It seems like there was an abrupt stop to the use of any lint filtering system over the past 10-15 years, manually or automatically cleaning, but why? It's not as though clothes no longer produce lint, unless I'm just shopping in the wrong places.
This thought struck me after we bought a set of eight solid white bath towels the other day, 100% cotton. Now, they aren't fancy, as it was an 8-pack from Sam's Club, but I've been wanting us to have towels that were hotel-style, great at absorbing, and easily sanitized now and again through a bleach run. Of course, I put all eight into the washer immediately, with hot water and detergent. During the rinse I poured in a cup of vinegar to rid them of any factory oils and public funk that stuck to them while in the store. When they were dried, I could have stuffed a pillow with the fluffy lint build-up on the dryer filter. I put them through a couple of 30-minute air tumble cycles just to loosen and catch as much as I could. Upon use, they still of course have some fluffies that stick in your hair and fall all over the floor. I realized then: All the lint and fluff that rubs off in the washer just floats around with the towels, and when it's all done, what hasn't gone down the drain is left stuck to either the towels or the tub and interior.
The new WP belt-drive I have has no lint management system at all. I took the agitator off a while back, and where the openings would have normally been for water flow through the "MagicClean" filter, or the round finger-style inserts that came about later, there are just tiny little slits, which ironically were all plugged with tiny fibers from the water that was pulled from the unaltered vanes on the hidden underside of the agitator. There is also no filter assembly underneath the basket according to the diagrams. I've noticed that every newer machine (that I've researched or am aware of) has no form of lint catcher. Even the 2002 Maytag MAV I have over at my father-in-law's is the same, which actually did cause issues in regards to linty towels and the like.
I wonder why they now deem lint filters unnecessary in machines. The trend for dishwashers lately is to have manually cleaned filters, which is the opposite method I'd want for handling nasty food bits and grime, yet I'd be perfectly happy tapping a washing machine filter into a garbage can, or better yet, knowing that the washer will catch it and then flush it down the drain automatically, especially when I'm washing the dog's bedding or towels used to bathe him. No matter how much you shake outside, there's always the endless battle of wiping out leftover hair in the washer's tub, and that much more to block up the filter in the dryer.
This thought struck me after we bought a set of eight solid white bath towels the other day, 100% cotton. Now, they aren't fancy, as it was an 8-pack from Sam's Club, but I've been wanting us to have towels that were hotel-style, great at absorbing, and easily sanitized now and again through a bleach run. Of course, I put all eight into the washer immediately, with hot water and detergent. During the rinse I poured in a cup of vinegar to rid them of any factory oils and public funk that stuck to them while in the store. When they were dried, I could have stuffed a pillow with the fluffy lint build-up on the dryer filter. I put them through a couple of 30-minute air tumble cycles just to loosen and catch as much as I could. Upon use, they still of course have some fluffies that stick in your hair and fall all over the floor. I realized then: All the lint and fluff that rubs off in the washer just floats around with the towels, and when it's all done, what hasn't gone down the drain is left stuck to either the towels or the tub and interior.
The new WP belt-drive I have has no lint management system at all. I took the agitator off a while back, and where the openings would have normally been for water flow through the "MagicClean" filter, or the round finger-style inserts that came about later, there are just tiny little slits, which ironically were all plugged with tiny fibers from the water that was pulled from the unaltered vanes on the hidden underside of the agitator. There is also no filter assembly underneath the basket according to the diagrams. I've noticed that every newer machine (that I've researched or am aware of) has no form of lint catcher. Even the 2002 Maytag MAV I have over at my father-in-law's is the same, which actually did cause issues in regards to linty towels and the like.
I wonder why they now deem lint filters unnecessary in machines. The trend for dishwashers lately is to have manually cleaned filters, which is the opposite method I'd want for handling nasty food bits and grime, yet I'd be perfectly happy tapping a washing machine filter into a garbage can, or better yet, knowing that the washer will catch it and then flush it down the drain automatically, especially when I'm washing the dog's bedding or towels used to bathe him. No matter how much you shake outside, there's always the endless battle of wiping out leftover hair in the washer's tub, and that much more to block up the filter in the dryer.