Why I dislike detergent pods - stuck in Miele door seal!

[iej]

Miele decided in their infinite wisdom that if you open the door on the W1 and add laundry that it will override the load sensing and assume maximum load.
So, you'd be wasting a lot of time and energy if you'd a smaller load and did that.

The way it works on the W1 is as follows:

The door opening button is gone, they have a pull-open door now which has no latching.

When the machine starts an electromechanical door lock snaps shut.

To open the door you have to press the Start/Stop for a couple of seconds. That brings up a menu which gives you the options of "Add Laundry" or "Cancel Programme"

If you select Add Laundry it will release the door.

If you select Cancel Programme it runs the drain pump and then releases the door when it's happy the tub's empty.

Also, after a few mins into the cycle, it removes the 'add laundry' option entirely and will only open the door if you cancel the cycle. The older Mieles were a lot more flexible about door opening.

I'm a bit disappointed by that removal of what was a nice feature in all their previous machines.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Horizontal drums are probably more susceptible to the pod landing on the door seal.

I am still inclined to think that a pumped jetsystem machine would dissolve the pod far quicker. I remember in my Zanussi IZ Jetsystem, the sodden laundry would deflect the pumped stream right down the door glass, into the door seal, flushing out lumps of tablet which hadn't yet dissolved.

 

[iej]

The Miele W1 eventually just snaffled it up and pulled it in.

They've an extremely powerful wash action on the cottons cycles that uses a combination of pretty vigorous variable speed tumbling, regular distribution speed tumbles where the machine also sprays water in from a fairly powerful door seal mounted jet (they've basically made the Miele version of the JetSystem.

They also fill using a door seal jet.

It can take clothes through a full cottons cycle with plenty of high rinses and complete the whole thing in an hour including a 1600 spin.

Yet my clothes aren't being worn out by it and it has actually removed stains like deodorant marks from T shirts that had survived on them on Samsung's long, long cotton washes.

 

[hoover8pulse]

How much was the W1, lej?

 

[iej]

€1,289

Seems to be £1,199 in the UK which is quite steep in comparison

converts at £1016

 

[NYCWriter]

I think ...

... this is more a problem with the design of front-loading washers than with laundry pods (although I'm a purist and prefer measuring my own detergent anyway).

 

[hoover8pulse]

Im guessing its worth it though?

 

[iej]

Well, so far yes, seems to be doing an exceptionally good job and it's highly programmable / customisable.

The 60 minute cotton wash with short pressed is amazingly good!

 

[askolover]

Asko's

don't have a bellows seal so I don't have to worry about it. I usually place it on the top and towards the back of the laundry in the machine when I use one.

 

[BoschExxcel]

I hate the pods. Don't like the smell and always get stuck in the door seal! Now when I use them (not often as I much prefer my Ariel powder) I stab them in the drum so they leak everywhere, seems to solve the problem.

Only 37 left!!

 

[iej]

I've done a bit of experimenting ...

So far, the 'door splodge' hasn't reoccured.

I'm placing them right at the very back of the drum, under the clothes.

I think the problem is that the water doesn't actually enter the drum from the bottom during the fill - it's coming in via the jets at the front, so being at the bottom of the load doesn't really mean it's going to get wet first.

The Miele load-detection also doesn't involve full tumbles, it's more like a slight twitching of the drum followed by filling through the flume i.e. water pours in over the glass so the clothes immediately start to get wet. Then it starts the detergent dispensing phase which is where it fills through the drawer the 'traditional' way - detergent's never dispensed through the water flume.

It tumbles for a while until it's happy that things are saturating then creates a 'tunnel' in the laundry with a distribution spin and starts a pretty serious flow of water through the jet absolutely saturating them.

What seems to happen is the water is pumped into the honeycomb drum faster than it can drain away during normal tumbling so you end up with loads of water in the wash rather than down in the sump.

The wash action on cottons is pretty vigorous. I've never seen a non-commercial machine wash like this before! The idea seems to be to create a layer of water in the drum on the honeycomb pattern to protect the clothes and then absolutely slosh them around the place.

It's something like this:

Fast tumbles that slow down as they progress for a while and then very fast tumbles where water sloshes around and even down the door glass from all directions with the recirculation jet sloshing water in.

The jet's at least as powerful as a washing machine emptying down the drain. It produces a lot of water compared to what I've seen on the Zanussi / AEG / Electrolux systems but the basic design of it is very similar.

I suppose the best approach might be a 'sacrificial sock' to make the pod more substantial.

The boot design on this generation of Mieles is pretty tight too. There's very little chance of anything actually jamming in the seal and there's a very tight space between the drum and the seal, so I don't think there's much risk of any objects ever making their way between the drum and the stainless steal outer tub.

You should see the high rinse level action!!

The machine fills quite deep, operates the jet and uses a lot of very aggressive tumbles to really get things flying around!

The design is all about forcing as much water as possible through the fabric without damaging it.

It doesn't seem to damage anything though, the design of the drum seems to ensure they're mostly interacting with water, not the drum surfaces (which are very smooth and entirely metal.. no plastic scoops or anything like that)

What's really impressed me is that thing like antiperspirant stains in t-shirts that had been there for a long time (Despite washing on long cotton cycles in the Samsung) disappeared in a 60 min short cottons cycle with exactly the same detergent.

 

[rolls_rapide]

How does the agitation of Miele's W1 "Woollens" programme compare to other machines?

I am getting increasingly irritated by the uselessness of modern Woollens programmes: the clothes sit there, floating, part wet, never really getting a full tumble. At least the Zanussi IZ had the jetsystem pumped spray; the Panasonic sits doing nothing for most of the time.

We never had this nonsense with the Hoover machines of the 1980s.