Any readily-available front loaders that use their internal heaters?

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johnmk

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Hi folks,

I'm looking for an affordable, i.e., preferably less than $1,000, front loading clothes washer that uses its internal heater for more than just a sanitary cycle. Something that heats up to 120-130 Fahrenheit would be sufficient for my uses. I live in the U.S., so it should be 120 volts, and would prefer something both 1) new and 2) at least relatively well-available. Does anyone know of a front loading clothes washer that will engage its internal heater whenever I want it to, or at a minimum, which is known to engage the heater for a Bright Whites, Whitest Whites, Heavy Duty, etc., cycle, that meets my general requirements?

Thank you ever so much if you can help me with this!

Sincerely,

-John
 
120-130º

This probably isn't too helpful, but don't most US people keep their water heaters at 120-130º these days? If so, you should be all-right without models that use a heater, provided you can bleed cold water from the water line before starting the machines. If you have hotter water than this, many machines today "temper" their own water, for some stupid energy conservation reason, so a "Hot" wash is likely to be around 120ºF.

 

I believe of the machines that do offer water heating, they take literally forever (a lot worse than 240v models), due to the low voltage power on your side of the pond. Thats why the likes of Miele came up with a 240v model for the US, which were expensive, rare, and depending on your area, illegal.

If you do get a 115v model with heating, be prepared for VERY long washing cycles, if it actually delays the wash until that temperature is reached. I wouldn't expect laundry day to get much done, if one was doing boil washes for most loads either. 

 

I hope this is something of what you wanted to hear
 
My Whirlpool WFW97 (comparable to Maytag Maxima 9000 & Maxima 7000) default with heater supplement on Allergen, Whitest Whites, and Heavy Duty.  Deep Clean (or Stain Treat) option will start wash cycle with filling up with warm and then gradually heating water to hot or sanitary (155 degrees F) on the above-mentioned cycles as wellas Normal/Casual and Bulky Items.  My machine even has special unique cycles for certain types of loads.  A couple of these even allow the deep clean/stain treat option, one of which is a cotton active wear cycle which tumbles on low speed (delicate) and heats the water.  You can also set wash temp to warm and still use stain treat/deep clean option to add additional wash time and make sure water is heated to 100 to 105.  And washer111 you have amisconception about not needing a supplemental water heating device in these washers because of our hot water tanks.  These machines use so little water compared to top loaders that water still needs suypplemental heating. 

 

I looked at both Whirlpool's & Maytag's web sites.  List price of $1099 will give you deep clean or sanitize options or features.  Retail prices for those  models will probably be less than $1099 and closer to the upper end of your price range.   Both Maytag and Whirlpool have models at $1099 list with the steam clean or deep clean option.  This gives you the flexibility similar to what my model offers as I mentioned above.   And don't forget to look at the downloadable use & care manuals. 

[this post was last edited: 1/15/2013-19:32]
 
Hi appnut, and others,

I wanted to thank you for the information you provided, it was helpful in my research, even though I decided to go with an LG for various reasons.

Contained below is a more expansive post on my choice, the LG WM3470, which I posted at gardenweb.com.

-John

ths.gardenweb.com

Any new front loaders with useful internal heaters?

Hi folks, I'm looking for an affordable, i.e., preferably less than $1,000, front loading clothes washer that uses its internal heater for more than just a sanitary cycle. Something that heats up to 120-130 Fahrenheit would be sufficient for my uses. I live in the U.S., so it should be 120...
ths.gardenweb.com ths.gardenweb.com
 
Washer 111

A problem here is the USA is that even if your water heater is set to 140F many new washer models will mix cold water with hot water on the "HOT setting" so that the hot wash you get is around 110F or less.  I guess the only way to get 120-130F wash water is it manually dump it into the machine by a bucket.....Sad.
 
Jerrod6

Could you just barely open the cold tap, or would newer machines compensate for this?
 
Hi Jerrod,

All new washing machines use Automatic Temperature Control to achieve a temperature that falls within the range desired Hot, Warm, and Cold. Reducing the flow of cold water vs. hot water will just increase the amount of time the washer sips out of the cold water inlet.
 
Some Ingenuity Needed

It seems to me that, in a group like this, there would be some older front loaders that have "lost their minds" so to speak....maybe someone could give on of them a brain transplant like Unimatic1120 did with his 1950's Frigidaire.

It does not take much to program relays to control the machine...get a tablet computer and use wireless to actually control the machine. Then you could literally design a cycle that is perfect for what you want to do.

I can't wait to finish my controls and relays class to try it for myself.

 
I can confirm that my new LG WM3470 uses the internal water heater in the Bright Whites cycle, at least when TurboWash is enabled. It probably uses it without enabling TurboWash, but I haven't tried all possibilities yet. The target temperature of Bright Whites appears to be around 105F, as the heater came on when the water was a couple degrees cooler than 105F, and after the internal water heater turned off, I measured 107F.
 
"All new washing machines use Automatic Temperature Control"

Maybe all front loaders. Not all top loaders use it. Alliance/SQ has a version of it (narrowed hot water intake) for their TL's but it's defeatable with a little effort. Our prior TL (a Cabrio) was electronic, the main reason it lasted less than a week in our house is because we couldn't find a way to bypass the ATC. Just disgusting.
 
Cannot Be Sure

But IIRC the USDOE tightened energy use regulations to add something about machines being designed so consumers couldn't defeat certain restrictions. Which one can understand from their point of view. What would be the point of selling machines that in theory were supposed to save energy when consumers would get them home and rejig things.
 
Might Have The Wrong End Of The Stick, But....

11. Anti-Circumvention

EPCA requires that test procedures be reasonably designed to produce test results which measure energy efficiency, energy use, water use or estimated annual operating cost of a covered product during a representative average use cycle or period of use, as determined by the Secretary. 42 U.S.C. 6293(b)(3). This statutory requirement may be undermined if products are purposefully designed to use controls or features that produce test results that are so unrepresentative of a product's actual energy or water consumption as to provide materially inaccurate comparative data. The Joint Comment stated that DOE should ensure that the test procedure is not vulnerable to circumvention and should prohibit any mode or other operating function that is designed solely or primarily to reduce energy and water consumption during testing. According to the Joint Comment, sophisticated and inexpensive electronic controls may detect the DOE testing conditions and minimize energy and water use under those specific conditions. The Joint Comment described as an illustrative example a clothes washer with adaptive fill control that could be programmed to minimize the fill level when it measured a clothes load size at exactly the weight of the average DOE test load for that capacity machine. (Joint Comment, No. 15 at p. 3) DOE considered issues of circumvention in its clothes washer test procedure rulemaking.

 
I've owned a ton of machines and the only one I know of that you could set the tempature yourself, is an Asko. Temps were Tap cold to 205 degrees. Loved them. They are small but produced the greatest results of anythig I've ever had. Unfortunately, you have to buy them as a set, because the washer plugs into the back of the dryer and you need the 220 (or whatever an electric dryer runs on) plug. Check craigslist. I have seen them on there every so often.

Laurent
 
You Don't Need To Purchase Asko W&D As A Set

Asko even states in owner's manuals for it's washing machines that if one does not use their dryer the plug must be changed.

The only thing one must do is replace the Asko plug with the proper three or four wire 208v-240v at whatever amps.

Asko would love to sell only sets, but many persons don't need or want a matching dryer when shopping for a washer. Indeed one assumes one reason behind Asko's washer plug "thing" is to move dryers which often do not sell as well as washing machines.
 

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