Most people I've seen on here do laundry on multiple days. You're finding out that with a FL on long cycles, there's not much choise, except for a few who have multiple machines.

I only sort whites w/ light colors and darks. I wash as I need-full loads only. Sometimes I have 2 loads a week, then 3 in one day. When my BF goes through his dermatitis break up, we wash every day load or two-he uses anywhere up to 3-4 big towels a day plus sheets needs to be changed due to using creams and skin shedding. My white load has anything in it from towels, soaks, undies,t' shirts,linen etc, darks unless they are really bad from working in the yard have also anything from dark socks, undies t'shirts,jeans, sweatpants. If I had to seperate everything in individual loads, I would go nuts and would have piles of dirty laundry.I use only hot or sanitize so everything gets clean.I prewash everything too. Plus the mixed loads wash and dry eaysier too. It balances well in the drum.
Sometimes I put load on delay so it is done when I get home at night and put it in dryer and start another load. By the time I go to bed, the other load goes in dyer and next day I put everything away. When I take it out from dryer, I pull out anything that needs to be ironed and put it on side.Mostly just shirts.
I don't fuss w/laundry, I don't inspect or shake every piece before it goes in dryer. If I have stains, when it goes in dirty pile I pretreat it even if it's washed couple of days later. In summer when I wash comforter I dry it partially and hang it outside to air dry.

If our machines took that long they would be gone in a NY minute. OUr longest wash cycle is 70 minutes. Even if you added 4 rinses to it on top of the 3 it already had it would only be about 2hrs and that would be extreme. Average wash cycle is about 48 minutes. The DW would NOT give up her entire weekend doing laundry after working all week.

Two casually-dressed adults - no pets. Use bath towels for a week and wear pants/slacks/jeans more than once to reduce the amount of laundry.

Our laundry is pre-treated and pre-sorted in 4 baskets as we put them in the laundry room after wearing (I have a well-trained hubby - LOL). These are located on a shelf above the w/d.

DAILY - damp-from-use hand towels, wash cloths, kitchen towels/dishrags, are all hung on a (pull-out) wall drying rack in the laundry room. They are dried on the rack before tossing in basket/s. Bath towels are used one week.

TUESDAY night, after baths/showers - in our idle moments: (2-4 loads - depending on size of load, some are combined) whites, lights, darks, and load of kitchen towels. Hubby and I hang them in the basement in the drying room (complete with lines and a clothes rod for things on hangers). I take them down, fold, and put away on Wednesday morning.

If they are going to be dried outside, they are flat-folded wet and loaded in a basket and taken out first thing Wed. morning. Anything that is normally hung on a hanger in the closet is placed on a hanger to dry. They are generally hung on a clothes rod in the basement and dry overnight in the drying room. The drying room has a ceiling fan that aids in air movement and quick drying. There is also a de-humidifier in the basement.

SATURDAY morning: Bedding and bath towel load/s. Preferably hung outside, but in basement drying room, when necessary.

SATURDAY - late afternoon/evening: (2-3 loads) whites/lights (combined or separated - depending on amount), darks, and hung in the basement in the drying room. If these are going to be hung outside, they are flat-folded in a basket and taken out all at once early Sunday morning.

-Grainlady

Having gone back to a "regular" top loader, I agree with the poster. I've cut wash times way down and have the satisfaction of seeing the clothes actually covered in water. My new TL has an extended final spin which is allowing for the dryer to keep up with the washer.

I do laundry every day...sometimes I start a load right before bed and throw it in the dryer first thing in the morning. (Anyone remember the "Overnighter" thread?? :)

Toploaders are quicker, at the expense of more water. Also, there is no sanitary cycle option on top load machines, so you don't have the option of a 3 hour cycle.

Three hours??? Holy cow. The longest cycle on my new HE TL is 69 minutes, and I thought that was long!

Use your "water plus" button for more water in each load...and try to play with the settings for shorter wash times. I wash everything on fast cycles with "water plus" and ONLY use the sanitary cycle for cloth diapers.

3 hours for one cycle???
What kind of cycle are you using? Did you use a comparable cycle on your old TL machine?

With all respect, I really think you're over washing things.

I have been using the Normal cycle or the Perma Press cycle for washing most items like sheets, towels, jeans, hubby's work shirts and undies and even when I engage the extra rinse the time is just over 1 hour. I suppose if I used Pre-wash there would be time added, but I haven't needed to use it yet and I doubt it would add another 2 hours.

We don't have dogs, but we have cats. I wash their blankets, rugs and occasionally their pillow beds just using the normal cycle with water plus and hot water.
I've never had a load last over 1 hour 15 minutes.

I do wash more than one day a week though, but I usually do 2-3 loads on days when I do wash.

I'm really sorry you're having these problems with your new machine. I hope you are able to figure things out to benefit you're needs, or are able to return your machine for one that does.

Janet

Three hours seems really long for a wash load. I have a MIele and the longest cycle takes about 2hours in the winter and 1.75hours in the summer.

Also, I only use the 190F cycle for two sets of items: Kitchen Towels and White bed linens. For the rest of my laundry, I used the 120F cycle and the 85F cottons cycle (for darks mainly) and it takes just under 1hours. I usually use the short wash with extra water.

Evaluate your wash loads and pick the appropriate cycles for it. Most of my linens and towels are white so they get a hot wash at 155F or 140F. It is a short cycle and takes about 56minutes. With a mix of cycles, I don't see how you can't complete your laundry in one day.

Good luck!

There's no need to use the longest, most-intense cycle and options on every load. Just because those options are there, does not mean EVERY load needs them.

Good lord. Longest cycle my Bosch does is 2 hours...and that's the temp boost cycle. Which I use...once or twice a month, tops. Unless one of the kids does a load and gets too much soap in the machine. Then it takes FOREVER.

I find that most of our clothes will get clean on the "quickwash" 25 minute cycle. I use the perm press cycle for sheets...and the "hot regular" cycle for the white towels.

Is it possible you are over-sudsing?

Why are you guys freeking out over long wash cycle? The machine does it itself.My sanitary w/prewash,extra rinse plus one more rinse and spin is about 3 hours.On all of my whites I use the stain cycle with it and heavy soil button.I like mi whites white. I am doing this b/c of my BF skin problems.I need to make sure things are sanitized and rinsed good too.
Long cycle don't bother me.It's not like I need to babysit the machine.And I can do lots of laundry in one load so who cares how long it takes.I fold it and iron it watching some programs at night.

FairyTaleBaby, my LG is probably one of the few machines that does not have a water plus feature. This actually is a $%&!@#%& to me, as I specifically asked the sales person if it did and to actually show it to me. She said that since the floor model did not have power to it, she could only show me what buttons I should need to push. Another floor model also by LG did have power, and she showed me that that model had the water plus feature. I have decided that this FL is not for me and that I need to find a TL that actually puts water in the machine. Fortunately this store has a 30 return policy if you saved the box, which I did of course.

I_dig_it, I could easily see where it might seem that I am over washing, but trust me when I say I am choosing the default options (just what it selects when I chose that wash type) for all loads with only the addition of the extra rinse due to the extreme lack of water the machine uses. The only exception is the sanitize cycle which the manual suggests for linens and undies. Even the manual says, "The cycle guide below shows the options and recommended fabric types for each cycle." with Sanitary suggesting Extra Hot/Cold, High Spin, Normal Soil Level, Pre-Wash, Stain Cycle and Extra Rinse (and a Rinse & Spin option that I did not select). This gives the 3 hours. Being new to FL, and being a manual reader, I followed the directions.

Cuffs_054, which TL did you choose? I have to now start the long process of selecting a TL that is not only large (min 4 cf) but one that actually uses water. I am a type A person and do not have the patience to wait this long nor the time or desire to be able to deal with laundry every day or every other day. I only have a limited amount of heartbeats and I am not about to spend them over a washing machine's functioning time schedule.

Grainlady, I gotta give it to you! You must have the patience of a saint to live your life around doing laundry! You are a master of working out such a schedule.

Zedd, I thought, but I could be wrong, that the new TL machines did have a sanitize cycle. I will have to keep my eyes out for this when I start my research. Thanks for the head's up.

Mjsee, I have put aside the Ariel and have been using the Kirkland Free & Clear Ultra on half the dosing. I have been doing a preemptive rinse & spin (the time for which I have not included in my original numbers above) to make sure there was no excessive soap left in the clothes from the last wash done in my now dead and gone TL. And actually, when it was done "washing" the dog blanket last night, after drying I could still see many dog hairs on the fibers that should have (and would have before) washed away had there been more than just a wet blanket tossing around in the unit during the wash and rinse cycles.

Czechchick2, for me, my life style does not give me the time to be able to wait this long for the finished product when I need a minimum of four washes as a group (2 beddings x 3 hrs ea plus 2 dog blankets x 2 hrs ea = 10 hours in one day). Call me silly, but I am not about to rearrange my life to accommodate a washing machine, so time has a huge impact on me.

As I said above, I am beginning to believe that the reason this model, LG WM0642H, takes soooo long is because of its extreme lack of water combined with the lack of a water plus option. If you severely limit one of the magic components of washing clothes, ie water, you have to compensate for it elsewhere, ie time.

According to the brochure, "SenseClean System. The water level and wash time are set automatically based on the weight and size of each load for optimal washing care.", so I imagine that the bigger the load, the longer it runs. I do not have a direct way to control the time that it runs other than selecting/not selecting additional options.

Thanks so much for everyone's input! I really believe now that a FL is not for me. My reasons for originally wanting one was for a larger capacity to be able to finish my laundry quicker (ha ha!) and because I had heard that they are far more gentle on the clothes than a TL with agitator. Oh well, live and learn.

Schutzhund

Schutzhund, I actually smiled reading your post. While I'm also type A personality, I love the idea of knowing my laundry will be done much later. I can go places, go to work, shopping. I program it so it works for me. And personally I like doing load as needed. If I had to collect dirty laundry untill I have enough for my specific laundry day, I would go nuts. Four baskets? I have two-dark and whites/lite.
I'm sorry your machine is driving you nuts.

Czechchick2, actually I have 8-9 loads on laundry day. We just put it all in the hamper I had built into under the laundry room counter. I think with me its knowing and seeing that the hamper is empty and there is nothing piled on the counter top either for washing that makes it pleasing to my brain. I like to know that when I have done a task, it is done. Nothing worse than doing something twice or having to redo things.

I'm trying now to find a TL. Gotta do a little research here on the Whirlpool WTW6700T. From the manual, it sounds like if you set it on FS mode, it does a deep water rinse for optimal distribution. I need to find out how much water it uses for washing. This is such a great board that I should be able to find it in a search.

Husband is calling the laundry room the R&D lab. All I can do is laugh, as it is so true, what with all the experimenting to get things washed...

Schutzhund

I have the Kenmore Elite HE5t. Initially, I was shocked by the wash times as compared with my very old SQ TL. I think the longest wash time in my TL was about 60 minutes. Well, since I've been able to 'play' with my new FL, I am enjoying it.

Here are some of the things that I like in my FL as compared with my old TL:
Holds so much more than my old TL with the 'Extra Large' load setting. I don't know the actual capacity of my old TL, but it used a whopping 48 gallons of water per extra large load.
The choice of using an extra rinse, which wasn't available on my old TL.
The 'heater' in the sanitary cycle. This cycle will run about 3 hours with pre-wash and extra rinse, but I've only used it once in the 2 months that I've had my machine.

There are only 2 of us, and we do approx. 4 loads of laundry per week. And, like grainlady, we use 1 towel per week, per person. You are supposed to be clean when you get out of the shower...LOL And, he wears his after work 'garage' clothes all week. No sense in dirtying up more clothes that already have grease and sawdust on them.

Well, front-loaders are not for everyone. I have cats, not dogs, and only two...so the fur issue isn't really a problem here. Best of luck to you!

Uggghhh, I'm sorry that you don't have a "water plus" feature after doing your homework and being assured that it was available--that would make me so angry. I totally get what you're saying about the long wash times--on my LG it's very easy to have a long washy cycle unless you play with the buttons and "back off" on some of the features.

Here's a link to a TL that we looked at (or it was last year's model that was very similar). This is the Maytag Bravos and it says it's a 4.7 cu ft washer.

Dryer filter thick with pug hair (3 pugs). Half century of owning dogs, never so much hair everywhere! I avoid anything fleece because of all the hair. My Maytag Neptune is 2nd (or 3rd?) generation-built in U.S which cut my laundry time in half because it holds so much. Now with no kids, I probably don't do more than 4 loads every two weeks.

One load dark, one perm press, soiled dog laundry followed by bleach load. It's just laundry and nothing to stress out about. The laundry gets done as needed.

schutzhund

If you do not like the long cycles on your new LG FL, definitely consider the Maytag Bravos HE TL in the link that fairytalebaby gave you above. My grandmother has an older version of this machine and unless you are washing something on the heavy duty and sanitary cycles, it's cycle times are much shorter than most FL's. And my grandmother's definitely uses enough water but I thought I heard the newer ones (like the one in the link above) use a little bit less. Just something to consider.

But most importantly, the Bravos is a wonderful washer and I recommend it highly! Hope this info helps!! :o)

Some of those default cycle times (e.g. Darks: 1 load, 2:21 hours) sure do sound like they include a prewash, which you should be able to deselect.

If the machine didn't get a load completely soaked, then that's enough reason to return it. The LG WM2455, which I had for a little while, was able to completely wet a large load, without using Water Plus. My Miele certainly can do it.

Re the comment about using bath towels for a week: Yeah, you can do that, when you have a washer that gets them really clean. But if you use an old-style washer that just sloshes them around for a few minutes, they aren't really clean straight out of the wash. So they smell as soon as they get rewetted from use.

But if you use an old-style washer that just sloshes them around for a few minutes, they aren't really clean straight out of the wash. So they smell as soon as they get rewetted from use.Sorry, have to disagree with that. :-)

Growing up in the 1960s, we had an "old-style" washer, a 1962 model Whirlpool toploader (then another Whirlpool in 1976). My mother rarely set the machine for longer than a 6-minute or 8-minute wash, and I don't recall our towels having an odor upon getting damp with use.

dadoes, I have to agree. And, I hadn't noticed sour washcloths until just before my old TL died and found this site. Once I gave up the large amounts of Tide, fabric softener, dryer sheets and started using a different detergent (Charlie's), I didn't know what clean was. I think that Tide had changed their formula, since I had never had sour washcloths/dishcloths before. But now they smell brand new.

One of the issues with a top loader is again, pilot error. Most people recommend not always using the maximum time claiming you can actually put the dirt back into the clothes. I can't say if it's true or not, but I can say without reservation my 30 year old GE toploader gets my clothes CLEAN! And they've never been cleaner since the last year when I switched to Tide Free, and at a far-less-than-recommended amount.

schutzhund, I sure appreciate your frustration. Only in about the last couple of years have I realized what a great machine I have! If and when I have to replace my dear old washer, I think I'm leaning more and more away from a front loader for a variety of reasons. Some washers I'll consider (at this point, and of course subject to change), IMO, are, and in no particular order, the Speed Queen, GE Harmony, Fisher & Paykal, Whirlpool Cabrio with agitator (non-HE), virtually any of the Whirlpool/Maytag/Estate/Roper/Inglis/Amana, etc which are all basically the same machine. The Cabrio/Oasis/Bravos HE version (non-agitator) has varied reviews. The non-HE let's you get a full load of water. Fortunately I don't need gigantor capacity so that's a point in my favor and will give me more options than you might have available.

Also, different machines DO require adjustments in your washing habits. It's a fact of life. Some might be minor, some might be major and it's something to consider. If you don't tolerate change well, don't buy something that takes major changes to use.

There's lots of discussion on the various models in other threads so I won't repeat it all here.

Comparing the wash action and duration of agitator TL vs. FL, to me it defies logic that the TL could clean as well. The wash time is shorter (no more than 15 minutes, in my experience), and only part of the load is exposed to the wash action at any given time. FL wash time can be 30 minutes to an hour, during which time the entire load is exposed to tumbling. What's more, the detergent may be more concentrated in the FL, unless you cut the detergent dosage in proportion to the quantity of water.

shutzhund -

After doing 1 load of laundry yesterday morning - while we ate breakfast - and 2 loads last night - while we were watching TV - (so much for "living my life around the laundry"), I calculated how much time I spend a WEEK doing our 5-7 loads. I manage to dominate 3-4 hours of the washer's time a week, and approximately an hour a week of my time loading the washer, hanging the clothes on the clothes lines and hangers to dry, and taking them down and putting them away. Thank goodness I'm not slave to laundry, as it would appear you are for one day, due to your FL.

This thread, and others, have convinced me NEVER to purchase a FL. I can't think they save water or electricity when one load in my F/P takes 30-minutes to wash one load, and one load in the LG took 3 hours.

As I understand it (information from a man who owned and operated a professional laundry and mixed his own chemicals for doing the laundry), detergent only has a few minutes of actual cleaning time once it's mixed in the water.

-Grainlady

FLs save a lot of energy and water if you look at comparable cycles. If you do an overkill on additional options and wash everything using the sanitary cycle, those savings can disappear quickly (but the clothes would be super clean).

I have a Bosch Nexxt 500 plus and I really don't suffer from long cycle times as schutzhund does. I do most of my loads using the warm (90 F) or hot (120 F) cotton cycle without any additional options. Those cycles take 58 minutes. An extra (third) rinse would add about 20 minutes. I don't have any problems with the cleaning and rinsing results. The delicate cycle takes 43 minutes and the sanitary cycle (without additional options) 2 hours. I don't really use the sanitary cycle much, the 150 F kidscare cycle (1:25) works very well for towels and stinky rags.

I am definitely not a slave of my laundry appliances. The time delay feature is very useful, but either way I don't have to be close to the washer to babysit it while it is running. It'll beep when it's done...

I have to agree with mjsee - it seems possible you are over sudsing since it sounds like you aren't using an HE detergent. I don't have an LG but the average cycle on my Kenmore Elite HE3 is 54 min INCLUDING an optional 2nd rinse. Since the dryer takes almost that long it works out just fine for multiple back-to-back loads. 3 hrs would drive me nuts. My front loader saves me tons of laundry time because it holds so much more i actually do 1/2 the number of loads as I did with my old TL. However, while our clothes seem very clean, it does not get rid of the dog hair on her bedding as well as the old waterhog TL.

The agitator TL time advantage is smaller or nonexistent, once you consider the other factor in doing laundry, namely dryer time. This is especially true if you consider that many FL washers can do a better-than-TL job in one hour or a little more. Two hours or more is for special options or special cycles, which produce far better results in return for the extra time.

Case 1: Washing one load and then drying it. Total time spent = washing time plus drying time. FL washer takes longer, but its superior water extraction results in much shorter drying time. And since FL produces less lint, the dryer duct ought to clog slower, so dryer performance shouldn't deteriorate as fast.

Case 2: "Laundry day", one load after another. Throughput is limited by either washer or dryer time, whichever is longer. With an agitator TL, dryer time is almost certainly longer. If you switch to an FL, loss in throughput depends on the difference between FL washer time and dryer time for loads washed in agitator TL washer.

suburbanmd: Well stated. One needs to look at the entire process and not just one step of the process. OTOH, even knowing in advance what you stated, we also found ourselves occasionally "mumbling" about the long wash time with our first FL.

I also agree with cynic that going from a TL to a FL is a rather major change. For folks like me who generally dislike major changes, it's not very comforting to hear that the only constant thing you can count on is change. Oh, well... must be my age.

Suburbanmd,
I would normally agree about the drying time issue, except, my new TL is spinning dry enough that the dryer is keeping up with the washer.

Grainlady, sorry, I seem to have chosen my words poorly with my statement of you living your life around the laundry. I did not mean for it to sound negative as it appears you may have taken it, instead, it was actually a compliment to how well you plan your tasks. And a slave to laundry is exactly what that LG was going to do to me. Fortunately, it went back to the store today, and a different unit comes tomorrow!

Gslgal, I still don't think I was over using soap, as I was also testing an HE - the Kirkland Free & Clear liquid HE, at 1/2 the max line. My water is 7.6pH (slightly alkaline) and 20 gpg, extremely hard.

As I posted elsewhere, what I found interesting before they took the LG FL away today, was that with the amount of water that LG would use, there was little to no sudsing. When I added water manually, the more water, the more sudsing I would see. This happened in both the wash and the rinse cycles. I found this very strange, as I had thought that I was diluting the soap, and thereby diluting its ability to suds. Instead, the more water helped it to froth up.

Oh, the soap brand did not seem to matter. It did this with Ariel (2 tbls), FAB (3 tbls) and also Kirkland Free & Clear HE (1/2 of max line). I like the FAB the best so far, as even though it does suds a small amount, it seems to rinse out much better unlike the other soaps.

What else is strange is that the harder the water, the more detergent that has always been recommended, yet I am using the same or in the case of FAB, less than, others, who state having softer water, have posted.

The problem you had with the removal of the dog hair is because it is an insoluble that requires water to remove. I was nearly floored the other day at Lowes when I read in their catalog on F&P products where F&P was saying that one of their units allowed the user to increase the water to remove the insoluble items such as hair, sand and lint that would not otherwise be removed. They actually admitted that it would not otherwise be removed! I wonder how long that will remain in the literature.....

Suburbanmd, I must have been lucky with my prior W&D set. My dryer is gas (I'm keeping my old, working unit - can you say I'm cheap?). The only time I would have a backup at the dryer was when I was drying the load of towels. I compensated for this by having worked out what was washed in what order so that towels were being dried while the small load of dark undies were being washed. When they were finished, they were place on top of the dryer while I next washed the small load of whites. When the whites were done, out came the towels and in went the two small loads that had finished, making a more decent sized load anyhow for the dryer to run and being more efficient with the gas. With this method, I had a constant throughput with no backups at either machine.

SeattleMike, I definitely agree with you that going from TL to FL is a major change. Also a major change is going from a non-water saver to a water saver model. I'm still trying - that's why I bought another water saver - just less of a saver. Hopefully it works well for me when it arrives tomorrow, as I really like the tub size of 4.5 cf. I already have sorted out my test loads!

Thanks to all for all the great input!!!

Schutzhund