GE washer rinse cycle

[user 3941]

I think it's more people don't respond or ignore things they don't want to hear or believe. Case in point on HE TL washers. Despite how many posts and videos of people here (including myself) that have used them daily showing that they ARE excellent performers and clean just as well as ANY washer out there?? People still say they don't clean! Talk about frustrating.

I agree FL's are the best cleaning machines but I would pit my Kenmore 28102 against any regular top loader, including a new Speed Queen. It would clean as well if not better. Period.

 

[mrboilwash]

Once on a vacation in the States we`ve had a hideous modern Whirlpool that would only fill up half way in the rinse cycle but at least it incorporated a spin after the wash and a spray during the final spin IIRC. As if clothes wouldn`t get enough beating in these even with a full tub of water.
Also got to know a GE Hydrowave and found it pretty good performing for a modern toploader, of course no compare to a classic Filterflo, but the one in the video is beyond ridiculous.
I wonder if it just skiped the spin after the wash because the the lid was open or is it really that bad ?

 

[panthera]

qualin,

That makes sense, thanks for the elaboration.

Remember, please - I'm the guy who still used Kochwäsche back home in Germany in the 2000s.

I also live with dogs, cats and a partner whose profession requires him to be very properly and cleanly dressed.

You'll find that kennel owners frequently keep GE Filterflos running to this day because, for some of us, a filter is still needed - and nothing does it as well. That's optimum technology: The simplest solution with the least to go wrong.

 

Microprocessors are useful. I've a degree in IT, so repairing the poor wee bairn and her board in our GSD Twenty-Eight Hundred was the easy part. For me.

There is no question that a good logic control can make a very good machine outstanding.

Unfortunately, there is also no question that a manufacturer can use logic control to make a marginal machine adequate - which is the case with the TL trash on the US market right now (I'm excluding the specialty stuff, like that H-Axis washer from Nebraska). 

 

No sane person can argue the flaws of the Filterflo suspension or the unnecessarily sized outer tub. Both should have been fixed, at the very latest, when the switch from solid tub was made.

 

In the end, I guess it's a matter of priorities. I like the filtering, I do prefer line-drying (Wyoming, wind) and I have absolutely zero patience for the nonsense that 'I' am damaging the environment. More water is used in one well in one day for fracking than I'll use in my entire life. Our '74 Sedan deVille may have a drinking problem, and the '89GTA (with the Corvette motor) matches her gulp for gulp.

Life's too short for me to give up clean clothes and fun cars when I see the harm done by industry with official government sanction.

 

 

[johnb300m]

resources

I am so sick of hearing this argument.

YES, there's fracking. YES, it wastes water. YES, farmers are wasting water too.
NO it does not give you permission to waste all the water YOU want because someone else out there is acting worse and hasn't been stopped yet.

Trucks and factories are by FAR the worst air polluters out there. Way moreso than personal cars.
Does that mean we should all rip off our catalytic converters and dance in the acid rain?
One house wasting water with an overflow rinse washer and pumping pounds of phosphate down the drain isn't going to do much damage.
But it's the collective impact of thousands of neighborhoods acting the same way that has the largest negative impact.

Everyone is still free enough to buy old resource hogging machines and pay through the nose on their utility bills to their heart's content.
But if they want to lessen their impact on said resources and save a little coin every month, there are actually some good, modern machines out there today that can help with that.

To stay on topic, the FilterFlos were great machines in their own right..........20 years ago.
But they are obsolete.
My parents' 1982 Maytag is OBSOLETE. But it's still chugging along.
When it dies, they can finally look at getting a Maxima front loader like I have, that will use a fraction of the water and get clothes just as clean or cleaner!

I too am ALL EARS.
What would you do, Mr. GELaundry?
You NEED a washer before the week is out.
You ONLY have $400 in your pocket. There are NO FilterFlos within a 200 mile radius of you on Craigslist.
WHAT. DO. YOU. DO?

 

[panthera]

john,

You have your opinion, I have mine.

I don't smoke.

I don't drink.

I've been a vegetarian for nearly 40 years now.

I feel firmly about all three. I equally firmly refuse to impose any of the three upon anyone else and I DESPISE people who share my lifestyle choices who do.

I remember when we first introduced Recycling in Munich. Now, the stuff we sorted went straight into the trash for years and years and years - the point was to educate us (Erziehung), not to actually improve things.

That's how I feel about these stupid HE washers which are worthless. Ditto the near-waterless dishwashers which require prescrubbing, take hours and hours and leave the dishes exposed to mold and microbes because they are filthy.

I'll run my '74 Sedan deVille, my '89 GTA (with the Corvette motor), my thumper (in PANK!) and my GE Filterflo. I'll wash my dishes (no prerinsing/-scrubbing) in my GSD2800 or 1200 and know they'll be clean and sanitary.

Our water is set to 145F. Our house is kept at 70F.

Our 1967 Custom Deluxe keeps dairy at 33F, meat (my partner eats meat) at 32F and the rest at 35F, freezer at -10F. I like it that way. Don't like it? Fine. Don't do it.

But to pretend a washer which actually cleans clothes is 'obsolete' is illogical. Oh, and the argument against STTP and TSP is not driven by science, so please abandon it. It's incorrect. A few teaspoons of TSP or a dash of STTP and everything is clean.

 

[henene4]

Opinion vs Facts

Opinion is opinion, fact is fact.

The year 2000 HP desctop PC in our storage room still works and runs WinXP. So, it is not obsolete, or is it?

I don't know where you get your information from about phosphates, but our town invested ~2 million € (if I remember correctly) in an water treatment system, specificly to improve the water purity, one of the concerns being phosphates.

We have a "near water-less" DW, and guess what: No mold, no smell, and I'm getting just as sick as I did when I was a child and our DW used twice the water. And though cycle times are extending, most DW today have pretty good measures to take just the time they need (take the 1h cycle by WP, or pretty much any sensor cycle).

Munich still recycles. Just as any other part of Germany I've been to.

Our water heater is set to ~135°F (58°C, to be exact), and our house has a cosy 23-24°C during winter, but our new heating system saves about 15% oil.

2 years back we had to exchange our 30 year old freezer. The new freezer still runs as cool as the old one (-18°C), yet it uses half the energy, maybe even less.

Of corse, you do what you want. And we don't want to change your opinion. Your opinion is that all the things you named appeal to you. And so do they to us.

But saying that they are bad because whatever IS WRONG. They work. Saying that STPP is not at least a strain to water treatment IS WRONG. Saying they take hours and don't clean IS WRONG.

Your opinion: You like them. We are totaly fine with that and agree.
Your facts: They are wrong. And we disagree.

 

[panthera]

henene4

Of course we recycle more effectively in Germany today - and for the last 20 years I lived at home in Munich, I gladly recycled. But that doesn't change the fact that in the early days, it was purely Erziehung, not real.

As to phosphates - Schedule V and better treatment plants have been online for decades. The trace amount of non-organically available phosphates my washer/dishwasher send to the waste treatment facility are as nothing compared to the phosphates my body eliminates every day.

Not a strain, at all.

Now, being German - not German-American, and having lived in both countries, I have no trouble agreeing with you on our highly-efficient appliances in Germany. They are not, however, the plastic fantastic trash sold on the American market. The cheapest Gorenje is of better quality than the best Whirlpool. You're talking about machines which wash at 40C, the American trash sold as 'HE' doesn't even make it to 24C. That's ideal for breeding microbes and not for cleaning. Add to that the hard-water and lack of treatment (keine Enthärtungsanlagen in den Geschirrspülern) and dishwasher detergents which, except for the very most expensive, are on a par with the junk we had from Ecover back in the early 1990s and it just is worthless.

 

I grew up in an era in which I was the only SPD Mitglied in my Bezirk who didn't chain smoke. I grew up in an era in which we 'saved' water while the Isar flooded her banks seven times a spring and twice in August just to remind us of what she had in store for us in November. There's a fine line between being reasonable and turning into an <strong style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.4px;">Ökofreak.</strong>

Of course we disagree on this, but please don't compare our really high technology HE appliances to the trash sold on the US market.

 

[henene4]

Germany indeed does have good water treatment. But nobody in Germany adds phosphates to their detergents. The US has AFAIK lower water treatment standards. And higher phosphate contents in their detergents strate away.

You are right that DWs in the US lack water softners. And DWs are one thing I admit the US is inferior in terms of technology, but even over here some people manage to abuse machines to the point of absolute disgust.

And on the topic of HE washers:
We have people here that can quote on quote tell you that HE washers can wash at temperatures far beyond 24C. Because they owwn them.
And I don't know which machines you come about here in Germany, but there have been 1-1 copys of US designs sold here. Alex (logixx) owns one. And he never complained about quality.

 

[logixx]

He was talking about HE washers in America with American programming. And it's true, many to most curent HE washers in the US consider 25°C to be a warm wash and around 40°C to be hot.. and then about 70°C on Sanitize. I would have a really hard time to choose a washer in the US now if I had to.

The current Whirlpool Duet, for example, skips the spin between the 1st and 2nd rinse on Normal... presumably to either save (balancing) time and/or water. Either way - yuck.

 

[johnb300m]

You have your opinions and that's fine, as henene has said multiple times.

But to keep spewing on that American washers and dishwashers cannot run and heat past 24c (74f) is komplette pferd scheiße!

My dishwasher, my parents' dishwasher, my aunts' dishwasher ALL on their lightest settings will heat the main wash and last rinse to at least 115f (46c).
And for the super duper cheap dishwashers that don't heat their water, they still run on whatever temperature is from the hot water heater.
And Americans LOVE their HOTTTT showers. Many water heaters are TOO hot, exceeding 50c! That high temperature goes into all their dishwashers and washers.

AGAIN. From my personal experience. My front load washer has a built in heater to KEEP the hot water washes at a hot temperature.
I KNOW. I've checked by opening the door. The clothes are HOT.

None of my appliances are moldy. NONE of them smell. I leave the washer door open to dry. It dries. No mold ever.

American water treatment plants hardly ever remove phosphates from effluent.
Here's some light reading for ya.
If you choose to deny science....like a redneck American, well then nobody can help ya.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisodium_phosphate#Regulation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_triphosphate#Environmental_effects

While STPP use is generally not seen to cause problematic algae blooms, it can aggravate eutrophication in waterways. There has not been enough study to find the long term effects.
For now STPP is the SAFER alternative than to TSP.
That does not mean it is benign.

Oh and your hyperbole is sickening. The worst EU dishwasher is far better than a TOL Whirlpool, which you say is cheap plastic crap?
Nonsense. TOL American dishwashers have been stainless steel with durable nylon racks for YEARS already. And they are the market leader for a reason.

 

[panthera]

Goodness!

Ok, first of all - the typical US TL HE washer reigns in even 'hot' to a uselessly low temp. It's not hot, it's barely lukewarm. That's just a fact.

Second, this phosphate hysteria is totally unproductive. Oh, and the treatment plant in our location was filtering out phosphates 30 years ago. I haven't rung them this week, but I rather doubt that's changed.

I love our vintage appliances, I love to work on them and restore them. I also love the way they clean. 

My last washer and dishwasher in Germany were top of the line Miele. I know how well they clean. My friends here in the 'States (and yes, I do have some) all have top of the line American HE TL washers and the very best 'Kitchenaide' dishwashers and they're useless trash which have to be cleaned regularly because they can't even clean themselves. Clothes have to be pre-treated, dishes pre-scrubbed.

That's ridiculous. 

Now, technology advances, thank goodness - but in the final analysis, there's no way a TL HE washer is ever going to do as good a job as an HE FL washer or a vintage Filterflo.

It's simply can't.

 

[johnb300m]

Well, guess I just got told.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Chetlaham...

I agree with you.

 

[panthera]

John,

I've been dealing with people (especially back home in Germany) who insisted I wouldn't be a vegetarian for long (coming up on the fourth decade in a bit) who told me that smoking tobacco was 'natural' and thus not dangerous and tried to make me feel like I was a wet blanket for not drinking (even though I kept a well stocked bar and wine cellar for friends).

 

It's just one of those things - so many of the things we 'know' to be true are really subjective, not objective. Let's not let our disagreements on American HE TLs and American EcoStar Dishwashers come between us in our enjoyment of vintage appliances.

 

And, yes - I am a very stubborn mule. The defenders of Shrub #43 around here found that out back in the early part of this century. I wish, I genuinely wish I'd been wrong on that idiot and the harm he'd do, though.....

 

[panthera]

Worth noting

In all this discussion, I've been referring to HE Top Loading (TL) washers, not front loading.

Hell, I bought my mom a very nice Electrolux FL with heating years ago which has never broken down, heats the water to 45 or 55 or 65 or 75 or 95 and rinses five times. Bought that here in the US. 

But, please - don't try to defend American HE TL washers as paragons of virtue. With the rarest of exceptions - and I noted those (like that H-Axis from Nebraska) they temper the water, even the 'hot' setting down to barely luke warm. Their miserly and very poor rinsing action is incredibly well documented all across the Internet.

 

Oh, a last note: We didn't phase phosphates out of our dishwasher detergents in Germany until a few years ago. That's one reason they worked so very well until, after several years of really poor washing ability, we finally got the current generation of dishwasher detergents which clean quite well.

Sheesh.

 

 

[foraloysius]

@panthera

A small correction concerning phosphates in European dishwasher detergents. Phosphates will be banned on January 1st 2017. Until then a lot of detergents still contain them like Somat 10

http://www.rossmannversand.de/produkt/373471/somat-multi-10-geschirrspueltabs.aspx

This is the ingredientslist:

Inhaltsstoffe

über 30 % Phosphate, 5-15 % Bleichmittel auf Sauerstoffbasis, Polycarboxylate, nichtionische Tenside, unter 5 % Phosphonate, Enzyme, Duftstoffe

Back to topic. What was it again? lol

 

[panthera]

Louis,

Thanks. It was gone from the stuff  was I buying in Munich in 2013, so I thought it was all gone.

As to the topic, I'm not quite sure anymore. I believe I've fallen into a time warp and am surrounded by mid-1980's Greens from the raised pointy finger era.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

topic...

We were on the GE washer rinse cycle topic.

 

[mark_wpduet]

I'm not a huge fan of HE TL washers

but I do like the FL washers. Hey Logixx. I noticed you said the new duets don't spin between the first/ second rinse on "normal" - this is why I would never use normal.

Also remember that our washers are connected to 110V (I think), not 220.

Even still, my Older Duet gets PLENTY HOT on sanitize and my dishwasher gets super hot too and uses plenty of water and it's less than 2 yrs old.

 

[logixx]

Yes, it spun after the wash, did the 1st rinse, drained... and filled for the softening rinse. The model was a WFW97HEDC.