Buying a Washing Machine

[iadom]

Originally Posted by lippy

I can understand both points,take your chance with cheap stuff or pay for reliability.

I tend to go for cheaper makes when it comes to certain goods.Some of them perform very well.

A friend bought a top brand american style fridgefreezer for £800,it broke down after 13 months.
My £200 LEC is going strong after 6 years.

You don't always get what you pay for,i know that from car tyres when i was a mechanic and tools/paint no i'm doing building work!

Maybe what i should have asked is what are the best of the cheaper makes?

There are always exceptions to any rule, we all know of the heavy smoker who can tell us about a relative who lived to be 100 on 60 fags a day, but it doesn't convince me to start smoking. You may get an occasional lemon even if you pay a decent price for it. You are far more likely to get a pile of junk if you pay £200 for a washing machine. look to spend £375 to £450 if you can possibly afford it, for a Bosch or similar which includes a full 2 year g/tee.

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

Originally Posted by SMHarman

But the electricity in you entire house is on E7 at night so your washing machine will heat the water and run on E7 power.

But if i have a tank of hot water that was heated by gas and will cool slightly overnight why not use that water rather than heat some more

[orangebird]

I'd go for Siemens/Bosch. I have a Siemens branded washing machine and it's fab.

As for LG - I have a Goldstar TV, still going well, an LG microwave, 4 years old, still as new, and a LG dvd/video combi - absolutely fine. LG are great IMO.

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

Originally Posted by andygrif

Yes and yes! But it's soooooo quiet!

i expected so, i know someone who works for John Lewis and they SERIOUSLY push Miele machines.

I wonder why that is? profit margin maybe

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

But if i have a tank of hot water that was heated by gas and will cool slightly overnight why not use that water rather than heat some more

?? Why would it cool slightly overnight? It'll remain the same temp until you use it......

Cold fill are great. You never have to worry about not having hot water to do a wash, or about the washing machine taking all the hot water when you need a bath etc....

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by handyman

I cannot see the logic in buying a mediocre washer for £200 with sub standard wash performance and water ecomomy with a 2 year life when for £441 you can have a AA washer with a 20 year life? Miele 500

The point is that there are millions of people in this country that simply cannot afford 441 quid. There are also lots of people who don't need 5 washes a week - that's why I bought my Indesit in 1992, I was a young single bloke with lots of clothes and probably did one wash every other week or so. Aside from the fact that I had to buy everything else for the house in 1992 as well, I simply didn't have disposably cash to fork out for expensive kit back then. Over the years, I've become older, richer, paired-up and have replaced old and worn out kit with higher end stuff.

Maybe I've been lucky, but I took the old fridge-freezer from my sister (which was also an Indesit) that they bought SECOND HAND about ten years before I got and it lasted another ten years for me before various bits fell off it. Technically it was still perfect, it was cheap when new, and lasted at least 20 years and still worked at the end. Now I've got a big American job, and that's fine too.

The old tumble drier I had was slightly less good. I paid about 100 quid for it, it was some no-name unit. That only lasted me seven years before a strange burning smell came out of it, and I upgraded it. But 100 quid for seven years isn't bad.

Originally Posted by handyman

Is this your machine andy?

No, it's a few years old now, doesn't have a digital display. I couldn't tell you the model number without looking at it I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by iadom

For 'cheap and cheerful' you now need to substitute 'cheap and nasty' for a good many machines on the market today, that includes all £200 appliances.

You might be right, but I would hazard an educated guess that whilst there might be a lot more appliances chucked that are less than two years old now, comparted to the good old days, I would still suggest that the vast majority of all 200 quid machines are NOT scrapped in this time frame.

Originally Posted by iadom

From that you will understand why most of the trade inserts a letter 'h' between the 5th & 6th letters of the companies name.

I like it

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

i expected so, i know someone who works for John Lewis and they SERIOUSLY push Miele machines.

I wonder why that is? profit margin maybe

No, John Lewis sales staff are not comissioned in the same way as Currys and Comet et al. That's why I shop there for this kind of stuff - they price match any other store, the staff actually know what they are selling and there's no pressure at all.

I guess they recommend them as they are the best, and as has been pointed out, it does out cheaper to own one of these with a ten year warranty than it does to replace a cheapy every couple of years. But I wouldn't say they pushed us into picking a Miele, he was equally complimentary about Bosch and Siemens.

We did end up spending more than we wanted to (a couple of hundred more) but if you can be happy with a washing machine, we are! Although we're moving house next month, and the sheer weight of this beast is unbelivable, so we may regret it a little then.

[orangebird]

This is mine - except I got mine for £499 including 5 years warranty

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

But if i have a tank of hot water that was heated by gas and will cool slightly overnight why not use that water rather than heat some more

Originally Posted by orangebird

?? Why would it cool slightly overnight? It'll remain the same temp until you use it......

Cold fill are great. You never have to worry about not having hot water to do a wash, or about the washing machine taking all the hot water when you need a bath etc....

Cold fill also has the benefit that the water going into the machine is clean, keeping your whites whiter. Heating / HW is not clean drinking quality water after it has been through the HW/CH system.

Surely also a cold fill will benefit you as you will have more HW for using as HW for washing you hands, body, dishes that will have been heated on E7 power.

[monkey2468]

This is the one ive got. http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/49_265624.html
I chose this brand as my mam had one for nearly 20 years.
Its seams really good quality, and quite.

[handyman]

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

But if i have a tank of hot water that was heated by gas and will cool slightly overnight why not use that water rather than heat some more

However as IADOM mentioned modern washing powders work much better if slowly heated to the washing temperature and you get a much better wash. Plus the are very efficient at it. Our miele completes a 40 non colour fast cotton wash in 31 mins start to finish including heating from cold.
__________________

Originally Posted by SMHarman

Cold fill also has the benefit that the water going into the machine is clean, keeping your whites whiter. Heating / HW is not clean drinking quality water after it has been through the HW/CH system.

Surely also a cold fill will benefit you as you will have more HW for using as HW for washing you hands, body, dishes that will have been heated on E7 power.

You can convert any hot fill machine to cold fill by feeding it 2 cold supplies.

[fudge]

Just bought a hotpoint after my beko concrete weight snaped off , after 18 months. Got hotpoint from tescos after finding it on there web site. Free delivery , Free connection , and they take your old one away Free. Ordered it on a sunday night and was installed on the wednesday morning

[andygrif]

Originally Posted by handyman

You can convert any hot fill machine to cold fill by feeding it 2 cold supplies.

Is it not possible to just connect the cold (i.e. purposefully not connect the hot) or would that not work?

Just curious, doesn't matter to me as mine is cold only!

[iadom]

Originally Posted by orangebird

I'd go for Siemens/Bosch. I have a Siemens branded washing machine and it's fab.

As for LG - I have a Goldstar TV, still going well, an LG microwave, 4 years old, still as new, and a LG dvd/video combi - absolutely fine. LG are great IMO.

Siemens/Bosch/Neff (same firm, just charge more for the Siemens name on virtually the same product ) are just below Miele in terms of quality and considering the price of machines now and twenty years ago represent very good value for money, unless it is a Bosch made at the old Balay factory in Spain, not the same quality by a long way. The thing about a washing machine as opposed to TV's DVD players and even microwaves is that they do not suffer from the same use, misuse and general abuse that most washing machines get, by under/overloading, incorrect use of detergents and wash cycles, leaving coins, bra wires, penknifes, tweezers, pens, watches, necklaces, false teeth, dog leads, table cutlery, bottle openers, etc, etc in the washing. The more expensive and robust machines will handle this abuse far better than the £200 tin can. Last month I had an 18 month old Indesit with a stainless steel outer drum, ( as thin as tissue paper ) that had been sliced open like a sardine tin by a 10p coin, totally unrepairable at a cost of around £50 more than it cost new.

PS. I have pulled all those things and more from the inside of customers appliances
__________________

Originally Posted by andygrif

Is it not possible to just connect the cold (i.e. purposefully not connect the hot) or would that not work?

Just curious, doesn't matter to me as mine is cold only!

No, because if the machine is recent (last ten years) mixed fill machine the the water is routed into the correct side of the drawer, using the hot fill valve to flush the detergent in, also some machines 'sense' the incoming water temp and switch the cold on and off to compensate if the incoming hot supply is to hot for the programme selected.