I'm surprised that anyone still makes top-loading washing machines. They completely disappeared from the UK market decades ago, due to the vastly superior energy and water efficiency of front-loading machines.
Does anyone know why top-loading machines persist in the US market?
Few reasons. One is a positive history/experience with them. The Whirlpool made (most common machines on the market) top loading machines were rock solid for 30 plus years. People would often have them for 20-30 years. (and still have them, keep them maintained)
Another reason is they do a better job of washing clothes as they use more water. This is important for people that have kids, do cloth diapers, or are actually washing dirty/muddy clothes. They also don't have mold issues because of rubber gaskets and have been historically cheaper to maintain and repair.
The new top loaders, specifically Whirlpool made vertical modular washers are complete garbage. They break within 2-3 years of buying new. Whirlpool stopped making the direct drive top loading washers that everyone loved about 3 years ago. Now you can only buy them used, and I would highly recommend doing so if you need a good washer.
Front loading machines do spin the clothes a bit dryer, which saves on dry time, unless you hang dry, then it really doesn't make much difference. But they cost over twice as much and are about double the price when it comes to repairs. Hope that helps!
> vastly superior energy and water efficiency of front-loading machines.
Don’t mix up the two different types of top-loaders
There’s the European Model, and the American model. The American model is inefficient, but the European model of top-loaders is just as efficient as front-loaders, far easier to construct, and requires less maintenance.
I’ll quote Wikipedia to explain the European model:
> Some machines which actually load from the top are otherwise much more similar to front-loading horizontal-axis drum machines. They have a drum rotating around a horizontal axis, as a front-loader, but there is no front door; instead there is a liftable lid which provides access to the drum, which has a hatch which can be latched shut. Clothes are loaded, the hatch and lid are closed, and the machine operates and spins just like a front-loader. These machines are narrower but usually taller than front-loaders, usually have a lower capacity, and are intended for use where only a narrow space is available, as is sometimes the case in Europe. They have incidental advantages: they can be loaded without bending down; they do not require a perishable rubber bellows seal; and instead of the drum having a single bearing on one side, it has a pair of symmetrical bearings, one on each side, avoiding asymmetrical bearing loading and potentially increasing life.
Probably because they're much cheaper. Plus, it's easy to manually adjust the cycle (or add things at a later point) since you don't need to drain it to open the door.
We bought a top loader recently. It was by far the cheapest option that met our volume and reliability requirements. We estimate that an equivalent front loader would break even in about 10 years, which isn't very good.
Also, we buy used/refurb appliances when possible, and there aren't many available front loaders.
Top-loading washing machines take up considerably less space than their front-loading counterparts, especially when their doors are open. It is very important in cramped flats.
I Ctrl+F'ed for "counter weight" but it does not appear anywhere here or in one of the mentioned articles.
Front loaders are harder to build, they have to use a huge counter weight due to the nature of the horizontal drum. There is only one bearing at the back that supports it all.
The vertical design is easier to build and more reliable.
However, US culture is probably the dominating factor here.
Front loaders in the US are crap. They break down constantly and are expensive to repair and replace. Top loaders are simple, cheap, and last at least a decade with maybe just one or two minor maintenance issues.
I have a top loader because that is what came with my house, but if I were replacing it I would probably stick with a top loader because the front loader advantages are minimal in my personal case.
My water comes from a private well and ultimately ends up in the drain field of my septic system and then presumably eventually makes it back down to the local table from whence it came. For me the cost of water is simply the cost of electricity for the well pump. I've never measured the power usage of the pump, but based on the voltage it runs at and the current rating of the circuit breaker on its circuit, and the rate it pumps water, and my electricity rates, the most it would cost to fill a large top loader is about $0.05, and so that is an upper bound on what a front loader could save me on water costs.
From what I've read the energy savings of a front loader comes from it drying better during the spin cycle, so you don't use as much energy when you use your dryer to dry the load. However, I usually do the wash in the morning, and then don't get around to moving it to the dryer until the evening. By then it has dried out quite a bit on its own, and is really just damp rather than wet. The dryer makes short work of it.
I'd have the same timing with a front loader, and so from the dryer's point of view the difference would be damp vs. less damp, not wet vs. less wet, so there would not be much energy savings.
I doubt that these tiny savings on water costs and dryer energy could make up the price difference over the lifetime of the unit.
Bought a house built in 1995 with a designated dryer closet (only place with hookups) front loaders are about 4" deeper on average than a top loader and modern top loaders barely fit as is.
In our case, we've been buying the last of the Speed Queen line of completely mechanical washers and dryers (multiple houses). They're reasonably priced, built like tanks, and can be repaired by mortals with screwdrivers, soldering irons and wrenches.
But, apparently, they're on their way out. Frustrating.
As someone who currently has a Samsung stove, I can wholeheartedly say I hate the thing. The interface is one of the worst I've seen - touch "buttons" on a stove. It does't work half the time if your hands are the slightest bit wet - which they often are after washing hands. It's incredibly frustrating, and has completely thrown me off about buying any sort of Samsung appliance.
Samsung has such potential, but it's untested things make me wonder about their long-term value.
Going on a tangent, if you like to cook you should get a traditional gas burning stove. No fancy UI beats the simplicity pushing and turning knobs. Not to mention the heating control precision. I think that's much more important than fancy knives and other expensive tools of the trade.
Know-how has to be maintained. Knowledge has to be passed down to the apprentices and juniors. Otherwise it is lost over time and has to be rediscovered/reinvented, often by failures like in the article. Technological progress is never guaranteed or a certainty. Progress is the result of incremental improvements and sustainable hard work.
Dang it. We bought the Samsung instead of LG, because of videos[1] that showed the LG exploding.
Top load models have a much large capacity than front loaders, but there are some serious challenges to overcome for these models that lack a central agitator column.
Despite being billed as "water saving", ours often has to repeat the setup for the spin cycle. It does this by dumping several gallons of water, sloshing the clothes around until it calculates an even load, then starting the drain+spin again.
If you are unlucky, this can happen multiple times. We are tipped off by the noise of the machine momentarily whacking into the surrrounding items in the laundry room.
It seems Samsung is offering "free repairs", but that makes me wonder if it's just a technician with a USB cable coming to reduce things like spin rate or make the machine even more likely to halt and prompt for intervention (ugh-- wet clothes are heavy).
Looks like 2016 has been a tough year for Samsung. Obviously not directly comparable, but this has somewhat reminded me of Chipotle's past troubles and the impact its had on customer perception.
Has Chipotle's customer perception been hurt that much? I know personally the threat of E. coli infection, while certainly higher than it should have been, was not really that much worse and I certainly didn't stop going to Chipotle over it. Maybe that's just myself but I know I've heard similar sentiments from others. Has Chipotle said how much damage they think was done?
Seems like a perfect storm - but why? Clearly any one of these doses of bad news (Hanjin bankruptcy, Note7, washers) would be enough for a year, but all three?
I recently replaced a Samsung washer after the thing started to stain my clothes with rust that was getting generated from the internal parts of the machine chipping and exposing the rustable interior to the water. Got a Speed Queen and am happy.
I don't know what's going on with Samsung's QA process. Their cellphone apps are buggy, their newest flagship cellphone has a design flaw that is still being root-caused after global recall, now another hardware design flaw in washing machine.
But today, a complain from my friend who works in Samsung Research America at MTV may explain something: on his posted screenshot, the boss sent an email to ask them to fix bugs during the weekends...
Well, Samsung has made its entire business out of making the crapiest goods possible. They are masters of the "it works within the definition of 'works' according to the warranty until the warranty expires" which Americans just can't get enough of.
I own an affected model. The exchange program is seemingly not worth it. My compensation offer was $295 if I purchased a Samsung replacement, $195 for non-Samsung. I chose the "repair" because those amounts were approximately 25% at best the cost of a suitable replacement. I have several dogs, so I do a lot of laundry daily and need an expensive unit geared toward large families because of it.
I would argue this is far more serious than the phones that were recently recalled:
> "The washing machine top can unexpectedly detach from the washing machine chassis during use, posing a risk of injury from impact," according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
How scary is that? This likely could cause death. You are talking about the water, clothes, and the weight of the drum flying out and potentially hitting you.
Using less water is what got me interested. When I bought it I was worried about loading the septic drainfield with excess water and soap. Then I moved to a city where water is very expensive. The energy to heat the water is a concern too.
I found that compared to a normal American style top loading machine with agitator, it takes better care of my clothing.
I happened to choose a machine that can spin at 1200 rpm, which is apparently rather fast for a laundry machine. The electric dryer seems to work a lot faster.
Now my machine is getting old, I had to repair the electronics once, and am wondering when the gasket will tear and will I be able to find a replacement, etc. I have had to repair top loaders more often but parts for these kinds of machines seem to stay in the market for 30 years or more. That's probably not going to be the case for this fancy import.
if they get really good at retrofitting their recalled shitty hardware then maybe this'll just be something samsung owners should just expect going forward.
i hope this doesn't happen in their heavy industries unit though. can you recall ships that leak/sink.
[+] [-] jdietrich|9 years ago|reply
Does anyone know why top-loading machines persist in the US market?
[+] [-] roseburg|9 years ago|reply
Another reason is they do a better job of washing clothes as they use more water. This is important for people that have kids, do cloth diapers, or are actually washing dirty/muddy clothes. They also don't have mold issues because of rubber gaskets and have been historically cheaper to maintain and repair.
The new top loaders, specifically Whirlpool made vertical modular washers are complete garbage. They break within 2-3 years of buying new. Whirlpool stopped making the direct drive top loading washers that everyone loved about 3 years ago. Now you can only buy them used, and I would highly recommend doing so if you need a good washer.
Front loading machines do spin the clothes a bit dryer, which saves on dry time, unless you hang dry, then it really doesn't make much difference. But they cost over twice as much and are about double the price when it comes to repairs. Hope that helps!
Here's a post I wrote up on the subject. http://recraigslist.com/2015/10/they-used-to-last-50-years/
[+] [-] kuschku|9 years ago|reply
Don’t mix up the two different types of top-loaders
There’s the European Model, and the American model. The American model is inefficient, but the European model of top-loaders is just as efficient as front-loaders, far easier to construct, and requires less maintenance.
I’ll quote Wikipedia to explain the European model:
> Some machines which actually load from the top are otherwise much more similar to front-loading horizontal-axis drum machines. They have a drum rotating around a horizontal axis, as a front-loader, but there is no front door; instead there is a liftable lid which provides access to the drum, which has a hatch which can be latched shut. Clothes are loaded, the hatch and lid are closed, and the machine operates and spins just like a front-loader. These machines are narrower but usually taller than front-loaders, usually have a lower capacity, and are intended for use where only a narrow space is available, as is sometimes the case in Europe. They have incidental advantages: they can be loaded without bending down; they do not require a perishable rubber bellows seal; and instead of the drum having a single bearing on one side, it has a pair of symmetrical bearings, one on each side, avoiding asymmetrical bearing loading and potentially increasing life.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/European...
[+] [-] etimberg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1123581321|9 years ago|reply
Also, we buy used/refurb appliances when possible, and there aren't many available front loaders.
[+] [-] xeeeeeeeeeeenu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nom|9 years ago|reply
Front loaders are harder to build, they have to use a huge counter weight due to the nature of the horizontal drum. There is only one bearing at the back that supports it all.
The vertical design is easier to build and more reliable. However, US culture is probably the dominating factor here.
[+] [-] GarrisonPrime|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
We bought a low tech, inefficient speed queen with a 7 year warranty. The 10 year TCO is like 40% less than a comparable front loader.
[+] [-] tzs|9 years ago|reply
My water comes from a private well and ultimately ends up in the drain field of my septic system and then presumably eventually makes it back down to the local table from whence it came. For me the cost of water is simply the cost of electricity for the well pump. I've never measured the power usage of the pump, but based on the voltage it runs at and the current rating of the circuit breaker on its circuit, and the rate it pumps water, and my electricity rates, the most it would cost to fill a large top loader is about $0.05, and so that is an upper bound on what a front loader could save me on water costs.
From what I've read the energy savings of a front loader comes from it drying better during the spin cycle, so you don't use as much energy when you use your dryer to dry the load. However, I usually do the wash in the morning, and then don't get around to moving it to the dryer until the evening. By then it has dried out quite a bit on its own, and is really just damp rather than wet. The dryer makes short work of it.
I'd have the same timing with a front loader, and so from the dryer's point of view the difference would be damp vs. less damp, not wet vs. less wet, so there would not be much energy savings.
I doubt that these tiny savings on water costs and dryer energy could make up the price difference over the lifetime of the unit.
[+] [-] ekianjo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michaelbuckbee|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carterehsmith|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpr|9 years ago|reply
But, apparently, they're on their way out. Frustrating.
[+] [-] FigBug|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoelBennett|9 years ago|reply
Samsung has such potential, but it's untested things make me wonder about their long-term value.
[+] [-] acchow|9 years ago|reply
What exactly is the process in an organization that leads to products like this?
[+] [-] mmariani|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] i998sd9as89|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|9 years ago|reply
https://www.energystar.gov/products/appliances/clothes_washe...
[+] [-] roseburg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kenji|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] flamedoge|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] americandream|9 years ago|reply
Top load models have a much large capacity than front loaders, but there are some serious challenges to overcome for these models that lack a central agitator column.
Despite being billed as "water saving", ours often has to repeat the setup for the spin cycle. It does this by dumping several gallons of water, sloshing the clothes around until it calculates an even load, then starting the drain+spin again.
If you are unlucky, this can happen multiple times. We are tipped off by the noise of the machine momentarily whacking into the surrrounding items in the laundry room.
It seems Samsung is offering "free repairs", but that makes me wonder if it's just a technician with a USB cable coming to reduce things like spin rate or make the machine even more likely to halt and prompt for intervention (ugh-- wet clothes are heavy).
[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_z4fjiCz6tU
[+] [-] smokinjuan|9 years ago|reply
https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2017/Samsung-Recalls-Top-Load-W...
[+] [-] msane|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smaili|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedajax|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] narrator|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clinq|9 years ago|reply
But today, a complain from my friend who works in Samsung Research America at MTV may explain something: on his posted screenshot, the boss sent an email to ask them to fix bugs during the weekends...
[+] [-] jsmith0295|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fapjacks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colindean|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] electic|9 years ago|reply
> "The washing machine top can unexpectedly detach from the washing machine chassis during use, posing a risk of injury from impact," according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
How scary is that? This likely could cause death. You are talking about the water, clothes, and the weight of the drum flying out and potentially hitting you.
[+] [-] pat2man|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirekrusin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shahzeb|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa#Development
[+] [-] snerbles|9 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azQzwI9-GHU
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kw71|9 years ago|reply
I found that compared to a normal American style top loading machine with agitator, it takes better care of my clothing.
I happened to choose a machine that can spin at 1200 rpm, which is apparently rather fast for a laundry machine. The electric dryer seems to work a lot faster.
Now my machine is getting old, I had to repair the electronics once, and am wondering when the gasket will tear and will I be able to find a replacement, etc. I have had to repair top loaders more often but parts for these kinds of machines seem to stay in the market for 30 years or more. That's probably not going to be the case for this fancy import.
[+] [-] dexterdog|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roel_v|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nommm-nommm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcheung|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debt|9 years ago|reply
i hope this doesn't happen in their heavy industries unit though. can you recall ships that leak/sink.
[+] [-] ajharrison|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lcfcjs|9 years ago|reply
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