Personally, I would never touch that Cold Wash button - maybe unless I was washing clothes that I have just purchased... and probably not even then. Cold water greatly increases the risk of mold growth and the need to run cleaning cycles.

Front loaders use so little warm water to begin with, I doubt you will ever run into problems with your tank. Especially these new front loaders where the warm wash is at a miserly 75F and hot somewhere between 100 and 120F. Warm water consumption per wash cycle will only be a few gallons.

An HE top loader uses more water overall.

Hi, I can only respond to.. Do most find cold wash to actually work for tough stains.

Depending on what part of the country you live in cold can be very cold indeed, or cool rather than cold...my cold water is 40 some degrees F at the moment and is completely worthless even for rinsing. But if your cold water is say cool it can if used in a prewash loosen some stains and prevent them from setting in during the main wash of hot or very warm..but cold or cool water is not going to give clean clothes, nor is it healthy for a washer.

I really have doubts that an HE top loader can wash a comforter with ease unless it uses a lot of water. Even then it's mostly just moving water around and not turning over the comforter for more effective cleaning.

Where as a front loader is tumbling constantly and you know that the whole thing is getting "agitated".

You don't really want to use cold water washes in an HE machine. It's really not going to save you much in utilities. Also the washer will keep cleaner (dissolving body oils and greasy soils).

Whirpool_trainee make a good point and so does Mamapinky0.

PLEASE look into the (front loader) Electrolux WaveTouch (70 series) or IQ Touch (60 series).

I love my Electrolux washer and dryer. They do an excellent job.

You have to be careful with LG and water hammer because it quickly and harshly turns on the water supply when filling on and off very quickly and it can even cause damage to household plumbing (even if you get water hammer arrestors).

Unless LG gets rid of their water hammer, I will NEVER consider another one. It caused bad pipe damage for us!

I've had water hammer sounds in my house for years and really wasnt sure why.. i think both my dish washer and 30 year old washer do the water hammer effect.. so many are saying that using a water hammer dampener doesnt help reduce the effect or damage that could be caused by it (though i've yet to see any damage).

By cold water, i didnt really mean use the "cold setting" but rather the "Coldwash" option, which i think isnt technically completely cold.

I guess i have 30 days to test this top loader out, if it still drains the heat from my hot water tank after one run like the old one, then i'll just return it for the front loader type. From what i've read though, it should use significantly less "hot" water gallon wise than the old one did, maybe 10 gallons tops, if doing a warm wash and a big heavy one at that.. thats 10 out of a 40 gallon tank if it uses 10 from the tank.

Option b was the $1000 80 gallon tank (vs the $200 increase to go front load). 5 people in one house + laundry drains the hot water fast with showers as well.. i'm figuring the avg shower is 20 gallons of water (the average over 10 minutes), though probably not 20 gone from the hot water tank, but a lower number.

Here's an LG doing its thing with normal clothes

and towels

M J,

Frontloaders are much superior washing performance to the HE "impeller" toploaders. Washing a comforter or other large/bulky items in those is an exercise in futility, there's no way the impeller can overcome gravity to entice the item to roll over for thorough washing. A frontloader by design lifts and rolls the items over through the wash (and rinse) water.

As others have said, stay away from washing everything in cold water. Even a designated "Cold Wash" cycle. While it's true that many machines nowadays add some hot or warm water to the fill on a Cold setting so the water in the tub is minimum 60°F to 70°F, using cold exclusively for everything has a large chance of causing mold/residue/odor in the machine, as well as shortening the service life of it.

I recently repaired a Samsung frontloader that was destroyed by bad laundry habits in 4 years 11 months. Liquid fabric softener was used on every load to large doses and too much cold washing led to waxy residue on the exterior of the drum (where clothes don't rub on it) that corroded the drum support. The drum broke loose during spin and wore a gash in the outer tub. The machine has an onboard water heater with 1) a Sanitize cycle that heats to 150°F, a Heavy cycle that heats to 115°F, and a tub cleaning cycle that heats to 140°F. Regular use of any/all of those cycles would have kept the waxy residue from accumulating. I tested the designated Normal cycle and a couple others on it, and with 130°F+ input temp from my water heater, I got 80°F on Warm and 92°F on Hot. Consider the difference between 80°F (which is less the body temp) and 115°F or 140°F regards to dissolving waxy residue or greasy laundry soils ... and it becomes clear why washing primarily or more-often-than-not in cold water is not a good thing. One may not see residue insidethe drum where the clothes rub but it accumulates where the clothes (and you) can't reach ... on the outside of the drum and on the inside of outer tub.

I cant see how using the feature of "Coldwash" would yield mold anymore than the washer itself with residual "warm" water that becomes cold.. but who knows i guess. I'll probably make sure i leave the lid open and of course use HE type detergent to help, whether or not i use coldwash.

I did read that with a top loader like mine there may be something called a water factor to determine max gallons used.. so 3.5 in my case? 3.5 x 4.9 =17.15 and something between 2.8 and 3.2 for a front loader.. so maybe 3.2 x 4.3 in the other case = 13.76 gallons..

Either way significantly less used than the very old one we had, so I think we'll be ok with the top loader.

Like in a washer..where you can't see...clothes don't get clean in cold water..sure a stain may come out, but deep in the fibers, where you can't see lurks soil and amoung this soil is body oils that after they build up awhile turn waxy and have a very nasty odor.

The problem with a coldwash cycle is that they use more aggressive wash actions. I would rather bump the soil level up one and call it a day.

I did a test load of whites in my duet today with the Normal cycle and warm water. The results, to my suprise, were gleaming whites. Tide plus Bleach powder was used.

I wish the wash action was better in the LG top load washers. I would probably have one. Comforters are no problem with the Duet, and water hammer issues aren't either.

Latest front loaders typically use 10-20 gallons of water per normal cycle (and if you use harsher cycle or extra rinse, water consumption will be raised 50-150%). Bigger drum does not necessarily mean a bigger water bill. There are a lot of 5.0+ cu ft washers that uses less water than smaller machine. But the one with less water consumption tends to have inferior cleaning/rinsing performance.

Anyway, FL uses approximately 3/4 of water during the rinse cycle. So if your machine uses 20 gallons of water during normal cycle, that's 5 gallons for wash and 15 gallons for rinse. And most machine do not use any hot water during the rinse cycle. So even if the machine uses only hot water for the wash cycle (which is something never gonna happen), it cannot use anymore than 5 gallons of hot water per normal cycle.

If I took a queen down filled comforter and put it in a tub with 5 gallons of water I don't see how I t could be completely saturated.

5 gals is an estimate and based on an average-size load of typical "clothing" items. Some loads may pull more, some less. The fabric is saturated plus enough water is added to provide a small puddle.

Thank you, I wondered about that.