design. Curious to hear your reports once y'all have been using it a while!
Jill "xtingu" Knapp
I use a diverter with a secondary lint trap. In warm weather the hot air blows outside. This week, that hot air warms up my basement and adds some humidity to my house. Having to clean two lint traps is most definitely a first world problem.
Ray Conrad
For some reason, I remember reading (or hearing someone tell me) "HOLY CRAP DO NOT EVAR vent your dryer into your house evarr evarr evarrrrr," but now I can't really remember why this person was so against the idea.

In these dry, cold, winter nosebleed months, some "free" warm, moist air sounds kinda nice. *shrug*

Sounds like it works quite nicely for you.
Jill "xtingu" Knapp
Ultimately, you don't want to be breathing lint, especially very fine lint. We did the internal venting in our old house and it was okay, but even with a secondary lint trap the room simply fills with powdered lint made up of who knows what, much of which is stuff we were not intended to breathe.
Sean M Puckett
We ended up buying Speed Queen for the same reason.* Parts are not made of plastic, customer service is a real thing, and the machines never die anyway. You will have to pry them from my cold dead hands they are so awesome.

*Though apparently we bought the last model year before the machines started to be made of trash parts, or so I hear.
Anne Mollo
When my dad retired and then got bored, he bought a laundromat, as you do. He said the Speed Queen machines were absolutely indestructible... and his laundromat was in rural northwest NJ, and people were using the machines for heavy-ass things like horse blankets. He said he'd never buy anything other than a front-loading Speed Queen ever again, whether for the laundromat or for home.

He's long-sold the laundromat... though ironically, he lives about 6 minutes from it now... but when he owned it, they lived in our old house, about an hour away.

The front-loading Speed Queen he owns at home cleans better than anything I've ever used. Apparently front-loading is the way to go, because gravity and no need for a center agitator. Even at 48, there are things I will save to wash at my parents' house. :-)
Jill "xtingu" Knapp
I never knew this. That's awesome.
Lindsay Harris Friel
The whole "Gravity cleans your clothes with a front loader" thing kinda blew my mind when he said it. It seems so obvious now. :)
Jill "xtingu" Knapp
The machine we have now is a top loader and it doesn't even have an agitator. One wonders, "how the hell does it clean the clothes?" The answer is: it doesn't. And it still manages to damage them. It's a miracle of the wrong kind.
Sean M Puckett
I shouldn't laugh at that, but your phrasing made me chuckle.

But yeah, how could a top loader sans agitator, er, agitate?

The folks who owned my little house before me were awesome and moved the washer/dryer from the spidery basement to the main floor (we have a ranch layout). The washer and dryer live in the former hall linen closet, which is super-handy, but the space is not very deep. When I looked into replacing these units, finding a front-loader machine that was shallow enough to fit in that former closet was nigh impossible... which is why I haven't replaced 'em, just fixed 'em.

Ideally, I could also get bougie and find a stackable front loader washer/dryer so I could reclaim half my linen closet, because storage is kinda non-existent without it. But alas, the stackables we found were too deep for the space.

First world problems.

(Random factoid: Last year I learned that dryers aren't really a thing in England; people just hang their wash for the most part. This seems unintuitive to me, since England seems damp... but what do I know.)
Jill "xtingu" Knapp
I don't think these machines are any shallower than usual -- 25.5" deep, it says -- but they're only 24" wide, which is a help in the micro-closet they'll be assigned to. And they stack. So I'm hopeful the user experience will be good, though we'll have to re-arrange storage in that room to accommodate the front-opening washer door. Maybe some shelves or something.
Sean M Puckett
We spent a lot of money on a 25% downpayment two weeks ago, then got notified by the sales person that we'd save an additional 10% of the purchase price if we came in to redo the order under their November promotion. We set a delivery date and paid the full shot in the store.

This weekend's laundry hijinks, including sopping wet clean clothes from a load that became unbalanced during the wash cycle and no spin-only cycle, are a pointed reminder that we need better than we've currently got.

Funding for the appliances is coming from the same cushion of savings that had originally been earmarked for retirement income and will be depleted over the next ten years to pay for adequate quality of pre-retirement life. At least half my RRSP will go to pay down a mortgage we don't want to have when we're in our 70s. The remainder will fund life improvements like this laundry pair.

I have a defined benefit pension plan from my former employer, and the civil service has a similar pension. If CPP still exists when I leave the work force, that will add a few hundred dollars a month as well. We are fortunate.
Dawn Keenan