Air Conditioning

equipment

something

Not buying it. I can believe it in AZ but it's a desert.

laugh.

fairly

handler.

That adds complication and *does* add to the failure. These things aren't great to begin with. (Have to have an evaporator in the 4T unit replaced Wednesday - should replace the entire air handler).

A/C,

only

83-86F if

costs

evaporator

needs to be

five years

humidity part

desert,

was

Complete nonsense. There are electronics jobs all over the country.

Wrong. Check the repair records. They're no better than any others. Front loaders have had a problem since they became popular here. Top loaders have since matched their reliability. It's all junk.

Rocks. ;-) I'd tell you to buy cheap and be prepared to replace it every five years, or even more often. OTOH, I've heard some laundromat models are still good (SpeedQueen?). They don't have the do-dads that the wives like, though.

I wish you luck. We're looking now and the reports for all of them are abysmal. Our machine is on its last legs and it's five years old. It sounds like a diesel engine with no pipes when it's spinning. I really don't want to spend the grand now (new house, fridge, lawn tractor, AC,...), but if it goes...

equipment

something

So what do you think this is in summer? Right now: 95F and 16% humidity. Jusrt a normal day in paradise.

And why do you think our Home Depot has a whole shelf full of evap cooler pads in more than a dozen sizes?

laugh.

fairly

handler.

That's part of the regular A/C that you always have. Sure the evap will add but the stuff it adds is almost fail-safe. Think about it: What could possibly fail? Right, the only moving part, the water pump. Or its contactor. Then your A/C will simply revert to the old not so efficient state and you can take your time getting a new pump. Which BTW is usually well under $50 and can be bought just about anywhere, at least out here. It has a regular NEMA plug so all you have to do is swap it by hand, no tools required, like a pond pump.

A/C,

only

83-86F if

costs

evaporator

needs to be

five years

humidity part

it

desert,

was

Not as concentrated as here.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

are

Why spend a grand? As you wrote in the other post it makes no sense to spend big bucks on household gear. Our Maytag will all the bells and whistles was about $550. My wife absolutely wanted a frontloader again like we had in Europe because toploaders ruin shirt collars and things like that in no time. The technology is mature, my family had frontloaders since I was in diapers. They just work.

I sure love this thing because my office is next door. Now there is no "swoosh-swoosh-swoosh .. *KERCLUNK* .. swoosh-a-swoosh" anymore when I have a conf call. All it lets off is a faint whirr.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

are

Because that's what they cost.

The American front loaders are junk and not all top loaders are equal but at least the better ones are junk too.

You couldn't be on the phone in the next room to ours, now. We can't even watch the TV in the other room.

problems.=20

power=20

AC=20

single=20

efficient air=20

and=20

compressor,=20

turn in=20

point.=20

work with=20

inputs and=20

be to=20

temperatures,=20

want=20

I have a coworker that does that and is happier than a clam. Really impressed with the energy savings.

?-)

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yeh, I don't know anyone who has a top loader, a part from movies I don't think I saw toploader before I visited to the US

sure, but once it starts centrifuging at 1600rpm it can make a far bit of noise

-Lasse

are

to

No, they don't.

As I said, so far we are very pleased with our Maytag frontloader. It has cost us about $550.

You'd be surprised how quiet modern day frontloaders can be. Part of the reason is probably that they have a thick glass and water-tight seal, instead of the flimsy lids of many toploaders. Ours goes a step further and is sort of "dual-pane" with many inches of air between the inner thick glass and the clear plastic towards the outside. Instead of the Tonka toy noise the new machine issues a Mercedes-style "thud" when the door shuts.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

are

to

Those things are horrid. Europe had them as well but that was in the

40's and 50's. They wash stuff pretty well but delicate clothes such as dress shirts suffer a lot. To the point where my "Sunday's best" shirts were only good for 20-30 washes and then moved to the "for regular work" rack. The collars were what was ruined.

That's what I thought as well but it doesn't. The machine seems to gradually accelerate according to residual moisture in the load. It doesn't just slam on hard like the old ones. Most of what you really hear is a turbo-charger style whistling sound with an increasing frequency.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Yup. There is one piece of evidence that is hardcore proof: The utility bill stack. Everything I did in this house manifested itself on there immediately. We are now to a level where we regularly receive kudo letters from PG&E, stating that our consumption is 30% or so lower than brand new eco-homes. And this is a rather energy-inefficient and huge Frank Lloyd Wright style house. From the days when energy consumption didn't matter, built well before the 1970's energy crisis, way too many windows and all single pane.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

[...]

Sounds like the same that I have. Yes, it is so quiet I can run it after midnight without bothering my next door neighbour.

But you may find a problem with the door latch jamming so the door won't close.

The problem turned out to be a pivot pin that was too short and fell out of the bracket. Here are some photos.

Door latch ready for disassembly

Pivot pin is too short, came out of bracket. Door jammed

Another view

The solution was to find a rod that had the same diameter and cut it so there was about 0.005" play when it was inserted in the plastic housing that holds it together. This is shown in the first picture:

Finding a rod with the correct diameter was not easy. I finally settled on an old coathanger and ground the ends to the exact dimension with the trusty Dremel.

This has been in daily use for over 1 1/2 years with no problems.

Due to extremely high workload, I have gone through numerous washers in the past decade. The Maytag Series 2000 is by far the quietest, least vibration, and most effective washer I have ever seen.

I definitely will buy another if this one wears out, but that doesn't seem like it will be any time soon.

Mike

Thanks, Mike! I've made a "DoorLatchComments" directory unter the Maytag2000 directory and copied this post along with the JPG pics into there. In case it happens here.

As for making pins I sometimes use this trick: Lock a suitable material (part of a nail, etc.) into the chuk of my drill, let that run at a slow speed, hold a file to it. When the calipers indicate that I am close I glue sandpaper to a piece of wood and hold that against it. At the end a very fine grit sanding sponge.

The best: At first we were highly skeptical of this super-special HE laundry detergent. It was expensive. Well, lo and behold one lone box of this has lasted a whole year. I didn't think that was possible.

Same here. Plus they aren't all that expensive to begin with. They seem to be always on sale somewhere, when our Whirlpool broke ther was a $100 off or so sale at Sears. And to my utter surprise I discovered we had a Sears in our little village. Of course my wife knew that. "You men ... tsk, tsk, tsk", she said :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

[...]

Great! I hope you don't need it, but the fix is trivial and doesn't take long.

[...]

There is no need for the special high-priced low suds stuff. I have tried many different kinds of laundry soap. I use the cheapest I can find, XTRA 2X. It works great. It doesn't take much once you learn a special trick.

With a front load, it turns out most of the soap ends up in the outlet chamber, where it can do nothing to help wash the clothes.

The solution is to fill the outlet chamber with water before starting the load. Otherwise the inrush of water into the soap compartment flushes the soap straight through the clothes and it ends up draining into the chamber where it does nobody any good.

I fill an old folgers coffee can (6" dia X 6" high) with water and dump it in the washer before adding the clothes. You can hear it filling the outlet chamber with a burbling sound.

Now, when you start the load, the chamber is already full of water, so the soap stays in the drum instead of emptying into the chamber where it cannot do anything to help wash the clothes.

This means I use very little soap. My measuring cup is an old pillbox, 1" I.D.

For a heavy load, I fill it 1" high. This is about 0.78 cu. in., or about pi * (1.25^2) * 2.54 = 12.5 ml.

This is way too much for a light load, so I cut it in half for sheets and pillowcases.

I am surprised that the Maytag seems to be holding the $580 price at Home Depot here in Canada. The GE, LG, and other front load washers are well over $1,000, but the Maytag seems to be holding steady. It is by far the best bargain they have in appliances.

Did you have a Whirlpool front load? I had one with a Kenmore label, but the innards were the same.

This was the worst pos I have ever seen. It was always breaking down, and I was spending all my time fixing it.

The switches were cheap mini switches from TV control buttons. They were never meant to be used in a high-humidity environment and would stop working.

The cable connectors were tin/lead. This causes fretting corrosion that makes the contact intermittent, and it starts generating random faults. I solved it by coating all the connectors with ordinary Vaseline, but that problem took a while to find.

Another problem is the drum is stainless, and the spider that holds it is aluminum. This causes galvanic corrosion that eventually causes the spider to disintegrate. Here is a Youtube video that illustrates the corrosion, starting at about 1:38

The final insult is the control pcb is made from extremely cheap material and there is no support for the front switch.

If you happen to hit it hard with something, the pcb snaps in pieces. Now you have over 30 fine traces to reconnect to get the machine working again.

The Kenmore front load (and the same model by Whirlpool) have got the be among the best examples of incompetent design ever put on the market.

Now that Maytag is owned by Whirlpool, I hope they don't fire all the good engineers and replace them with Whirlpool idiots!

Mike

That's a neat trick. But we don't mind the HE detergent. Considering that one package lasted a whopping 12 months the price per load is miniscule. I remember when in the 90's we had to regularly schlepp in those big detergent packages. No more.

That was my reaction as well when in the market: Total surprise. I was prepared for sticker shock and that didn't happen.

Ours was a toploader. Which ended up costing us a lot in scuffed up shirts and stuff.

Ours never broke down for almost 15 year. Until one morning ...

*KER-KLUNK* .. rrrrrrat-tat-tat .. chingalingaling. I knew it was bad, I'd always wondered how it could survive this slamming of gears. Opened her up, saw a pile of corroded debris underneath where the gear box once was, and decided it's time to get the frontloader that we always wanted.

That sounds like a hardcore engineering blunder.

Let's hope for the best :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Some

bearings are

sounds

to

It's the agitators that chew up clothes. Some top loaders don't have them, rather are more like a front-loaded, turned on its ear.

...until its bearings start to go.

no

I

frequency.

I only hear mine when i am in the same room (my garage). Nicely quiet.

?-)

Ditto.

again

things

but at

I spent about $1000 on both washer and electric dryer. I have no idea = why anyone would have to spend more. Of course it is easy to spend as much = as $3000 if you doh't know what you are doing, Keith. 99% of the fancy is HIGH failure rate, with high repair bills.

no

I

even

I did state $1000. Learn to read.

It's not "fancy" that's failing. As I plainly stated, it's the BEARINGS. They are the weak link in EVERY make of consumer washing machine commonly sold in the US, now. A quick web search is an eye opener.