New Washing Machine
Yes, this blog has so much exciting content that I thought I tone it down with another Battle House 2011 victory; this one is about a new washing machine!
Long story short, we got a new washing machine.
The whole story: the washing machine and dryer in the battle house were so old that spare parts could no longer be found from even the obscure channels of such items. Both went on the fritz within a month of each other, but we didn’t have the cash to get anything else. On top of that several years of dereliction and a water heater leak has really left the laundry area floor in rough shape. (See previous post on our water heater adventure!)
My mother-in-law did us a huge favor by allowing us to use her machine while we got the cash together. We were going to get the cheapest set we could find, but then stopped to do the math. The amount of water a top-loading washing machine, and the amount of electricity they both would use was outrageous! We use the big yellow Energy Guide as I’m sure most people do, but we don’t pay attention to the dollar amount on it because that will never be correct because it’s always several years out of date. We go by the energy use per year (usually in the lower left and measured in kWh).
The cheapest top-loader we saw, at the places we looked was a 3.4 cu ft model, energy guide said 424kWh/yr. It also uses 44 gallons of water per full load, and has to draw all its hot water from our household heater. Dryers aren’t even regulated for efficiency so you have to figure it out yourself then pick your jaw up off the floor when you see the numbers. The partner dryer to the washer listed above is rated at 5600W @ 240V and 24Amp…that’s a huge amount of energy! In fact, when I did the math for an average of 5 loads a week on a 48 minute drying cycle, it would cost about $130 a year to run it! The two units would have run about $800 for the set.
We decided that we’d rather pay a little more up front to have the savings in the utilities costs. After some more research, it was obvious that a front-loading washer was a better fit for our goals. The one we ended up going with was $800, and we opted to use a drying rack instead so that our appliance budget would be the same, but our utilities costs would actually drop. The nice thing is that our washer was on sale for $580 so we came in almost $200 under budget after taxes! By the by, the energy guide usage for our new washer is 107kWh/yr and it uses around 20 gallons of water per full load. It also has its own hot water heater do it doesn’t need to empty our household water heater!
Anyways, after I got the old units out and ready for the recycling center, I had to repair the floor. The subflooring in the BattleHouse is MDF because that’s what they used on mobile homes back in the early 70′s, I guess. One major problem with MDF is that once you get it soaked, like after a water heater leak, it stays weak and mushy, and you can actually put your foot through it. With our flooring in the spot where the new washer was going, the flooring was ok, but where the dryer was, was weak. The joists are fine, but the floor is pretty much junk right in that spot. Rather than rip it all up, I just put a new piece of plywood down, and screwed it into the joists. It’s very firm now and the problem is solved. Is it a bit ugly? Yes. Does it do the job? Yes.
Getting the new machine in the house was a chore. It weighs about 250lbs, which is about 100 more than the old one. My wife has a bad knee and couldn’t help move it so I had to muscle it up some stairs and down the hallway by myself. It was a huge ego boost to know that I still have at least that much of my strength. Here are some pictures of the adventure. Enjoy.
New Flooring
Old Units
New Unit
