My Maytag Epic Experience

I have had the Maytag Epic pair for over a year now. Overall, I am very pleased with the pair. One thing I am not used to is the lack of sloshing water when washing clothes. I had always used the most water possible with my toploaders and I liked being able to control the amount of water. The Epic doesn’t allow me to override the amount of water used during a cycle, or the water temperature for a certain type of wash cycle, or the spin speed. While I get why that’s done, some of us actually do know how to do laundry. The only way I have found that I can override the amount of water the washer uses is to run the soak cycle a couple of times and then run a normal wash. The washer won’t spin out and will continue adding water. I find that trick helpful with towels and sheets, or stained items.

Another thing I don’t do is load the washer to its limit. I still like to wash “like” clothes together (I don’t mix shirts with knits or jeans with anything else), and with only 2 of us, we don’t have big loads unless it’s sheet day. I don’t feel too bad doing small loads since the water usage is very low.

Another great thing about this pair is the dry time. The biggest problem when doing laundry was having the washed clothes stack up while the dryer was drying loads. Now even jeans dry in about 35 minutes. That means I can have a load washing while I dry, fold, hang up, and iron what’s in the dryer (not that I do that all the time – but I could) before the washer is finished.

Washing Machine Woes – continued

Well, the great people at Norm Vogel and Sons came out and pronounced the dreaded news – the washer needed a new transmission at the bargain price of $379. I don’t think so. I paid the $65 trip fee and broke the news to my husband and then signed up for Consumer Reports online. Washing machines have changed so much in the past 10 years that I didn’t know which way to go.

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Washing Machine Woes

I started doing some laundry today and my 10 year old washing machine started making a bunch of noise every time it tried to spin out. While I was hoping for a quick fix, I knew in my heart that my Kenmore/Whirlpool washing machine was on life support – with a full load of every pair of underwear I own.

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