The New Speed Queen Set / Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee Apartment Life For Me

[iheartmaytag]

Dawn Platnium

Does have enzymes that helps dissolve the food residue.  "Overnight soak in five minutes."  Chlorine would inactivate these little helpers. 

 

 

[yogitunes]

just jumping in for a second......

I too would love to see pics of the whole apartment, when you get time....

ps...Barry....just an FYI, grass loves bleach.....straight bleach will turn it yellow, die, and then it will grow back full, thick, and dark green....my gray water flows over the lawn, also why one side of the house is dark and plush.....I need to hook up a pump to cover the other side....

 

[cuffs054]

Foraloysius, thanks for the link. I don't do much with MW but am trying to learn. Some of these sound good.

 

[mrsalvo]

Martin,
Yes, by all means get a pump. We have one that is tied in with leech lines in the yard that run to various areas where it would be needed. We also have additional leech lines that do nothing but collect rain runoff that empties into the tank. 5 years ago we had a sever drought and we used that water around the foundation of the house, when other houses in the neighborhood were shifting, we came through it okay. We usually run the gray water at night to lessen evaporation. We live in south central Texas so summer water restrictions are a yearly thing.
I understand everyones concern about "water hog" washers, but in our case that water is often used twice. It works!!!!
Love my Speed Queen TL.

Barry

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Four rinses? Cool! The only use I can think of would be if one uses an additive that leaves a lingering smell, such as Didi7 which I used in my building's Huebsch to remove sun-induced (that's what I was told) stains from a stark white comforter. However, the point of that and of the rapid advance trick is that the user has control.

Raw meat paranoia; I rarely eat meat at home (too much work) but I'm like that about eggs. Glad I'm not the only one. Friends have commented over the years that they've never seen someone who was so clean yet so UN-tidy at the same time. I can only guess that having grown up surrounded by nurses has given me a different set of worries about contamination.

Apartment pics; I agree. It'd be cool to see.

Dishwasher: I would go with a dish DRAWER... MUCH easier on the back!

Microwave: I've seen suggestions to add a bit of oil to the veggies to brown them properly before cooking.

Range: My personal inclination would be to go with a 2 burner gas and a 2 burner induction cooktop and install a wall oven. Again, to avoid back pain.

Leeching fields: I grew up in a 60's development. People usually left the initial field intact and added a grey water field for the washer and sometimes another for the kitchen sink & dishwasher. Using Rid-X helps as well.

Downsizing: I'm already trying to do that and I'm only 53. I'm drowning in paperwork and am looking for software with OCR so I can scan everything and shred the paper.

Jim

 

[lordkenmore]

Raw meat paranoia; I rarely eat meat at home (too much work) but I'm like that about eggs.

 

I have only very rarely cooked meat myself over the last 20 years. Part of this is a touch a paranoia, mixed with laziness at resisting the extra work involved with cleanup (due to paranoia of pathogens in meat).


 

Interestingly, I was talking about my mostly-vegetarian diet with someone this weekend. A huge factor for me now that this other man knows about is my seriously limited grocery budget. He asked if I missed meat at all, and I mentioned that I've not cooked meat a whole lot over the years due to concerns about pathogens.

 

I also admit paranoia about eggs--although not as extreme--thanks to all the risk of salmonella in eggs warnings over the years. Strange to think that when I was young I routinely ate raw egg (in the form of raw cookie dough), and no one thought anything of it...

 

[henene4]

Weired. Never worried, never had much of a problem.

On metal surfaces, most bacteria can only survive a verry limited time when there is no dirt or moisture.

 

[askolover]

"But first...I'm playing baritone in a brass group&#

Frig, I didn't know you are a brass player! Is baritone the only one you play or like me play a few?  I started with trumpet/cornet, then changed to French horn during concerts, baritone, tuba and sousaphone, as well as alto and soprano saxophones, bells, and piano.  I still have my trumpet and I bought an old un-loved French horn on ebay that I cleaned and refinished in shiny black with nickel keys and caps.

 

Tony and I have commented about our half acre being too much yard and have contemplated a condo, but I just don't want people that close to us.  Glad you are liking it so far!

 

[frigilux]

I grew up playing trumpet. In college, piano became the major instrument with an emphasis in brass.
Can still play the upper brass instruments, but don't have the chops for full gigs, anymore. I primarily play keyboards, baritone, trombone, tuba and mallet percussion these days, with the occasional gig on drums.

Ongoing SQ experiments: Let machine fill with hot water; add sheets when agitation begins per mickeyd's suggestion. Then cancel and switch to Normal Eco. Get a scalding wash but save about 12-20 gallons of water depending on the initial water level setting (the wash fill is not reduced on the Normal Eco cycle).

EDIT: Filling the washer with hot water, then canceling and selecting the Normal Eco cycle worked well. Sheets are dazzling white and feel adequately rinsed. Detergent scent is no stronger than usual.

I'm beginning to re-examine my bias against the Normal Eco cycle. It won't work for loads of kitchen & personal whites due to the addition of chlorine bleach...but otherwise, it saves almost as much water as a suds-saver.

The real test will be a load of bath towels. I'll run a deep rinse at the end of the Normal cycle and see if more detergent remains than normal in very soft water. (You'll recall a couple of years ago I washed a load of bath towels in the AWN542, then reset for a 2nd deep rinse and found a fair amount of suds in the water.)

One more thing: I'm normally a "detergent first, then load, then start machine" guy. The exception from now on will be with bed sheets. Mickeyd's suggestion of letting agitation pull the sheets underwater worked perfectly. Not an air pocket in sight!
[this post was last edited: 8/7/2017-10:21]

 

[frigilux]

INTERESTING FIND: Was surfing through the FAQs at Speed Queen's website and found out why they discourage manual soaking in their machines. I've done it three or four times with no problem, but have never let the manual soak go over an hour. Anyway, here's the explanation provided by SQ:

[this post was last edited: 8/7/2017-17:02]

 

[midcentnurse]

Got our new Speed Queen washer in today, over 6 weeks waiting, national backorder, washed 4 loads so far. Love it! will post some more pics and reviews later.. Really impressed so far though..

 

[appnut]

Brady, glad you got a front loader!!!

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Brady:

Welcome to the wonderful world of SQ FL ownership. More than likely you will love the machine and congrats on a fine purchase.
WK78

 

[lordkenmore]

[Normal Eco] saves almost as much water as a suds-saver

I suppose Normal Eco does save water, but a real suds saver obviously does much, much better in that it gets more use out of heated water, and it gets more use out of detergent. It's hard for me to get excited about saving a few gallons in rinse given that rinses are (I assume) always cold water. (Unless, of course, one lives someplace where water use needs to be limited...but at that point, a front loader is a better choice for saving water.)

 

Although it's interesting that Normal Eco sounds like it works better than I'd have thought it would!

 

[this post was last edited: 8/8/2017-01:09]

 

[midcentnurse]

Thanks, I'm really loving it! Got a suds code yesterday, probably from washing some stuff i washed in that old washer I borrowed from my mom's barn. They must have poured a bunch of dawn in there or something It did its thing and got rid of the suds on its own, pretty impressive!

 

[Marky_Mark]

Frig, I love your shiny new set!  Gorgeous!  Hope you're enjoying apartment life

The one thing about your laundry set-up is that you'd better get your story straight now for when you meet your new neighbours for the first time as they walk through the hallway and you're paying an inexplicable amount of attention to your washer as it runs with its lid up LOL.

 

As for the normal-eco cycle -- I would have to agree with you.  I couldn't say that I like the idea of only doing a spray rinse.  However I have to say that I've used SQ TLs a couple of times in recent years in hotels.  They only did a spray rinse.  I really couldn't tell the difference at all.  But of course, I guess there must have been more residue left in the clothes.

 

[frigilux]

Surprising discovery: The warm and cool wash water temps listed above are incorrect. Originally, I measured the water temperature at the beginning of the fill. Came to the realization today when I returned to the washer to submerge a queen-sized comforter (Bulky cycle) that at some point during the fill the water changed from warm to cold. The chosen setting was cool. Will take water temp when agitation begins and repost correct temps.

 

[whirlykenmore78]

The cool fill on a SQ is like ATC cold:

I found this out by opening the detergent drawer multiple times while the machine was filling on cool. It filled with mostly cold but some warm water. Here is my controller, the temp setup looks to be the same. Mine also fills to the set temp except for Normal/Eco. However there is no difference on the FL in the default rinsing between N/E and HD or Whites. It is still 2 normal fill rinses. You can option up to 5 rinses on any cycle except Quick where 4 is the max. The FS dispenser is ONLY active on the final rinse.

 

[frigilux]

Thanks for the info, Nick. Must admit I was surprised that the temp of the 'Cool' setting was so warm when I took the initial reading last week. Now I know why. The temp of the water once the tub was filled and agitating when I washed the comforter yesterday felt like temp-controlled cold. Now I'll have to see if the machine adds some cold water to bring the 'Warm' setting down from what seemed an unnaturally high temp of 110. Always something new to learn, eh?

Nice set of SQs, Brady. I really like the look of the rear-console front-loader. Congratulations!

 

[henene4]

Water layering

Could it be that the water settles in layers like in hot water tanks, hotter at the top, cooler at the bottom? Thus, once agitation starts, the actual temp is achieved?