Hi Jennifer, We moved into a house owned by the mine my father managed in Temagami back in 1962 which had a front loading washer in it and the washer wasn't new then. They have been available in North America a very long time.
One significant disadvantage that I am aware of is that if the machine fails when loaded with water there isn't usually any option to open the door and retrieve your laundry without disassembling enough of the machine to remove a hose and drain it down first. We experienced this inconvenience several times with that old machine and again several times with one in a hostal I lived in my first year or so when I was a student in London England in 1969-70. They are very efficient with water use and you should be careful about the sort of detergent or soap you use. Foam is a real problem for front loading washers because of the action which tends to really trap a lot of air. This makes both getting rid of the suds difficult and somehow it seems to play hell on the pump systems but I don't know why. They were very strict about what we were allowed to use in the Bendex at that hostel because of maintenance issues which were frequently blamed on the soap powder used. My mother-in-law in England has one mounted under a kitchen counter. It impressed me with it's quiet operation and convenience. At 82 years of age and coming off a recent knee replacement she still seems to manage to get down there to load and unload the thing which I thought to be quite an achievement. Anyway, just to say that these are not new on this side of the pond. One feature though that you will sometimes find on European models that I have never seen over here is the addition of an electric heater. This permits use where there is no hot water supply available, it can be set to heat the water before washing if desired. We had one in a twin tub washer/spin dryer when we first got married. Fill the tub with water from the tap, in those days it was what is known as a gas geyser mounted on the wall, a sort of early demand water heater but which didn't supply hot water very fast. How times change, we used to have to plug shillings into the gas meter to buy gas, the original "PayAsYouGo. Although we didn't have to buy our electricity that way, we did know people who did. You could be sitting there and the lights go off until you plug another coin or two into the meter. That is how advanced they were at that time. I expect there is still some old tenement housing like that today in more remote places but that was West Ealing in 1971-73. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jennifer Jackson To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 3:19 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] new washers Another nice feature of the front loaders is you can wash your comforters and pillows at home without getting them to the laundry mat. I was the sounding board for a friend when she was buying a front loading set last year. BTW, she is very pleased with hers. A tip is to price the stands at Lows or someplace, because it can sometimes be cheaper to buy it their than from the dealer. Besides it is always good to know how much of a good deal the sales person is really offering when they tell you they are giving you something. Now, I have another friend with a theory about the cheaper machines you buy at places like Lows and Best Buy. I would love to hear what you more technical guys think about this. She says that the appliances at the discount stores are made with inferior parts that are manufactured in Mexico and China. That they are not the same quality of machine. Now I think if you are checking model numbers and comparing apples to apples, that this is not really an issue. Oh, and as to the prices on these front loaders coming down any time soon, I do not think that is going to happen. They are not really a new product. They have been manufactured and very popular in Great Britain and Europe for a long time. those folks are, in general, more conscious about water and electric usage than we are here. Jennifer [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the new archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! 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