Preferred Laundry Room Location: Main Floor or Basement?

[dartman]

I'd like basement if I had one like said in case of disaster. Old rental when we moved went to move the washer and the floor was dry rotted and there was a big hole the mice had been working on. They would come in when the seasons changed and we'd battle them. It had laundry in the bathroom which was pretty good except for the damage from leaks and mice.
New place has a laundry nook in the kitchen by the kitchen outside door we use as the main door. Would prefer it in its own room or the bathroom but that's how they do most manufactured homes.
Moms has a separate laundry area kinda separated from the kitchen with a half wall and no door. Old washer was so loud it was hard to watch TV or listen to music, new HE top loader is very quiet so that helps.
I don't think there is room to make a dedicated laundry room or put it in the master bath but may look at it someday if we decide to change things around.
I think every house should have a dedicated laundry room or closet you can close off at least for noise and clutter but many builders don't care and just put the plumbing where ever works for them.

 

[stan]

I'm

In a old house...so it basement laundry. There's a couple of windows down there, so it's not too dark. Also a laundry sink ect.
I'm so use to NOT having what most would consider "modern conveniences" that I don't miss anything.
I'll keep hauling laundry down there..I really don't mind.

 

[alr2903]

Many 60's and 70's houses built here have the washer in the kitchen and dryer in a storage area at the back of the carport. The most awful installation ever. Makes me wonder if the last of the w/d combo's were in the kitchen when new. Mine are in a "basement". slightly below grade in back and walk out in front. If we are still here in 15- 20 years it will be a problem. There is heat down there but no a/c so it works well in summertime.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Super Duper Laundry Room vs. Cavern of Drudgery

I'm satisfied w/ my basement laundry room although it's under the bedrooms of the house & the staircase to get to the basement & then travel to it is way over on the other side of the house by the kitchen... (Then a long hike to get from there to my washer & dryer and then, way back!)

 

One thing I rarely see in basements is the Finished Laundry Room--other than that I've got a bunch of Kitchen/Bathroom/Laundry Room/Utility Room--just in short, Home Remodeling Books, that I see a number of them in, and much of them very breathtaking...

 

Surely main-floor laundries I've seen in real life are at least finished, although compared to in the remodeling books I have, (maybe owing a lot to the eras they were published) lack a bit of creativity...

 

 

-- Dave

[this post was last edited: 1/19/2016-06:48]

 

[retro-man]

Off the master bedroom we have a hallway going to the master bath. In that hallway we have 2 open walk in closets. One on either side. These are used mainly for winter clothes. We have 2 other closets in the bedroom for all other clothes. Of course my closet is the one that got the WP Duets stacked. It is on the outside wall. My feeling is this is where most clothes and towels end up, so I figured this would be the best place for the laundry. Such saves a lot of steps folding and putting items away. Out of the dryer on the bed folded and put away. Close enough to the kitchen to hear the end of cycle chimes and nothing better to fall asleep to hearing them running.

Jon

 

[turquoisedude]

I guess I've lived with (and still live with!) a mixed bag of locations.    The basement laundry room was what I first was used to in the houses where I grew up.  This was due to plumbing more than anything.  The homes we had in Pointe-Claire were probably intended to accommodate a wringer washer (there was a deep laundry tub in the basement). But, as Pete said, living in a 4 level split mean a lot of mountaineering with those laundry baskets.   I had the bright idea of converting our upstairs bathroom to a dedicated laundry (the bathroom would have been relocated to a smaller bedroom).  I think my father's comment was something 'Vat? You thinking I am making of money? You having any idea vat this costing?'   So that never happened... LOL

 

I guess the location of the laundry equipment in the hallway of the apartment we had in Montreal was probably the most convenient location for actual use.  The machines were in a doored alcove just opposite our dining area; it was short trip from the bedrooms and even shorter from the kitchen or bath. 

 

In Ogden, I'm lucky to have two laundry locations - most of the washers are in the basement but I also do have the GE Combo in the Kitchen Centre.   In St-Lib, the washer and dryer are in the bathroom which can be convenient, but I find the space is a little restricted (and no one gets to see my lovely Lady K's unless they are seated on the throne...)

 

If I had to pick, though, I prefer the basement location.  I'm paranoid about leaks, overflows and floods so a basement floor can be a little more forgiving.   Not that I flood the basement.... much... LOL 

 

[mopar65]

I like having it on the main floor but we have two laundry rooms in our home. I would love to put in a laundry shoot in like we had when I was a kid in the little 50's house we lived in.

 

[polkanut]

<strong style="font-family: Sylfaen; font-size: medium;">When we remodeled our home in 2002 (built in 1925), we decided to bring the washer and dryer upstairs. We had an enclosed front porch that we never used, and turned it into our laundry room. We wanted to continue using our '98 Maytag Dependable Care w/ suds-saver, so we had to bring the suds-tub up as well. On the east end is a walk-in closet with shelves from top to bottom. On the west end we have a window with cupboards on both sides, and a huge roll-out laundry hamper underneath built out of solid red oak with a med. cherry stain. The only drawback is it's in the front of the house, and just off the living room, oh well. 
</strong>

 

[aquacycle]

The norm in the UK for a long time was to have washing machines in the kitchen, which is how I grew up. Many UK homes pre-date washing machines, so were never designed to accomodate such appliances. The kitchen was often the only place to put it, as that's where the plumbing was. And hence under-counter frontloaders are more popular here.

In many mainland European countries, it's widely considered the norm to have the washing machine in the bathroom.

Personally, I do prefer to have a seperate laundry room. In our house, the laundry room is on the ground floor with the garage and the living space is on the first floor. Whilst I love having a seperate room, it is a pain having to go up and down the stairs all the time to do the washing. But having said that, it does keep any intruding noise to a minimum.

 

[DADoES]

 
No basements here.  Many older houses have the machines in the garage, either directly or in a smaller room area to the side or back.  Laundry rooms are also common in the house, usually near the kitchen.  I know one house built in the 1970s that has a "formal" laundry room near the kitchen and another washer & dryer in an alcove in the master bedroom.  A friend with a newer two-story house has a small laundry room near the bedrooms on the 2nd floor.  I was there once when the washer (DD Whirly) was running, directly above the 1st floor room in which I was sitting ... large noises and vibration transmitted through the floor.

Mine is a separate room adjacent to/behind the kitchen.

 

[lordkenmore]

As a renter, my main concern has historically been "the equipment actually works properly." There are times we haven't even hit that giddy height...

Few houses here have basements. Usually laundry equipment seems to live in a small laundry room. Although I think there are plusses to a basement. There is argument that floods are less of a problem. Plus there is potentially more space to hold more than one washer. Most laundry rooms I've seen have exactly enough space for 1 washer and 1 dryer. And--I channel my grandmother here--but it could be handy having clothes lines to air dry in winter. Although I'm not sure how well that would work in this damp climate.

 

[blackstone]

From the perspective of someone who has serviced laundry equipment for many years, I will offer these comments on what is BAD about installation areas.

1. Basements in older houses have lousy floors. Not every cellar that I have been in looks as good as the one pictured above. (I must admit that the description is so accurate.) We always took pieces of carpets on service calls, for use when lying down on cold, damp, broken concrete floors, especially when working in the back of a belt-driven WP. Add the spider webs and accumulations of dryer lint, and you get the picture.

2. Basements are either too hot, or too cold, depending on the furnace. Most likely, the furnace is an oil-burning, smelly behemoth, with asbestos-covered piping at head-level. If that furnace is at the other end of the cellar, you don't get the heat from it. Even modern gas furnaces can be too hot to be next to. Electric-heated house can be worse, if there is no heat in the cellar. We once got a call for a dryer not working. The cause? The vent was completely blocked by frozen lint.

3. Basements may not have a hatchway. Sure you can carry a toolbox down the narrow, winding stairs, but delivering a washer is not that easy. One house we went to actually expanded the floor of the kitchen, covering part of the stairway. We had to slither down the space to get into the cellar.

4. Closets leave very little room for working, especially if you had to get behind the appliance. Broken hoses, bent dryer vent hoses, etc., become difficult to fix.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

 

[xraytech]

delaneymeegan, I'm pretty sure my basement laundry room pretty much fits all you described that you want in a basement laundry room. Painted terra cotta block, exposed plumbing and wiring, double wash tub, metal cabinets, old rugs on the floor, second stove hooked up, clothes lines, and curtains on the windows, and old kitchen table, oh and we can't forget the big wooden cage at the bottom of the laundry chute.
I also have the fridge and freezer, but they are on other side of basement.
Also on other side of my basement I have a 12x12 piece of plush carpet, moms old sofa, and a TV, which is where I spend most of laundry day folding and sitting clothes and moving stuff from washers to dryers.

 

[sudsmaster]

Perhaps we all can agree that no matter where the laundry is located in the home, it still beats having to schlep dirty laundry to the laundromat...

 

 

 

[mrb627]

My 2 Cents

I don't really care where the laundry area is in the house as long as it is in the house. i.e. a climate controlled space.
I have friends with laundry in their garage space which can dip near or below freezing in the winter. No thanks.

Malcolm

 

[DADoES]

 
Dryers with thermostatic auto-dry (not true moisture-sensing) can be thrown off-kilter for accuracy when running in a cold (or hot) environment.

 

[polkanut]

Rich,

One of the best gifts we received for our wedding was our washer/dryer set from my parents.  My wife was doing the laundromat thing before we got married because her mom thought automatics were "water wasters"  and only had a Maytag E2LS.  Bev said she wasn't having any of that BS with having to use a wringer machine.

 

[passatdoc]

When my sister moved into her present house in 1994 (from a rented house that came with a washer/dryer), the housewarming gift for her and her husband was a Maytag Dependable Care (before it was dumbed down by Maytag) washer and dryer, I paid half and my parents paid half. The set survived two kids for 22 years, with no service calls or other issues, until two weeks ago when gas dryer died. Replacement part (?dryer head?) cost $350, though this quote may include labor, and at that point my sister thought "I'll keep the washer and just get a new dryer", which she did. Her laundry room is in an annex off the hallway to the bedrooms, closed by two folding doors. I've never measured in there, but there might not be enough depth clearance for a FL if one left the door ajar at all times. So she isn't interested in a FL and wants to keep her trusted Maytag TL at this time. r

 

[circlew]

My new laundry room is in the basement, in the same general area as the old was. I had glass block put in the old window opening, and have framed the walls out with steel studs (6") on the wall behind the washer & dryer to accomodate the plumbing and dryer vent. The other new walls are steel studs (3.5"), and the original block walls have steel furring channel (1.5"). This allows all pipes and wiring to be concealed. There is a HVAC register in the ceiling. Lighting will be surface mount LED or fluorescent. When I get the wiring done, and the dryer box and vent installed, it will get drywall, and possibly ceramic tile.

 

[gusherb]

My grandmothers basement was totally like those pictures you guys posted. One half was finished and the other half was sorta semi finished. Everything had those asbestos floor tiles, painted walls, curtains over the windows. The area that the early 80s Belt Drive Suds Saver Whirlpool stood in was next to a concrete double basin sink, and a few feet away from a 1960 Carrier Weathermaker furnace. There was even a vent right in front of the washer just like that first photo.

Across from the washing machine was a table setup for folding, a 1950s refrigerator (sorry it was broken since I was a baby and gone before I paid much attention to those things) and an assortment of other random stuff. Across the span of the utility area was a clothes line that she always put everything on after running her clothes for 10 minutes through the Kenmore gas dryer that stood on the other side of that Carrier furnace.

My grandma was very involved in her laundry. She never let the washer do it's thing, wouldn't even let it fill on it's own. She would fill the sink up and then start the suds saver pulling the water into the tub. and then of course she always saved the rinse water for the next wash.