Our criteria was a top loading washer and a dryer that had a door that opened from the top - not the side. They don't make those anymore so side opening door it is! The prices are sort of all over the place based on brand, colors and drum sizes. In our old house we had to buy a new dishwasher so after reading a bunch of reviews, we settled on a Maytag brand. It actually worked really well so I was thinking stick with Maytag for the washer and dryer. Off to Lowes we went and low and behold...apparently they do not make non-HE type washers anymore. Was this bad? Hell yes it was! So plans out the window, now we were back to square one. We had a budget in mind and when we really priced out the Maytags, realistically they were over our budget. After some deliberation (and a sale) we settled on the Whirlpool Cabrio Platinum series in white. There is a top tier in the Cabrio that has a few more features than ours but we didn't feel we needed the extras and I think it was $250 more each piece. I had read reviews and they came in pretty positive to the Maytags - the biggest complaint was that the spin cycle was violent and clothes were getting torn.
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| Terrible photo but our laundry room is narrow |
I have to say we have been pleasantly surprised at our purchases. I actually read the manuals on them because they come with preset cycles for all sorts of clothing types - delicates, sheets, normal, casual, etc. If this is your first time with an HE washer/dryer and you do not read the manual, you are doing yourself a disservice. People complain in reviews that these appliances are horrible but they are not reading the manual and/or treating them like they are old washers. You can't shove as many clothes in the drum so the loads have to be a little smaller (i.e.: not a whole basket of clothes can go in there). They maybe use 1/3 of the original amount of water in a non-HE so that is another complaint. I'm not sure how it gets anything clean but it works and we have done the dog's blankets and yard clothes but nothing super greasy. They also spin things harder to get what little water is out of the clothes so when the cycle is done things are really wrinkly. The dryer usually fixes that or you can adjust the spin cycle so it is not as aggressive.
The dryer works well and has the same features that the washer has except ours has always made this whining noise and even the delivery guy commented on it. I had Lowe's come out and the guy decided the motor was going out and is ordering a new one. It hasn't come in yet but it should be under manufacture warranty since we have barely had this over one month (they won't replace it - I asked). The guy came out ten days ago and I haven't heard anything new so I am starting to lose my patience and need to follow up. This is the first time I have had to use Lowe's Service Advantage for an appointment that involved ordering parts.
A nice feature the dryer has is a steam cycle - M uses it a lot for his work clothes and I have used it a few times but you are supposed to let it run the entire cycle or you will have wet spots on your clothes. I just want my stuff fluffed for a few minutes so it doesn't work for me but he likes it a lot.
And here is my public service announcement. Our old house had an interior laundry room and the dryer vent stack went up and out through the roof. We lived in our house for almost 4 years and started noticing that the dryer was taking a super long time to dry items - like over 2 hours. It finally occurred to us that maybe the dryer vent was clogged with lint and needed to be cleaned out. Neither of us knew what was really involved with that so I called an HVAC company and they came out to check it out. $150ish dollars later and they cleaned out so much lint that they suspected it had never been cleaned since the house was built 10 years ago. M was home so he saw the little tool they used and how easy it was to clean it out - he said we could do it ourselves. So even if I felt a little dumb paying for that, knowing we could do it ourselves going forward was nice. You buy this little gizmo for about $20, attach it to a power drill and run it up and down the vent stack to drive out the lint. One person can do it and the other can vacuum up the lint. We just had to do this last weekend because we have an interior laundry room again with a vertical stack. It maybe takes 20 minutes (unless you have to do replacement work on your stack like we did). Our new dryer has a "clean vent" alert button and it went off which is a great feature!
You have to do this about once every six months - if you don't your running the risk of a fire hazard and your dryer will not last as long. We ended up having to call a repair guy out for our old dryer and once it started working so hard, it never recovered even after we cleaned out the vent stack. Now go forth and protect your house! You're welcome.
The dryer works well and has the same features that the washer has except ours has always made this whining noise and even the delivery guy commented on it. I had Lowe's come out and the guy decided the motor was going out and is ordering a new one. It hasn't come in yet but it should be under manufacture warranty since we have barely had this over one month (they won't replace it - I asked). The guy came out ten days ago and I haven't heard anything new so I am starting to lose my patience and need to follow up. This is the first time I have had to use Lowe's Service Advantage for an appointment that involved ordering parts.
A nice feature the dryer has is a steam cycle - M uses it a lot for his work clothes and I have used it a few times but you are supposed to let it run the entire cycle or you will have wet spots on your clothes. I just want my stuff fluffed for a few minutes so it doesn't work for me but he likes it a lot.
And here is my public service announcement. Our old house had an interior laundry room and the dryer vent stack went up and out through the roof. We lived in our house for almost 4 years and started noticing that the dryer was taking a super long time to dry items - like over 2 hours. It finally occurred to us that maybe the dryer vent was clogged with lint and needed to be cleaned out. Neither of us knew what was really involved with that so I called an HVAC company and they came out to check it out. $150ish dollars later and they cleaned out so much lint that they suspected it had never been cleaned since the house was built 10 years ago. M was home so he saw the little tool they used and how easy it was to clean it out - he said we could do it ourselves. So even if I felt a little dumb paying for that, knowing we could do it ourselves going forward was nice. You buy this little gizmo for about $20, attach it to a power drill and run it up and down the vent stack to drive out the lint. One person can do it and the other can vacuum up the lint. We just had to do this last weekend because we have an interior laundry room again with a vertical stack. It maybe takes 20 minutes (unless you have to do replacement work on your stack like we did). Our new dryer has a "clean vent" alert button and it went off which is a great feature!
You have to do this about once every six months - if you don't your running the risk of a fire hazard and your dryer will not last as long. We ended up having to call a repair guy out for our old dryer and once it started working so hard, it never recovered even after we cleaned out the vent stack. Now go forth and protect your house! You're welcome.
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