Samsung washer High level Delicate/hand wash cycle

[whitetub]

I have a Samsung front loader since September. I love it so far. Normal cycle is good. Water level is fine. It does the job. Everything is soaking wet, even if you don’t see much water at the bottom of the drum. If I want more water, I use the Permanent Press cycle, more water, and less tumbling. It turns only once or twice , than once or twice the other way. And so on, and so on.
Two weeks ago, I tried the delicate/hand wash cycle. It fills up to the bottom of the door window, no matter how big is your load. Tumbles a lot, back and forth, almost like the normal cycle. The only problem, you can’t set it to spin faster than the low speed. I used it a few times for my hand wash sweaters. I does a nice job. 2 sweaters floats in the high level water, and they don’t tumble that much. They just swish back and forth. Yesterday, I used that cycle for my big comforter. It was perfect. The whole thing was wet in the first minute. Unlike the normal, or bulky, where the middle of the comforter was still dry after 10 minutes.
I am tempted to try that cycle with a nice full load of clothing, and see what happens. With all that water.
Does anyone uses their delicate cycle for regular loads? Does other brand of front loaders do the same?
I am wondering if the higher water level would wear out my machine faster.

Let me know your opinion or thoughts on this.

Thanks,

 

[mattl]

The wash action on the delicate cycle is just tat, delicate. It would do a poor job of washing regular loads since the machine pretty much just swishes the clothes back and forth.

After a few months of use I've come to the conclusion that more water is not always better. To be honest I've bumped up the water levels in my Duet a bit, but watching the wash action on cycles where there is more water, I see that the lift and tumble is not as great as in cycles with less water, it's more a swish as in the delicate cycle. A lot may depend on how big a load you have, but on my average loads often less is more.

 

[hoover1100]

Delicate cycle

The lower the water level in the main wash (within reason) the better the wash results.

If the water comes much up the door, wash performance will be negatively affected, as clothes will not tumble as freely. (Hence commercial front loading machines do not wash very well)

A normal cycle, with low water levels and vigorous tumbling action, provides the best wash results.

Matt

 

[whitetub]

Thanks for your input. I will use my Normal cycle most of the time, as usual, if you all say that less is more. But I have to admit, a load that swishes and tumbles in more water is more entertaining to watch.

thanks

 

[revvinkevin]

Yes with a higher water lever AND fewer clothes, washing performance will be affected. But if you do FULL loads, the higher water level will not (in my opinion) negatively affect washing performance. Only if you are trying to wash a few items with a high(er) water level will it not work well. Because of this I've learned to do FULL loads. Yes I have washed smaller loads, but not so small that the clothes just "ride the waves" as the machine "tumbles".

I have a 2009 Kenmore Elite TOL steam washer and not liking how very little water us used on he "normal" cycle, I discovered the "Bulky Items" cycle. This cycle does use more noticeably water, it also pauses a number of times during the main wash (an auto soak?), but limits the max spin speed to medium.

Someone suggested I use try the “Express Wash”, so I did. It uses slightly less water then the “Bulky Items” cycle, but has no pauses during the main wash and max rpm spin is available. So now I use “Express Wash” with “heavy soil” and extra rinse selected (49 – 52 minutes) for nearly all the laundry I wash in that machine and I’m quite satisfied with the results.

The knits/delicates cycle does use more water, filling to just below the bottom of the door glass. Yes it also has does short, intermittent tumbling. However I don’t have anything (or I don’t think I do…) that I would ever wash using the Knits/Delicates cycle.

Kevin

 

[peterh770]

I use the Delicate cycle on the Miele often, as it cuts an hour from the washtime, and while the water level is very high, it tumbles at FULL SPEED. To get around the short, slow spin, I set it to "without final spin" so that at the end of the cycle I reselect Spin at 1200 or 1600.

 

[mrb627]

Delicate Cycle

I used to use the Delicate cycle on my LG to wash wrinkle free clothing that only really needed a freshing up.  My reasoning was that the cycle was shorter so I didn't have to listen to the machine squeak and squeal like during the normal 55 min cycle.  And the extra moisture left in the clothes helped to steam out the wrinkles better in the dryer which rattled through its cycle.

 

 

 

Malcolm

 

[mark_wpduet]

Matt

Saw your response to the OP

I also bumped up my water levels on my Duet and noticed the same thing. Too much water=not good washing action. I think the REASON is the fact that the baffles on the duet are too small. I bumped the water back down (but still uses more than originally)..

 

[mark_wpduet]

Kevin

Hmmm

Express wash with "more soil selected"

That's pretty cool. Are the rinses deeper in express wash as well on your 2009 Kenmore?

 

[whitetub]

I never tried the express wash. I think it's called Fast Wash on my Samsung machine. I know the Permanent Press uses more water, but the tumbling is not as vigorous. And I have to select heavy soil to get to 48 minute cycle. I will give Fast Wash a try and see what happens.

 

[mattl]

Mark, I never bumped the water levels up too much, found the settings to be too touchy. Got a moderate increase and left it there. when I lit the tub I could really see the action, and found in smaller loads that I mostly do, less in more.

 

[haxisfan]

Weaker cleaning solution...

Will wash performance with a higher water level be affected not only dynamically but also chemically! Using the same recommended dose of detergent that you’d use for a given size load of clothes will have a lower concentration having been diluted in a greater amount of water defeating, as a result, its cleaning power.

Unless you decide to increase the amount of detergent used proportionally to the higher water intake... in that case you might benefit of the same cleaning power as you would in normal conditions but you would still suffer the dynamic consequences discussed above (depending on the size of the load of course). In addition, this would favour the creation of some conditions (like the formation of excessive suds) which would inevitably make matters worse.

I agree with you about... 'more water, more fun to watch' though

 

[randycmaynard]

Water Level Issues on Modern FL Machines........

I can see where the lower level on the wash is good, especially on smaller loads, because of the tumble action (the FL agitator if you will) which is what gets the cleaning acomplished however, I do think that higher water levels for the rinses are preferable. I use the extra rinse option on all loads which gives 3 rinses total and even that seems lacking at times. Higher water on rinses don't have to be halfway up the glass on the door - up to the bottom of the glass would be good and acomplish a better rinse to get a good bit of the detergent out. Of course wash items of the same weights together to minimize the problem of the machine getting out of balance and not going to the high speed spins which are necessary to help remove the detergent along with the rinses. I have a 3 year old GE FL Machine that I bought new - 3.8 size and it has not had any mechanical issues to this point - only big issue was getting in the habit of washing clothing of similar sizes and weights to combat the out of balance issue that seems to plague the modern FL machines. Also make sure your machine is on a hard surface and leveled correctly - that will help the out of balance issues too.

If I could get a higher water level - just to the bottom of the glass - would be helpful even in the main wash but especially on the rinses - enough can't be said for deep rinses! That's what I like about my little White-Westy FL - of course you can control the water level via the variable level switch on the machine. You can run into the same issue on the little Westy if you have a small load and use a high water level the clothes just float and bobble on top of the water.

 

[randycmaynard]

Mark - WPDuet........

Mark, you mentioned bumping up the water level on your WP Duet - how did you accomplish the increase? I've been wanting to do that on my GE FL but have not known how to do it. Don't know if the WP and the GE are similar but would be nice to get a little increase in the water level.

Thanks!

Randy
Knoxville,TN

 

[revvinkevin]

Mark - WPDuet........

 

 

 

The rinses in the "Express Wash" cycle, fortunately, use the same amount of water as the wash, so yes it does do pretty good on the rinses.   Actually sometimes I would like more water for the rinses, but oh well.

 

F.Y.I... The express wash on my KM Elite is 30 minutes if I don't change anything.   The "soil level" defaults to "light" which equates to a wash that's less then 5 minutes (it seems like 3 minutes).   So if I change the soil level to "heavy" the wash is around 10-12 minutes (I haven't timed it) and I always add an extra rinse.   As I said before, I'm happier with it because it does use more water then the Normal cycle and at 49 minutes, is 6 minutes less then "Normal" w/o an extra rinse.

 

Kevin

 

[mark_wpduet]

Randy

I have NO clue how you would do it on a GE! Those are different than WP. With mine there was a person on a forum who had pictures of each step that he did to do this. Essentially, there is an ever so tiny screw that you have to turn a certain way, let the machine fill to see what the new level is/drain/ turn the screw more, drain, retry until you get the water level you want.

The problem I had is that I could not find the right water level. It was either WAY too much or factory default. I could never get the in between that I wanted. After working with it a while I finally got it to use MORE water but in my case it WASN'T easy and I just left it alone from there and it's been working fine ever since. I'm thinking I'm getting maybe two more gallons each fill.

I don't think this trick works on the NEWER Duets (I could be wrong) Mine is six years old so it happens to be one of the ones that was exactly like the model the person in the forum demonstrated this on.

I guess you can try to Google it and see if you can find anything with your model.

Here is a video of mine doing a drain, spin, then rinse that I posted on youtube a while back