I’ve used both traditional top loading and front loading machines and I haven’t noticed much, if any difference, in how clean they get my clothing. I do have to say that my clothes are only lightly to moderately soiled. Perhaps there is more of a difference with heavily soiled clothing?

While I certainly appreciate the energy and water savings of front loader, they are a royal PITA to maintain and take 2-3 times a long to do a load of laundry. A friend of mine has a Kenmore/LG front loader and it spends the first 10 minutes of the cycle giggling around and adding water a few ounces at time. Then remember to leave the door open, clean it once a month, wipe it out, whatever.

In your situation with needing to leave closet door open, I’d opt for a top loader. I’ve never used one of the high efficiency models so I can’t comment but maybe that’s a better option for you. I unfortunately know nothing about the current state of Speed Queen but I just sold a house with a 30 year Speed Queen dryer. It finally died on the day before settlement.

Hot water and chlorine bleach. Run your weekly load of whites, or however often you do them ... kitchen and bath linens, socks, etc. ... in HOT water and use chlorine bleach. Keeps the mold and odor away.

Smelly washer syndrome is from using too much detergent. Use no more than 2 tablespoons of detergent per load, run warm/hot cycles instead of cold and add an extra rinse.

The LG WT7100CW is a Consumer Reports Best Buy ($598) among top-load HE washers.

I know Speed Queen could be an option, but I understand that those machines use a lot of water.

How many people in the household? How many loads per week?

I have a Speed Queen top loader; it's around 7 years old with zero repairs. I normally don't pay the utility bills but just paid our water bill (DH was in hospital) and I noticed that our water usage didn't exceed the minimum billing. (Billed every three months & during that time, I watered approx. 1000 sq feet of newly seeded lawn & soaked the small garden once.) (Central Wisconsin location/ lots of water here so no concerns about drought.) Household of 3 with old toilets (not the newer low water ones); showers are fitted with lo-flow heads though. Since it is summer, I don't do as many loads of laundry (just shorts & tees/ tank tops everyday wear.) More loads in the winter--long pants, layers & sweatshirts but no outdoor watering but don't have winter water bills handy to check usage.

So, if you have a smallish household and conservative water practices, there is a good chance that you won't see any difference on your billing. The real difference will be in how much detergent that you buy because a full fill top loader uses more detergent. (I use budget friendly Ariel from WalMart for workclothes/ rugs, powder All alternated with Tide w/ Bleach for whites & powder Cheer for the dark colored nice clothing.

"We do everything right: wipe down the gasket, switch loads right away, run clean cycles, etc"

You don't mention water temps. Are you doing any weekly Hot water wash loads? I agree with what dadoes said. My washing machine allows a true Hot wash of 140°F and I only use oxygen bleach. No chlorine bleach needed because of the Hot temp. After 7 1/2 years, no smells.

I have read here that some machines automatically tweak Hot to only 100°F, which really is not Hot. That's bath water. Consumers generally have no idea. Maybe your machine is one of those.

Using fabric softener? FS residue in the drum can cause mold and odors as well as suppress suds from too much detergent.

The Speed Queens have a faithful following, both TL and FL models, and not just on the Houzz forums.

Yikes Dadoes. You always scare me with those TL yuck photos :-)

To the original poster, you've received some very good advise here. Just adding that using a good powder detergent such as Tide or similar, along with oxygen bleach in your whites loads will help with the odor problems in your FL. Also, using chlorine bleach in your whites loads once in a while will help too like mentioned above. Using the hottest temp and highest soil selection on your washer will help too. Chances are your "hot" is really barely warm. I had FL's like that in the past and I lived your problem. It's not pleasant. If you really don't have a super hot temp going into your machine, you will have trouble getting ahead of the problem since the muck has already set up housekeeping. Again, I've been there and spun on my head 100 different ways to solve the problem...

I have a TL Speed Queen washer for 3 years now, with no issues like that anymore (fingers crossed--Dadoes' photos do make me worry what might be lurking behind the scenes though). Speed Queen is making a "classic" line of washers now that are similar to the model I have. You do still have to use the Heavy Duty cycle, or whatever they are calling it now to get true hot water. Other cycles will have cooled down temps to meet gov't regs, fyi, and you may find yourself back at square one with the odor problem is you are not careful with that.

I do use a washing machine cleaner from time to time, just in case something funky is brewing in my washer. I've used Glisten, pure citric acid and powder dishwasher detergent; not at the same time of course. I did not have odor issues before treatments, so I don't know if I really needed to do this, but I figure an ounce of prevention...I don't ever want to have that mucky problem again. You can tell a lot about whether you have the mucky washer problem by your towels. If they smell musty after a couple of use, you have a mucky washer.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Hi All,

I can't thank you enough for these helpful tips! This gives me a whole new set of strategies to try with my existing washing machine, and I am also going to keep my eye on the new Speed Queen options that come out (hopefully closer to the classic machines.) It sounds as if the newer-style HE top loaders are still not great.

Thank goodness for all of the knowledge here on Houzz! :-)

All best,

S

I absolutely loathe front-loaders and wouldn't buy one for anything. I regularly visit a friend who retired in France and use his Miele front-loader while staying there. He discounts my suggestion that he wipe out his gaskets and I always have to wipe them with multiple paper towels to get the gunk out. Yuk.

I've had pretty good luck with the Maytag Bravos I purchased in 2010, it's still running just fine. I'm buying a second home and went to the best local appliances store last week. I had done a lot of online research and wanted to look at several Maytag and LG models. The salesman immediately pointed me to the LG top-loaders, saying the magic words, "LG handles unbalanced loads much better than Maytags." I've done some further research and will be buying one of the top LG models for my new home.

Good luck with your decision. Washers are supposed to relieve us of drudgery, not cause extra work just to keep them from stinking.

"It sounds as if the newer-style HE top loaders are still not great."

In Consumer Reports test, front-loaders performed best but HE top-loaders were superior to agitator washers. https://www.consumerreports.org/join ($10/month digital).

I purchased a Speed Queen TLwasher/dryer pair in 2016 and have had nary an issue. In my opinion, they don't use enough water but that is the government's fault, not SQs. I'm a die hard Whirlpool Kitchen Aid fan but wanted the best zero-problem washer out there. Based on reading on Garden Web for 15 years, I knew that wouldn't be a front loader. Trust me, it's a Speed Queen top loader.

Even with top loaders you still must use the hottest water you can get. Energy Star top loaders will also dumb down water temps so even with them you should try to use a cycle that uses the hottest water you can get. Of course you may not do so for dark colors but for whites and brights hot water or at least warm is best if you want to avoid problems, and it doesn't matter how a washer gets rated by CR. They are rating washing performance and not if they will smell after several uses.