Well our new washing machine arrived today, bright and early at 7:30 AM. It probably took about 45 minutes for the delivery men to get our old machine out of the basement (barely) and get the new one set up. I had to displace about half of the Mac Museum so that they could get in and out of the bulk head, but I think it was worth it. During installation I learned some wonderful things about our 60 year old house and its piping. First, the valve that goes to the hot water line of the washing machine doesn’t shut off all the way. We had to have a bucket under it while it was disconnected. Not a huge deal. When I tried to shut the water off from a valve further up the pipeline I realized that (a) the water heater goes directly to the washing machine and the broken valve is the only way to shut it off and (b) when I tried to use a different valve coming out of the hot water heater (thinking I could shut off all of the hot water to the entire house) I caused the aging valve to start leaking. Now we have a metal mixing bowl on top of our hot water heater to catch the water. It’s only a small drip but that’s what I get for disturbing 60 year old plumbing.
As for the washing machine itself, we are quite pleased with it so far. The fact that it can run without depositing plastic parts of itself into our laundry is a plus on top of the fact that it doesn’t sound like a machine gun during the spin cycle. It is actually a pretty nifty machine. It has a built-in cleaning cycle that it will remind us to run every month. This helps prevent mold and mildew from building up, a problem that our previous washer had. It also has a cold wash cycle that is supposed to give you the same cleaning as a hot wash without the water. It even has an allergen cycle that is supposed to reduce 95% of allergens including dust mites. The best part of it is the steam cycle which uses steam and cold water to remove dirt and wrinkles from laundry while actually using less water than any of the other cycles. It takes about 2 hours to run, but I feel like the clothes do come out with fewer wrinkles, which is a huge plus for my work wardrobe. The clothes also come out noticeably more dry than they did in our other machine even before it started to fall apart and they smell much better as well.
So far I am very pleased with it. If our GE dryer ever goes I think we’ll replace it with an LG steam dryer. I don’t expect it to die since dryers don’t take on nearly the amount of force as a washer but who knows since it was part of a 1.5 / 5 star set… Anyway, laundry is back on at the Taylor house.
Relatively Ambitious 