Which washing machine (10kg)/dryer(>8kg) combination is best?

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hoofa

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#151338 21-Aug-2014 19:51

I am trying to decide on which washing machine and dryer is the best to get.

* want a 10kg front loader washing machine. Like the new Samsung crystal version (good price, seem to be a good machine).
* want a large capacity dryer (8kg+) - is the new Samsung heat pump one a good option? I haven't seen it in shops yet but it is on the Samsung website.

Things to consider:

* Will be used in Northland, NZ which is rather humid. Is a condenser or heat pump dryer a better option?

Look forward to any comments & advice! :)

timmmay

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#1113128 21-Aug-2014 20:00

Not F&P, mine's 6 years old and making all kinds of noises. Bosch do good stuff. Heat pump ones are pretty expensive and probably won't last as long as a regular one, which are basically just a motor and a heating element.

Niel

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#1113177 21-Aug-2014 22:12

Condenser in principal works okay but I think takes too long and not good in high humidity climates. Bosch is great, been using one for a number of years and love the sensor dryer. Heat pump should be reliable, and in theory should be great economy for high volume use, but I have no experience. For a"normal" one, go Bosch and you will never look back. If you go Samsung, go for higher end models and watch Noel Leeming, they have specials on different brands at different times and it takes about 2 weeks for the same special to come around. If a top loader was okay, then I would recommend the Samsung Hudson 10kg or the Samsung WA80F5G4DJW.

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Niel

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#1113178 21-Aug-2014 22:13

Oh, and if the dryer can be wall hung then it is cheap. Quality machines are too heavy to hang up.

You can never have enough Volvos!

sdav

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#1113226 22-Aug-2014 08:04

Niel: Oh, and if the dryer can be wall hung then it is cheap. Quality machines are too heavy to hang up.

Wut? Maybe in commercial applications. In my personal experience (which is all I can offer) we have had a wall hung dryer for near 8 years and it's still going strong.

keewee01

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#1113255 22-Aug-2014 08:56

sdav:
Niel: Oh, and if the dryer can be wall hung then it is cheap. Quality machines are too heavy to hang up.

Wut? Maybe in commercial applications. In my personal experience (which is all I can offer) we have had a wall hung dryer for near 8 years and it's still going strong.

Yep - our Hoover 5kg wall-hung dryer is 19 years old and still going strong. Never had an issue with it.

Our Kelvenator (SmartDrive by F&P) is 17 years old and still going. Have had to have it serviced twice, once for a something minor and once for the control unit.

I know these are going to die sooner rather than later and will need to be replaced with something that will not last as long.

Disrespective

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#1113288 22-Aug-2014 09:24

We have an Electrolux washer (front loader) and (condenser) dryer. The dryer stacks on top of the washer and we have a nice accessory which is a small tray that is sandwiched between them and can be pulled out to load the dried/wet clothes onto when transferring between. I have nothing but praise for them.

OT: A little trick I was told by a service agent is to run a warm cycle (about 50 degrees) with no powder or clothes, and when it starts to fill with water pour a litre or so of white vinegar through the washing powder tray. It helps to remove any gunk inside and clean all the internals. We do it once a year and it definitely makes a difference on the cleaning ability.

timmmay

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#1113289 22-Aug-2014 09:25

You can get washing machine cleaning products/powders from the supermarket. They get a heap of gunk out, to the point you need to do a wash of something like an old towel before you wash anything you care about, to help clear the gunk out of the machine.

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trig42

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#1113292 22-Aug-2014 09:29

We have a Panasonic 10kg front loader.
I can recommend it - quiet, fast, big door. Allows adding items after the cycle has started (there's always an escaped sock!). We mainly use the 50 minute cycle on about 40 degrees, but it has a heap of others (the 15 minute one is good for bath towels).

I was always anti front loaders until we got this one, and I would not go back to a water guzzling top loader now (this 10kg uses about a quarter of the water our previous TL 5.5kg did per cycle, and I think the clothes are cleaner and better cared for).

As for driers, Panasonic do a matching model, but it costs more than the washer I think. We have an old F&P ED56 (at least 15 years old, making a few funny noises on startup, but works fine). I'd happily get another one.

Niel

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#1113583 22-Aug-2014 17:22

keewee01:
sdav:
Niel: Oh, and if the dryer can be wall hung then it is cheap. Quality machines are too heavy to hang up.

Wut? Maybe in commercial applications. In my personal experience (which is all I can offer) we have had a wall hung dryer for near 8 years and it's still going strong.

Yep - our Hoover 5kg wall-hung dryer is 19 years old and still going strong. Never had an issue with it.

Our Kelvenator (SmartDrive by F&P) is 17 years old and still going. Have had to have it serviced twice, once for a something minor and once for the control unit.

I know these are going to die sooner rather than later and will need to be replaced with something that will not last as long.

The OP wanted an 8kg dryer, so it will weigh about 35kg+ excluding clothes. It is actually not that easy to find a dryer that size/weight approved to hang off a couple of studs.

My point was not only about reliability, because a cheap dryer has no insulation which I consider to be cheaply made even though it will probably still last a long time (and use more power for a long time). Also keep in mind we have gone through a global recession, where manufacturers had to redesign products to reduce manufacturing cost, and what you buy now was likely designed during that time. Companies also had to change to cheaper component manufacturers, not necessarily redesign products, to save cost and survive through hard times.

You can never have enough Volvos!

hoofa

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1113895 23-Aug-2014 08:31

Niel: Condenser in principal works okay but I think takes too long and not good in high humidity climates.

I'm interested in your comment here. I would've thought it was better not to have the moisture being put back into the already humid air in a room, instead, using a condenser or heat pump to contain the moisture within itself...

Niel

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#1114038 23-Aug-2014 12:52

hoofa:
Niel: Condenser in principal works okay but I think takes too long and not good in high humidity climates.

I'm interested in your comment here. I would've thought it was better not to have the moisture being put back into the already humid air in a room, instead, using a condenser or heat pump to contain the moisture within itself...

Thanks for asking. Let me clarify, it was late when I posted last night.

A condenser dryer uses ambient air (or water for a combined washer/dryer) to cool the outside of a heat sink while the inside air is sealed and heated. On the inside of the heat sink the moisture from the clothes will condense. The condensed moisture is either collected in a container that needs emptying, evaporated to the ambient air, or piped to a drain. Not all models offer all options though. It still uses heat to evaporate the moisture, and tends to heat up the room through the exhaust air so in that regard is beneficial if located inside your house. If it is in your garage, the waste heat is not beneficial, but some models do use it to evaporate the moisture so you don't have to drain it. The issue in high humidity climates is that the warm air from the dryer will cause moisture in the room to evaporate and then condense on cold windows/surfaces, causing mould and damage. For this reason, I would not recommend it for a very high humidity climate. They are intended for where you want it within an HVAC controlled home and not vent your HVAC air to the outside while drawing in cold air from the outside. They are good for cold/wet climates if they are used inside a well insulated house, not in the garage or old laundry.

A (true) heat pump dryer is essentially the same as a dehumidifier in that it compresses gas for heating and releases gas for cooling. So you get high efficiency heating for evaporating moisture from the clothes while you get a high temperature gradient for condensing the moisture. This is fast and efficient, but due to the complexity and cost it is only feasible for large (maybe industrial) dryers. Then due to the amount of moisture from the size of dryer, you typically need to connect it to a drain. You get net heating because it takes work to compress the gas, but is much less than a condenser dryer so you should not get significant heating of the room and so less issues with condensation on windows and cold surfaces.

In a good quality conventional dryer the inlet air is pre-heated by the exhaust air, so you get better efficiency. Cheaper dryers don't do this, so you have to heat the cold incoming air and waste the warm outgoing air.

A common, unqualified statement is that a condenser dryer uses less power and is faster (or the same) as a vented dryer. The issue is that this unqualified statement does not compare apples with apples. A condenser dryer by design has a moisture sensor to stop when the clothes are dry, where as a standard cheap vented timed dryer does not. It needs to be compared with a vented sensor dryer. Also, a condenser dryer still releases lots of heat to ambient through the condenser element and drum, it is only air sealed and not heat sealed, so it does not save power (you need the same power to evaporate the same moisture). Actually a vented dryer uses less power as the ambient air is less humid than the wet clothes (except towards the end of the cycle, even in high humidity climates) so in a vented dryer you have both heat and dry(er) air to dry the clothes. In a condenser dryer you have just heat for drying.

A condenser dryer is for convenience when you know you will move lots and not always have a vent available, or if the dryer is inside your home and you don't want to suck cold air in (which is what a vented dryer does).

Please continue to ask or correct me if I've posted a contradiction, there is lots in my head and it does not always come out the way it is intended ;-).

Here are a couple of useful links:
http://ths.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/laundry/2004120958010854.html
http://knowhow.com/article.dhtml?articleReference=3345&country=uk

You can never have enough Volvos!