How to find a decent washing machine

vet8

My old washing machine has just died and looking around for a new one I am appalled.

It is apparently impossible to buy any machine that fills with hot water as well as cold, this is ridiculous. I have a solid fuel Rayburn which heats the water as a side product of heating the house and cooking so I get loads of hot water for free in effect. I am not then going to buy a washing machine which heats all the water from cold. What a waste of money, especially as heating water by electricity is the MOST expensive way to do it. I am also amazed at how long these new machines take to do a wash - usually 2 to 3 hours. What! My old one took just over an hour. Again what a huge waste of power, how can these be supposed to be energy saving.

Can anyone recommend a decent machine please?

maysmummy

I love my Miele and wouldn't swap to any other. I have had it so long I can't tell you the model number but it says Premier Plus on it. Fab. Never seen a repair man

Callie22

Apparently Ebac are launching a British-made, hot and cold fill machine in September, but there's not much info about it. If you can wait that long then it might be worth contacting them?

I have a Samsung 8kg ecobubble machine that I'm happy with - the 'daily wash' cycle is just over an hour and there's quite a lot you can do to customise the cycles (fewer rinses etc). Miele is a bit out of my budget but if I could afford it then I'd go for one of those, I've never heard a bad word about them for reliability and longevity.

Mrs_Optimist

Second what Callie22 says about the Samsung 8kg ecobubble. It's the best machine I have owned, and does a 60 degree wash in an hour (my old whirlpool took two and a half hours for a 60 degree wash ��) I also got a free 5 year guarantee with it.

Fosterdog

I've said on similar threads before my Beko is the best machine I've ever used.

It has a rapid was (2kg max) that takes around 15-20 mins and a daily quick wash (7kg max) that takes between 39-58 mins depending on my chosen temp and spin speed. I use the daily quick wash for most things and it does a good job.

Mine only cost around £230 six years ago and is used most days, it copes well with OHs very dirty work clothes and being overloaded when we wash the dogs beds. I just run it on a 90 wash with white vinegar every couple of months to keep it nice, clean and smelling fresh.

If it failed today I would happily buy another one, I know it's not one of the "premium" brands but it does a fantastic job for the price.

Previous machines have been Hoover, Hotpoint, Indesit and Zanussi and I would never buy any of them again.

I know you said you want a hot and cold fill but they are very hard to come by these days, you understandably have a cheaper hot water supply but for most they are a lot more expensive to run. A cold fill A+ rating machine only costs around £30-£40 a year to run so hardly rediculusly expensive in the long run, it's probably very little of that being used to actually heat the water and more going into the spin cycle which you would have with any machine.

SmarterNotHarder

Callie22 wrote: »

I have a Samsung 8kg ecobubble machine that I'm happy with - the 'daily wash' cycle is just over an hour and there's quite a lot you can do to customise the cycles (fewer rinses etc). Miele is a bit out of my budget but if I could afford it then I'd go for one of those, I've never heard a bad word about them for reliability and longevity.

Going to sound silly here sorry! - I occasionally want to do a 95 degree wash but it takes over 2 hours in this machine. How do I tweak it so i still get a hot wash without it taking so long?

Callie22

SmarterNotHarder wrote: »

Going to sound silly here sorry! - I occasionally want to do a 95 degree wash but it takes over 2 hours in this machine. How do I tweak it so i still get a hot wash without it taking so long?

That's the one thing that I've found tricky with my Samsung, is that it's not great for fast, really hot washes. You can't do a wash above 60 degrees on the daily wash setting, which is mildly annoying. The fastest 90 degree wash I've found is on the Baby Care setting, if you reduce the number of rinses down to two then it takes 1hr and 52 mins. There is a 90 degree option on the Cottons cycle - if you reduce that down to 2 rinses then that takes 2hrs and 3 mins, but the Baby Care option seems to be the fastest, hottest wash available.

dave_dph

Hi Vet8

Check out the buying advice forum at https://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk

pigpen

I have the Samsung 12Kg ecobubble... 2 in fact.. they are wonderful.. my usual 40' wash takes 52 minutes.. I rarely use anything other the programmed 'my cycle' option..

For 90' wash I cut out the prewash and one of the 3 rinses, I use much less powder than recommended so the extra rinsing isnt required

It is not allowed in many countries to have hot water fills so, due to machines being made in those countries they are cold water fill only.. my dishwasher says it is cold water fill so I hooked it to the hot water fill... saves some pennies I guess.. if you never use a cold wash I would just fix it to the hot fill and I'm sure it will be fine.

lemonizer

If you wash at 30c with a modern washer the water heating costs are very small part of the cycle.

Using 20% less powder would have a great cost effect.

Money_saving_maniac

Well I've learnt something from this thread! I never knew that most new washing machines are cold fill only.
Its true though - I just looked at the new Servis machines (my current machine is a 14 year old Servis still going strong so that's what I'd probably buy again) and they are all cold fill only.
If hot fill is illegal in some european countries that's why we are stuck with cold fill only - a EU issue.