Let The Fun Commence: Muddy, Greasy Test Load For New Frigidaire Washer

[frigilux]

The Garments: 1 pair blue jeans; 1 pair summer shorts; 1 poly-cotton blend dress shirt; 1 almost white short sleeve 100% cotton shirt.

The Grime: 1 quart of garden dirt; 30-weight motor oil; water.

The Process: I rubbed plain garden dirt into areas of the garments, then smeared on the voodoo concoction I'd mixed up in a bucket. I also poured some straight motor oil onto the garments in areas that weren't too dirty.

The Bonus: The cotton shirt, gym shorts and socks I was wearing were splattered with the muck when I was spraying out the bucket. They'll go into the load, along with a couple of bar mops I used to clean off my patio table. I'll also throw in a couple of clean white bath towels to see if there is any soil transfer, and to fill out the load a bit.

The Cycle: Prewash (10 minutes in cool water); Stain Treat+ Heavy Wash (10 minutes, refill with temp-controlled cold water, gradually heated to approximately 110 degrees during the cycle); Max Soil level (a 26-minute wash); Freshwater Rinse (a 3rd rinse). Water is mechanically softened.

The Products: 1/4 cup powdered UK Persil Bio in prewash; 1/2 cup of same in main wash + 3 tablespoons Tri-Zyme (Amway's version of Oxi Clean). This is far more Persil than I usually use, but decided to go with manufacturer's recommendation for this mess!

It's just past 7:30 p.m., and I'm going to put the load into the washer. Results later. If the outcome is poor, I'll wash them again using the Sanitize cycle and the Add Steam option.

See you in a couple of hours, kids![this post was last edited: 9/10/2010-23:59]

 

[frigilux]

The dispenser is loaded.

 

[frigilux]

The settings. Sorry about the poor quality. The screen says the cycle will be 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Gotta love the edit feature: New photo; a much clearer snap of the settings later in the cycle. With 29 minutes left, the machine is currently spinning prior to the first rinse. The drained wash water was still very grimy, but not as viscous as the prewash water. (Please note this post is now out of sync with the ones that follow it.)[this post was last edited: 9/10/2010-23:34]

 

[frigilux]

Here's the recirculation jet at work in the Stain Pretreat portion of the cycle.

 

[frigilux]

...and a few seconds later, while tumbling.

So far: The clean white bath towels I put in with the load were totally gray by the end of the Prewash. The prewash starts with very slow tumbling, then switches to regular speed after about six minutes. I didn't catch the speed change last time I used that option.

I checked the water coming out of the drain hose at the end of the prewash. It was absolutely black; like nothing I'd seen coming out of a washer, before. [this post was last edited: 9/10/2010-20:50]

 

[frigilux]

I was curious as to how much water this washer uses. Here's what I---sorry, what Korshka and I---found at the end of the final spin. Just a bit over three gallons. And there is maybe a quart or so left in a load after a 1300 rpm spin? That's a complete guess. Should have weighed the load before and after. Where's a condenser dryer when you need one?! (BTW: Korshka isn't drunk. I think the flash made him squint a little.)

Anyway, there were five fills during the cycle (prewash, stain pretreat/main wash, three rinses). I'm going to round up (the first fill used more water, as it had to saturate the load) and say the whole cycle probably used 17 gallons, tops.

That means a Normal Cycle (wash, rinse, rinse) uses only about 10-11 gallons.

And no, I didn't add bluing to the water in the container. I neglected to take something into consideration: Although the jeans had been hanging in my closet for a couple of years, I don't actually remember wearing and washing them more than once or twice; I always wear black jeans. Result? Bleed!

It looks like there's a thick layer of suds on top of the water, but it collected around the edge. There was, admittedly, more suds in the extra (3rd) rinse than I'm used to seeing after only the 2nd rinse of a normal cycle. But considering the large dose of detergent (3/4 cup total; normally I use 2 tablespoons in the prewash and 4 tablespoons in the main wash), I guess I should have expected that.

[this post was last edited: 9/11/2010-00:28]

 

[frigilux]

Everything looked completely clean, save this one stain on the nearly-white 100% cotton shirt. You can see it about halfway up the shirt to the left of the buttons. Why all the other areas of grime were completely cleaned except this one, I'm not sure. It may have been an area with motor oil poured on it.

There appeared to be a little bit of blue-bleed from the jeans in a pair of white socks as well as the bath towels. I'll compare them to clean, bleached counterparts I can pull from the linen closet.

I put everything except the jeans in the dryer because I want to see if any areas of unremoved grime show themselves after the fabrics are dry. If there's a trace of blue in the dried whites, I can toss them back in the hamper to be washed and bleached when I do whites tomorrow night.

[this post was last edited: 9/10/2010-23:46]

 

[frigilux]

After drying, the areas of the shirts that had motor oil poured directly on them remain stained. Strangely, the shorts (a high poly-cotton blend) were completely clean, even though I poured motor oil directly on them, as well. All the voodoo mud/oil/water muck was completely removed from all items.

I'll pretreat the shirts with Amway's aerosol greasy stain remover and run the load on the Sanitize cycle with the Add Steam option. Prewash and Stain Pretreat options are not available with that cycle. We'll see if that is able to remove the now dried-in motor oil stains.

[this post was last edited: 9/11/2010-00:07]

 

[frigilux]

There was some blue-bleed from the jeans to the white towels (especially noticeable around the seams) and socks. The towel on the right was pulled from the shelf for comparison. Both are old towels that I use to mop up spills, etc., in the laundry room. Funny; in the photo, the towel on the left actually looks whiter! Trust me, it has blue-bleed.[this post was last edited: 9/10/2010-23:53]

 

[ronhic]

Looks like....

....she cleans very well considering the muck you threw at her....

If somehow that detergent draw decided to take aim and shoot out when you're least expecting it, I wouldn't be at all surprised...

 

[dj-gabriele]

Great performance!

So an American front loader does indeed clean a load (and quite well I must say) but still 1:20 minutes is the average time for an European machine to complete a standard 40°C cotton wash!

I know what to buy if I'm coming to the USA! Of course I'm going to bring a stash of Italian Dash with me hehehehe

 

[a440]

Very impressive.
Great test.
I am sure it would do wonders on a "regular soiled" load.
I love your kitty!
Great pictures and thread!
Brent

 

[spiralator60]

Test Load

Eugene,

Were there any problems with sudsing during the main wash, given the amount of detergent that you used?

All things considered, I'm quite impressed with the results that you have shared! Thanks for showing us.

 

[logixx]

Great results! And that jet looks really powerful, too. I was wondering about the jet and if it's strong enough...

Alex

 

[frigilux]

The Follow-Up: This morning I pretreated the remaining oil stains from the two shirts and washed them on the Sanitize cycle with the Add Steam option. I threw them in with a medium-sized load of fast, light colors. All oil stains, even though they'd been baked in by the dryer, were removed!

Here's the almost white 100% cotton shirt.

 

[frigilux]

And here's the cotton-blend dress shirt.

 

[frigilux]

Thanks for the comments, guys! I was encouraged by the results, and wasn't surprised the pure motor oil stains weren't fully removed in 110 degree water. There was a lot of greasy mud in that load! I wish I would have captured and photographed the pitch black, viscous water from the prewash. It looked like it should have been coming from an oil well, LOL.

Chris-- Yes, the dispenser drawer is pretty huge compared to the one in my old Frigidaire. The large openings are nice, especially when you're pouring bleach from a gallon jug.

Darryl-- There were no over-sudsing issues at all, except, as I mentioned, the final rinse water wasn't as clear as it usually is. The machine does have an "over-sudsing" protocol (it adds up to 4 additional rinses) but it has never been triggered.

Alex-- The recirculated water is strong enough to saturate the load, but perhaps my calling it a "jet" would lead one to believe it's a high-pressure spray; it isn't.

 

[laundromat]

mine may not be as large of a capacity Affinity as this one but,I too have had awesome results getting out real tough stains.

 

[appnut]

Eugene, I'm speechless!!! Dry clean washing can get outstanding results. Cannot see why anyone would have a phobia about not enough water after this!!![this post was last edited: 9/11/2010-12:58]