s/o Do you have a smaller front loading washer, like a Miele or Asko or similar?

[Anonymous]

I have enough room for a traditional top loader, but the front loader I wanted to buy (a matching pair of Whirlpool Duet machines) won't fit in the laundry room space on our second floor. I have been looking at the Miele and Asko machines, but they seem outrageously expensive, and I can't justify the cost. There's a smaller Whirlpool, but it has terrible reviews, whereas the Duets are supposed to be reasonably good. CR rates them highly.

Does anyone have real world experience with a smaller front loader, either of these brands or another brand I don't know about? Are they worth the added cost? Or are they too small to be really useful? I do about 1-2 loads every day. Active family and large dog!

I'm also considering Speed Queen, a top loader, but supposedly very durable and good machines. Anyone have one of these?

Thanks for advice. My laundry room is waiting for machines, but I can't figure out what to put in there. Right now I do laundry in our dank, depressing basement on the 20+ year old machines left behind by the previous owner of our very old house. Love to have upstairs laundry, but I'm going nuts trying to find a good substitute for the Duets I'd spent hours researching!

[Anonymous]

I rent a place with a small lg washer dryer. It sucks. We have maintenance some to clean out the lint (you have to unscrew the top and basically dismantle the machine to do so) once a month and fix other issues all the time. No way would it be a good option if we had to pay for repair costs ourself.

[Anonymous]

We bought a place with Miele washer/dryer. It seems plenty big to me.

[Anonymous]

I have the Whirlpool with the horrible reviews. It is truly horrible.

The size is slightly annoying, though I think it'd be fine if the wash/dry times were faster. What are the times on the machines you're looking at? My whirlpool normal wash takes 50 minutes and the drier can take hours on the low setting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We bought a place with Miele washer/dryer. It seems plenty big to me.

How well does the Miele clean clothes? Do you have problems with holes in clothes? My current washer seems to put rips and holes in clothing. Do you have anti-vibration pads under the washer? How many in your family? We have a very busy household, so there's lots of laundry.

[Anonymous]

I installed the apartment size Bosch washer and dryer in a previous house. They were the only units I could find to fit into a closet and they were pricey. I thought they did a good job washing and drying but they were quite small. At the time pre kids I did laundry once a week. They would definitely not work for large loads. I actually find nowadays that I do laundry more frequently, but with small to medium size loads, so I guess those units wouldn't be too bad... But if you do that much laundry and medium to large size loads, I would look for the largest units that fit your area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We bought a place with Miele washer/dryer. It seems plenty big to me.

How well does the Miele clean clothes? Do you have problems with holes in clothes? My current washer seems to put rips and holes in clothing. Do you have anti-vibration pads under the washer? How many in your family? We have a very busy household, so there's lots of laundry.

It seems to do a pretty good job. We use Kirkland enviro wash. We never get holes from washing and I never have to rewash. I have no idea if there are anti-vibration pads--very occasionally you can hear it upstairs if I am washing a huge load of sheets. But, our basement isn't finished so there isn't buffering between the ceiling and the floor. We have 2 adults, 1 preschooler, and 1 infant. We also use cloth napkins and wash rags for a housekeeper to use (to avoid using too many paper towels).

[Anonymous]

Love our Miele compacts. Yes they are expensive, but so glad we got them. They are perfect in our small space, they can vent to the side and there is a handy pull out shelf that you can get with the stacking kit. The machine is especially great in washing dedicates such as handwoven blankets. No more handwashing.

About 4K for the two machines and the stacking kit. (I think I also got extra insurance for the washer.

[Anonymous]

I have the smaller Speed Queen front loader along with the matching (and stacked) electric dryer. Very happy with this unit-solid, reliable, quick and overall great laundry job. I paid just less than $2k in 2012. No problems. GL.

[Anonymous]

We had the Asko under counter front loaders. I thought they were great. The drum was small - so washing an adult sized blanket was pretty much out of the question - but otherwise it was not an issue. We had a very small space to work with. They were great with delicate things, baby clothes, etc. I actually found that my clothes lasted longer with those machines than the one previously or the ones I have now (different house).

We went to Bray and Scharff and they were about $1000 each.

[Anonymous]

In new york we had a miele washer and asko dryer - they worked great. At the time we only had one child and they were enough to manage it. If I needed to wash a comforter or something like that I would take it to the laundromat.

[Anonymous]

We have an Asko and really like it. We weighed the Meile but couldn't justify the even bigger price. Asko works great, built like a tank. It is a little loud since the drum spins so fast but it cleans quite well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had the Asko under counter front loaders. I thought they were great. The drum was small - so washing an adult sized blanket was pretty much out of the question - but otherwise it was not an issue. We had a very small space to work with. They were great with delicate things, baby clothes, etc. I actually found that my clothes lasted longer with those machines than the one previously or the ones I have now (different house).

We went to Bray and Scharff and they were about $1000 each.

I have these, too. I love them when they're working, but had a several weeks-long wait for a part when my washer broke down a few years ago. That was total BS.