added a maytag MVWP576KW ‘commercial’ top loader to our large family laundry setup

[vintagewasher]

I read up here when looking for another washing machine and picked the maytag commercial mvwp576kw because as much as I would like a vintage machine we’re just not handy enough nor do we have time to do repairs ourselves. We have nine kids and even with our four year old big lg8000hwa with the mini pedestal washer I was still having trouble keeping up on all the laundry, just not enough hours in the day for those long cycles and the control panel reset gymnastics and extra water trickery required to get cloth diapers clean was getting old.

The maytag is everything I was wanting in a washer. I don’t know why there aren’t more machines like this on the market. It’s just simple knobs and a single button. One side of the main knob is blue and fills the tub with water. Really fills it full and non temp restricted hot water is an option. The same cycles on the other side of that cycle selector knob do the same thing but the tub only fills about half way. It works better for smaller loads and when I want the detergent more concentrated. It needs a lot more detergent than the top loader. Then there’s a knob to select the temperature from tap cold to hot and a third knob for options which are presoak, extra rinse, or both. The hot presoak option works amazingly well on the cloth diapers.

My only complaint about the new machine is the lack of a rinse option other than cold. Cold works for everything except the diapers which I need to have zero detergent residue. It’s not the machine’s fault but it moves so much laundry so quickly compared to the front loader that we have dryer bottlenecks. We’ve added a little apartment sized dryer and large drying rack to help. We live in military housing so we’re not allowed to add another 240v dryer outlet so that’s our only option for more dryer space.

 

[appnut]

Elizabeth, intelligent arrangement of laundry room to tackle as much as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, it's Energy Star guidelines that restrict the availability warm rinses. I have a suggestion you might try, although it's just more "button pushing".

If you want a final warm or hot rinse for diapers my suggestion is to start a new cycle on heavy duty with hot or warm water fill. Let it agitate for a few minutes. Then hit pause or cancel then turn selector to drain & spin and press start.

I also think Heavy Duty cycle has 2 rinses as opposed to 1 rinse for Mixed Load cycle.

Although the washer's controls are knobs, the machine is still fully controlled with electronics.

 

[yogitunes]

is that a gas valve next to the washer coming out of the wall?.....you can always add a full size gas dryer, it only needs a regular outlet to operate...

 

[repairguy]

It sure is. I see it too Martin. Good eye!

 

[vintagewasher]

Yup, there’s a hookup. There are two problems with using it though. The only spots to drain are on that wall too so drain and water hoses would have to be run all the way around the room so a washer could be on the other side which I’m not sure would work all that well. Or gas lines would need to be run around the back perimeter of the room, I’m not sure how safe that is.

The bigger reason we don’t want to get a gas dryer is because this house is an anomaly in military housing. It’s the only house we’ve ever seen with a gas dryer hookup and since we move every year or two we don’t really want to put the money into buying a gas dryer that we’ll have to sell off so soon.

 

[DADoES]

 
Gas dryers don't need water supply and drain connections ... but they do need exhaust venting.

 

[pinkpower4]

I have this washer...

I use a Panda spin dryer (or you can get a Ninja spin dryer). Not only does it remove extra moisture from clothes and allow them to dry faster, but it also removes some of the detergent that may still be in the clothes. It saves on our electric bill too. It does require a little more hands on thougg. I like Tide (powder or liquid) or Persil

Are they small loads of diapers? If so, you could run a Normal cycle for a half tub rinse. Hot is warm and warm is cool for that cycle only. They would get a 7 instead of 2 minute rinse and a bonus spray rinse.

I don't have much time to post right now, but I have a way to manually add hot water so that my Normal can be hot. The only issue here is not the wash action but length of cycle--7 vs 12 minutes for power wash. You can still do a manual soak. Live lid closed and just pause for length of time needed? Maybe you want to run the cycle three times? Two waah and one rinse?

 

[vintagewasher]

Is this the box that’s you’re looking at in the picture? The one just behind the top loader? I’m been trying to figure out how you saw a gas hookup that’s not in the picture at all, lol. There is a gas hookup way back there but we don’t want to buy a gas dryer. Even if we did the only way to use it would be to run unsafely long gas lines to the other side of the room or move a washer to the other side of the room which would wind up ruining it because the drain hose would have to be 15-20’ long.

 

[repairguy]

There is a gas line to the left of your new washer down by the baseboard coming out of the wall. We were just trying to be helpful because natural gas dryers are incredibly efficient and economical. I understand the relocating frequently thing because natural gas connections aren’t near as common as electric these days.

 

[DADoES]

 
Gas connection, photo #2 from the OP.  Or is it not gas?

 

[whirlykenmore78]

New TL MT

Nice washer, glad you are enjoying it.
WK78

 

[whatsername]

How about an LG gas dryer and stack it on top of the electric dryer using the official stacking kit? Then just indoor vent the electric dryer. You would have to remove the existing dryer pedestal of course.

I’m sure someone will chime in if the stacking kit doesn’t work for dryer on dryer stacks.

 

[vintagewasher]

I didn’t even see it in that picture. Good eye! I appreciate the suggestions but buying a gas dryer just doesn’t make sense for us at this time. If we were going to be living here long term we would buy a house and have it set up just how we want but I can live with this setup for a year or two. Efficiency isn’t a concern since our utilities are included in the money we forfeit in exchange for housing.

Even with the dryer bottlenecks I’m still able to move a lot of laundry through. I try to be strategic about it. I alternate regular clothes with blankets and things that can go on the drying rack (and our other two drying racks in other rooms). Smaller loads go in the little dryer. To avoid ironing I throw the air dried stuff in for a few minutes to soften and dewrinkle. Counting the mini pedestal washer loads I was able to do 28 loads today which was all of my laundry from over a week. All the drying racks are full and it’ll take some time tomorrow to touch all that stuff up but it’s amazing to me to have gotten it all done in one day. I haven’t been able to do all of our laundry in a single day in years. It’ll be nice to have a true laundry day again even if a few things will have to be kept up on during the week.

 

[runematic]

The only thing you could have done differently is buy the mvwp575 model from an independent dealer and you would have had a 5 year parts & labor warranty vs just a 1 year on the 576 model.  Other than that we've had good success with these in the field.

 

[jamiel]

Just get a gas dryer used for $100-150 and let it go when you leave. The B&B where we recently stayed realized that their choke-point in turning over the rooms was in the laundry room, so got a second w/d and now that's not the problem any more.

 

[gansky1]

That longer dryer vent is probably unavoidable, but slows down the dryer a little.  Do you have clotheslines outside?  The last time I went through military-family housing neighborhoods here, all the t-posts had been removed during (much needed) renovations.

 

Good tip on the 575/576 Maytag models, the longer warranty would be worth the effort to find an independent dealer.

 

[vintagewasher]

I understand that cheap used dryers are out there but unless I get a costly new one and stacking kit to match my washer (which means I lose the mini washer that I use a lot) there’s no way to set it up that doesn’t involve either gas line extensions to the other side of the room which isn’t safe or drain hose extensions which the machines likely couldn’t handle or which would significantly impact how they wear. It’s just not something we’re going to do.

We don’t have a clothesline. Back when my husband joined every house had a cement and metal post holder and one of those square umbrella type clotheslines. It was wonderful. Then housing was privatized. The companies updated housing everywhere but the clotheslines went away. In most places new houses were built while people still lived in the old ones so the yards don’t even have the holders.

We are allowed to have a clothesline but it’s so humid in this area that clothes would take a long time to dry and much of the year they collect pollen while drying. It sets our allergies off even being outside. I do miss the smell of line dried clothes and I used to love going on walks in our neighborhood and seeing everyone’s laundry drying in the sun.

The drying racks we have are working pretty well so far. The big wooden amish made one in the laundry room has 52’ of drying space and holds a lot of stuff. The heat that comes off the mini dryer (the condensation is collected) helps the stuff on that rack dry quickly. With the door shut it’s almost like one of those old drying cabinets they show in the laundry films from the 40’s. Regular clothes dry in a single afternoon and even thick blankets only take overnight. We have a couple big gullwing style ones too and a smaller version of the wooden one. They work well but take up a lot of floor space when they’re all set up. I’m happy with the setup though and feel good about lowering our energy usage a bit by air drying some things. Utilities are included in what we pay (the companies were required to do this after a congressional investigation found they were overcharging some families). It’s not as convenient as just tossing it all in the dryer but it gets done.

 

[mark_wpduet]

what did you mean by control panel reset gymnastics?

 

[iheartmaytag]

My dryer

Actually has a water connection, It's a steam dryer