LG Steam washer, Anyone tried it yet?

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Bob, this is here say...and if it is true, so what.. WP claimed to be the worlds largest manufacturer of washers in the early fifties. For conservation, no TL can beat a FL in terms of efficiency. Funny though, until the last couple of years, i never knew anyone who had a FL washer. They are both great, but for me, now is the time to grab the last of the water hogs being made....they WILL be classic one day.
 
INHALE, EXHALE, BREATHE!

Chilren play nice. Or I'll have to open a can of whoop-@$$.

LOL

Here is the deal~~ unless you have had both a front-loader and a top-loader a little less passion is in order.

QUEEN CLOACA HAS SPOKEN.
LOL
ROARING HERE
 
I can say I have both...I have all TL's except for my Rustinghouse, which is a cross between a REAL front-loader and one of those horrendously crappy modern machines, with characteristics of both.

*Ducks and runs*
 
I generally stay out of any TL vs. FL debate, and I'm not really getting into it now [grin], just a few comments.

Since the early 1970s to now, I can recall running across seven frontloaders in this "neck of the woods." That is not to say there aren't more, that's just the ones I saw. One was a Kenmore combo. Two were Westy SpaceMates stacked. These were both in the 70s and 80s. I suspect there were more Westys in the next town to the west of where I grew up, being as there was a local Westy dealer. Recently is someone with a Frigemore set stacked, a first-generation Neptune pair, an HE3(no t), and a Duet pair that arrived next door shortly before I moved.

I would like to have a modern ultra-capacity frontloader for ability to do a very bulky bedspread easily (which I rarely do it anyway, so not really a big deal), and for the water heating aspect.

That being said, I love the gyrations and technology of my F&P IWL12. Add water heating capability (wouldn't take much to superheat that small EcoActive fill!), and it'd be the ultimate agitator toploader. Perhaps the Oasis and upcoming Whirlpool sibling will offer a heater?

Cycle time on the IWL12 can run ~2.75 hrs, with prewash, maximum wash time, 2 hr soak, and an extra deep rinse. A typical load is 40 to 50 mins. So, a long FL wash wouldn't bother me at all.

I really was surprised how little water Austin's Rustinghouse takes for a fill.
 
Dimly out of the memory mists of time

It was all my older brother's fault.

I recall him once admitting that he opened the door of the bolt-down Bendix in the basement, while it was washing, and caused a big flood.

And THAT'S why I was forbidden to get anywhere near it.

I attribute anything bad that I have done or has happened to me since then on this early FL deprivation.

(LOL)
 
My Rant For The Day

I wonder just how stupid the manufacturers think the public is and how much longer people are going to fall for this marketing BS.... now, blowing steam on clothes to clean them! (smacking forehead)

I loathe being forced to scrub the odors out of my clothes manually, because my modern FL lacks the main ingredient necessary for washing!

I'm ready to pour a slab on the floor, hunt down a nice, old, used commercial front loader so I will have all my water and my window to watch it splash around. Then I can be happy at last :)

Anyone selling one of those trusty waterhog FL's from the past? Get in touch with me!
 
Back to the topic of steam generation...

Does anyone know what type of steam generator this thing [LG] has? Does it boil water with a calrod type element (time consuming)? Or does it use direct electrode immersion? The later would be relatively quick (like that old Hankscraft vaporizer) but requires an electrically isolated chamber and periodic maintenance.

Additionally, I've noticed that [water] heating gets a lot of discussion in these forums/threads, so I feel compelled to interject some science for those of you who are interested in this sort of thing. I don't know how much water the average F/L fills with, but I'm going to assume 5 us gallons for the following example.

As a general rule of thumb: a 1,000 watt (1kW) heater is going to increase the temperature of 5 US gallons of water about 82 degrees F (that's 45.5 deg C) in a period of 1 hour, neglecting losses. (That's about 1.36 deg F or 0.76 deg C temperature rise PER MINUTE for 5 US gallons.) So if you want to heat that 5 gallons by, say, 50 deg F, that would take 50/1.36 or about 37 minutes minimum. It is reasonable to assume 80-->90% efficiency for the F/L heating cycle, so multiplying the results of the calcs by 110% to 125% should get you well into the ballpark.

Since these relationships are almost linear (within limits), you can scale the foregoing to your application, i.e., 1.5kW is going to be 50% faster; or, 10 gallons will take more than twice as long to heat as 5 gallons under otherwise identical conditions.

***Disclaimer: The foregoing is based on the actual laws of physics, not conjecture or vodoo.

Now if I were designing a machine, I would use a 3kW to 5kW heater on 240V. Under these circumstances, you will get **reasonable** heating time, better efficiency and could still plug it into the standard (US) 30A dryer outlet.

As a final note, the 1kW heater found in the 120V US machines is likely derived from customary electrical engineering practices dictating that the full rated continuous load of an appliance is to be no more than 80% of its circuits rated capacity. Therefore a 20A/120V dedicated circuit should be good for 1920W continuous(at 1.0 power factor). Figure about 800W for the motor, 1kW for the element, a safety margin and you are there--maxed out. Now if a 30A/120V circuit were [still] permitted for residential use, you could have a 2kW heater, which wouldn't be too bad--kind'a like having your cake...
 
Interesting Stuff

It IS what you are used to that gets the results AND with every new machine you find out "whats best for you" ,

The debate about US v European machines is a total red herring, UK built machines where built and operated very differently to the German, Italian & Spanish machines..

The demise of these companies to Italy changed all that...we now fall in with Euro rules etc!!!

All of the British designed & made machines where H&C fill, the brit boys where talking about this recently, my mums 1970`s servis FL, 9lb load, H&C fill 800spin, washed for 15yrs for a family of six, and a 40d wash took 35 mins, never used the heater unless above 60d etc...and I never remember once seeing stuff that needed washing again..so it can be done, the difference is "How the water is heated"...

The MaytAsko takes 2 mins to raise the water from 40d to 50d, and uses about 50ltrs on my regular quick washes, the 95d wash take 67mins in total on quick wash ....3kw heater.

I`ve just been running in a Hoover Twinny, and as a test put the drain hose from the asko into it, the tub was about half full after the completed wash n 3 rinses.

When Jetcon Jon was here we put a FL hose draining into the Simpson TL and again quart full TL tub...

Nowthen , the Hoover twinny has auto rinse, One 6lb load is half the Asko weight, and the water used was two Simpson TL tubs....

This debate will run and run, because of different machines we are all used to...its sad that the change to optional FL in USA has hit big debates due to the longer heating times and this issue with mega drums spinning horizontally...

I did a test here with a 6kg load of wet bath towels, What a weight without spinning....cant imagine the stresses that the 9kg machines have to put up with., and all that with a sensitive balance controller....

BACK TO:
The LG...Its due here in June and was talking to an industry rep, he said its a submersed element, think kettle, bubbling water...also, here`s a pic of an LG direct drive washer drum....

4-13-2006-06-17-15--chestermikeuk.jpg
 
advantages and disadvantages

I grew up in the 'States and know TLs very well. Have lived in Europe since the early '80s so also know FLs. Am in the 'States frequently, so also know modern US TLs...
This is a discussion which is like the good old Macintosh or PC one: Whatever you want to "prove", you can.
My experience, for what it is worth is the following:
No, you do not wash every day in Europe. That is just plain silly. My 7Kilo washer is the same as an American 15.4lb. I wash just as often here as I did in the 'States.
Yes, European FLs take much longer than TLs. They also wash much more thoroughly. Of course, a TL which ran for that long would also wash more thoroughly. The mechanical wear and tear posed by a TL is the ultimate limiting factor in their running so long.
FLs use less water to get an equal amount of clothing clean. They use less detergent and bleach and enzymes, too.
Best of all, since the US manufacturers stopped building high-speed spins into their TLs, even slower FLs spin clothes much dryer. This saves time and energy in drying, gets the clothes cleaner, and is better for folks with allergies.
I love TLs from the 50's and 60's, but, being in a position to compare both acknowledge the technical advantages of the FLs. We will continue to argue this back and forth just like in the Apple and PC world - but can't we limit our discussion to questions that really matter like what will happen to Maytag now that those jerks from Whirlpool have taken them over? Why US manufacturers are playing the same foolish game against the Koreans and Chinese that the US car makers did in the 70's? Why Frigidaire hasn't had the brilliant idea of bringing back the Pulsators...
Now those are topics worth arguing about, instead of this apples and oranges discussion.
 
Whirlpool is no good

What do I hate about Whirlpool so much? Good question. When I first moved to Europe, the brand "Bauknecht" was one of the best know, higher quality brands. They, together with Philips who owned them for a while, produced a wide range of creative, durable, reparable, well-designed, easy-to-use, long-lived, environmentally friendly white goods.
They were sold to Whirlpool. Whirlpool kept the brand name but changed the production to the cheapest factories in Europe. They kept the price, but lowered the quality to appalling levels. They switched the service from highly skilled, creative, well-paid and well-treated service people to poorly paid, poorly-trained bought-in people who were paid to get in and get out as quickly as possible.
They...well, ok, I think I have made my point. Whirlpool deserves the worst things which can happen to them. They have destroyed so many good brands and applied all the worst aspects of modern management techniques while treating their customers and employees horribly.
Let's wait a year or two. When we see what they have done to Maytag we can have this discussion again.
 
Top Loaders vs Front Loaders

Growing up in my area, most people either had a front loader or wringer washer. Top Loaders became popular, because most people thought that front loaders were inconvenient to load and unload. A lot of Americans complained about all of the bending and stouping. (Laziness on the American part, LOL). So that is ONE of the reasons that top loaders became popular. Also, energy conservation was not so popular at the time. I think both machines are good. But you can wash a variety of more items in a front loader. A front loaders wins in my book. I have used both.
 
LG Washer

Ggibson, If you do not want to spend the money on the steam machine, get a regular LG front loader. I have the WM2032HW for over 2 years now and love it.

Ray
 
Extra Water Option Button

A new owner reported on THS when she used this option, the washer filled up to just below the door, was a noticeable difference.
 
IIRC some of the draw backs to early frontloaders were the requirement for bending to load or unload, failure of door gasket after awhile causing leaking, one way tumbling which could result in one's laundry emgerging in a tangled mess, inability to do true "soaking".

That last one was a big in that until modern detergents came along with "enzyme action", quite allot of laundry was still soaked to remove bad stains and heavy soils.

Finally there was the "suds" factor. Until low sudsing detergetns came on market, laundry was done in either soap or the "new" detergents, both created lots of suds. Suds are not something one wants when using a front loader.

L.
 
Panthera,

Well, I don't know. Maytag was well on its way to self-demolition when Whirlpool stepped in a saved it from going to a bunch of clueless bankers, or to the Chinese. I don't think Kitchenaid has suffered too badly from its ownership by WP, although I tend to prefer the older Hobart made designs. Perhaps Whirlpool is a bit more benign with domestic brands, and I was under the impression that it's not a bad company to work for in the US.

I also think that GE is a far more obnoxious company than Whirlpool, what with its policy of firing 10% of its management employees every year, not matter what, and its exorbitant price gouging on replacement appliance parts. And we all know what junk GE turned out in the 90's with its self-destructing direct drive plastic tranny washers and fail-one-month-after warranty expires fridges with rotary compressors. They do seem to make OK gas and electric ranges, but nothing really spectacular. Of course, classic, older, vintage GE's are cool.
 
And now a word from our sponsor...

Listen,

I'm a Pastry Chef which means that I wear White tunics that are stained with chocolate, raspberry, blood (when I help the knuckleheads in the kitchen) and protein stains of various foods. Three years ago I took a Chocolate seminar in Aurillac and the cleanest I've EVER seen my uniforms get was out of a French Miele FL which heated the water to 90 degrees C (= 194 degrees F) after prewashing in cold water with French Ariel as the soap du jour. The whole thing took less than 1 hour and the machine was belching steam before it threw the wash water.

I own a US LG that I am pretty happy with except for the fact that it doesn't/can't/won't heat the water that high because it runs on 120V and the laws of physics say you just can't run that pretty DD motor and heat the water that high within a reasonable amount of time. When Miele finally decides to market its large capacity machine that spins at 1600 RPM and offers water temperatures to 90 C, I'M BUYING IT!!!!

I feel like that a-hole MC on "meet the press" but it's the easy answer--these machines have to run on 220V. PERIOD.
 
My vintage Miele W1070 can do 200F,but can also be wired to run on 120V, with one heater leg disabled. Since the washer is mechanical timer, but the timer is not run through the thermostat,unless wash water reaches correct tiem in a certian period of time, the cycle will progress regardless.

However the work around is simple. Either do a cold pre-wash, and fill the wash cycle with tap hot water (which in our building is about 130F to 140F), and allow the unit to heat from "hot" to "boiling". Or, simply "test" the water temp by moving the temp dial slightly up or down listening for the "click" telling one what temp the machine has reached. If it has not reached the desired temp before the timer moves out of the water heating phase of the cycle; merely stop the washer, reset timer to start of the heating portion of the wash cycle, and restart the machine. Since the washer heats on 1500 watts, it really does not take that much longer to go from say 140F to 180F or even 200F. This is why one so prefers mechanical timer washers, over computer controlled units. Do no think even the 120v powered W1918 units (yes, there are some out there), allow this flexibility.

L.
 
LG

Hi Ken,
I was wondering what model LG you have? I have the 3677 combo. Nice machine I just don't like the time it takes to balance to go into a spin. I agree about the Miele I wish they made a full size model.
Thanks,
Peter
 

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