Stackable Washer Extraordinaire
Written: Feb 21 '01
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Pros: Uses less water and SOAP!
Cons: My wife worries about the front leaking
The Bottom Line: Want clean and easy on your clothes? This may be the washer for you.
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| rbinck's Full Review: Frigidaire FWT449 Washer |
We needed a new washing machine & dryer and we live in a condo where the space to put a washer and dryer is limited. The old units were about 20 years old, still working, but had a very small capacity. The dryer was a 110V unit and took forever to dry the clothes, even the two shirts that filled it up!
We had replaced some of the units in our rentals with Kenmore laundry centers. You know the combination washer and dryer all in one unit with some success. But in our unit my wife was tired of having a small capacity unit and put her foot down telling me we WOULD get at least a full capacity pair this time. I went to work and found the Frigidare pair this epinion and its companion epinion is written about. First of all we were fortunate to have a space that was wide enough to handle a full size washer and dryer. They just needed to be stacked one on top of each other. The Frigidare FWT449 washer is designed to have its top removed and the Frigidare FSE748GF dryer to be mounted directly to the washer forming a single unit.
The Frigidare FWT449 is a front loading model as opposed to a top loading unit. Front loaders do not have an agitator like the top loading units do; they rely on the frequent reversing of the drum and the tumbling of the clothes to accomplish the washing. They use very much less water and electricity than the top loaders do, I’m told. I don’t have a meter on either of these, so I’ll just have to trust the people who sold us the units.
One thing that was apparent after a few uses was the washer is much easier on your clothes than the type with agitators. When my wife cleaned the lint filter in the dryer, she was surprised to find out that there was far less lint than out previous dryers had made. Well it turns out in some investigation that the dryer doesn’t make the lint, it is from fabric that is worn off from the washing machine! It just comes off the clothes during the drying operation and gets trapped in the dryer lint filter. We expect our clothes to last a lot longer now.
Another phenomena that was always mysterious to us with agitator type washers was the missing sock. It doesn’t seem to happen with the front loader. Damned if I know why. Maybe there are several socks trapped up under our old washer’s agitator. Maybe the agitator has beaten the socks into thin air, who knows? All we know is that we have not lost a sock since the front loader has shown up…knock on wood…
Still yet another phenomena that the front loader has cured, is the way my long sleeved shirts come out of the washer. With the top loaders one sleeve would always get turned inside out. It was a weird occurrence that happened often. My wife would ask me if I would turn them inside out taking them off. I wasn’t and it baffled us both. Maybe we had an aquatic little gnome that lived in that old washer that just wanted to mess with our minds. If that is the case, he didn’t make the trip to the new washer as the sleeves never come out inside out anymore….where’s that wood….
Something you should know if you get a front loader is; when they tell you to use less soap, they mean it! We use about one third the soap of the top loader this washer replaced. The washer is very good for delicate things that you would never think about putting in an agitator type unit. There is a gentle cycle especially for these things. It has the full complement of other cycles as well, including a rinse only setting for those of you that didn’t believe the deal about the soap.
A funny thing happened a day after the installation of our units was completed. Out washer/dryer is located in a closet in our bathroom. Well I needed to go and when I went into the bathroom, there was my wife sitting cross-legged on the floor with her wireless headphone on her head, watching the washer! I reminded her that we had bought a washer, not a new television. She, of course, knew that, but it would have made a great picture. Maybe I can convince her to recreate it…say, maybe get her to wear a blonde wig….never mind.
We have been very pleased with our Frigidare front loading washer. It cleans the clothes as well as any washer we have ever had before, uses less water, less electricity(?) and less soap. And in addition with the dryer attached to the top, less floor space. Did I mention less soap? I don’t think you would go wrong with one of these.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 650
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Epinions.com ID:
rbinck
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Richard Binckley
Location: Houston, Texas
Reviews written: 125
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
Retired A/V professional, likes Hawaii and Classic Cars
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