advertisement


New washing machine- anyone bought a satisfactory one recently?

We put a scoop of washing soda in the powder tray before the wash. Much cheaper than Calgon or plumbed-in water softener.

Most machines die of electronic or bearing issues, but at least the heating element will be clean when it goes to the tip.

I live an a hard water area, never used Calgon or similar, never had a machine fail that related to limescale.
 
I had a Vaillant Eco boiler fitted just over a year ago. I find it takes a lot longer to get the house up to temperature, so that I have to have it turn on about forty minutes earlier than the old one. The water takes longer to EP warm up too. It's like the eco setting on my car's auto gear box, which takes longer to get me up to whatever speed I want to cruise at.
It's about to be serviced, and when the engineer comes I'll see what he has to say about it. It may just need the settings changed. The instruction booklet for "the operator" are incomprehensible to me so there's no way I can check for myself.

we had one fitted in aug ... we struggle to get the temp right . mainly its like kew gardens tropical hot house :D even my son when he visits moans even when its on low !!!! its pretty damm good !!
 
Absolutely. We’ve had very soft water and now it’s somewhere in the middle. Tenants and dishwashers are the worst thing, they never put salt / rinse aid in and machines are pretty much disposable. In one (hard water) place I’ve got through 3 in 8 years.

you will spoil your tenants with a dishwasher :D ....
 
Just an update: L G currently has the Laundry Gong
A E G takes an age with anagrams
Miele is mediocre
Beko is bekoming fashionable
Samsung a nice tune while it washed
Indesit is indeterminate, and
Bosch is not tosh.
 
A lot of modern tenants have list of white goods with them as most properties rented unfurnished.
 
Well. Would you believe it. Our 15 year old Neff Dishwasher has decided to play up today. Pump refuses to turn off. After a bit of googling it turns out it might be the flood switch if there's water in the base due to a leak. Great. Have to drag it out and check tomorrow (not great when you're full of the worst super bug bloody cold thing you've ever had and your legs are like well jelly)
 
I had a Vaillant Eco boiler fitted just over a year ago. I find it takes a lot longer to get the house up to temperature, so that I have to have it turn on about forty minutes earlier than the old one. The water takes longer to EP warm up too. It's like the eco setting on my car's auto gear box, which takes longer to get me up to whatever speed I want to cruise at.
It's about to be serviced, and when the engineer comes I'll see what he has to say about it. It may just need the settings changed. The instruction booklet for "the operator" are incomprehensible to me so there's no way I can check for myself.
From what you say you don't understand how you should use central heating. I'd say that goes for maybe 99.99% of the population too including my wife!

Two years ago we had a Vaillant system installed and its fantastic. Not only are we warm but the gas usage has gone down in this 5 bed detached house. My wife comments 'The room is warm but the radiators are cold' and that is exactly how it should be.

You have to understand what actually keeps you warm and its not hot stuffy air that is uncomfortable, over-heats you and then you freeze. I've spent many years like that because like you my wife has no idea how CH should be used and tends to use the thermostat as you would for say a fan heater.

The science. What actually keeps you warm is infra red radiation and not hot air! This means that you have to keep the walls warm enough to radiate in the infra red part of the spectrum and what is misleading is that a wall can be to the touch feel cool but will if hot enough keep you warm.

A good example of this is a South facing wall in Summer. When the Sun goes down and the evening cools and you walk past that wall you'll feel warmth on your face from infra red radiation from the bricks. However if you touch them they'll feel cool.

I have installed zone controls in every room so that each can be individually controlled. Its on 24*7 but the rads in each room only come on if necessary in order to maintain a minimum temperature to keep the walls warm. The boiler is also weather compensated which means that the circulating water isn't any hotter than is needed. As for hot water that is controlled by a tank thermostat so is always ready when required.

My wife now loves this system that she can control with her smart phone. If her office is too cold she can give it a temporary boost to a higher temperature for a set time. This means that we can keep the rooms warm but boost the temp when we want to laze in one of them.

Oh washing machines. I installed a top-of-the-range AEG around 17 years ago. My wife has subjected it to much abuse by running it overloaded and for many years all day every day. After a hard spin the machine walks out into the room! We have had one failure when the filter clogged (and I fixed!) and thats it. However I cringe at the abuse its taken so am wary that its time will soon come. Like most things its not make vs make but rather quality vs quality. I see it in everything. The top expensive models often made in the UK or EU are long lasting and often can be repaired 20 or so years later. However the cheap products from the same quality manufacturer are often outsourced to China and are by comparison just cheap crap that fails PDQ. This applies be it a toaster (I had mine refurbished after 30 years whilst the flashy cheap stuff fails and has to be binned) or a laptop thats virtually unrepairable at the cheaper end but the pro range goes on and on.

Cheers

DV
 
12 year old Indesit still going strong here and an 18 year old Bosch still going strong in France.
I don’t buy white goods from JL they are living on an undeserved reputation.

Indecit here. Bought four and a half years ago. I don't overload it [8kg. nominal old], and clean the filter twice a year and run the self-clean programme at the same time. Two and half washes a week only in that I do the bedclothes once a fortnight and that is a full cotton load. Does 1400 rpm on the spin.

The best washing machine I had for durability was a Hotpoint twin-tub bought in 1984. It ran till 2002. I bought a Henry vacuum at the same time and it is still doing its thing.

Just tuppence' worth from George
 
We had a Miele machine that went wrong during the first lockdown. It was the drum. Machine was 9 years old and i was chuffed when the lady on the phone reminded me we had a 10 year warranty on it. They sent an engineer out who diagnosed the drum faulty, told us it was a big job and they were under staffed and promptly delivered a new machine foc a few days later. I was kind of annoyed they were scrapping a perfectly repairable machine that could have gone on to give another 9 years service but was more than happy with the service from them. The new machine is fine but i'm not convinced it's the same quality as the old one.
 
I like my new (5 years by now) LG, so much that I bought the new LG fridge recently.

Both seems no frills, simple, minimalistic and very reliable.
 
I steer clear of anything that isn’t manufactured in the EU. I think we have companies that produce excellent appliances within the union. We need to support them.
That's interesting. Which brands do you think are made in the EU?
 
I like my new (5 years by now) LG, so much that I bought the new LG fridge recently.

On the strength of our aged washing machine, we bought a large/tall LG fridge/freezer 4 or 5 years ago; lovely machine for well under £400.

I never heard of them before. 7 year parts and labour warranty, plus serviceable bearings. I might consider next time.

https://www.ebac.com/washing-machines/range/

Interesting; have never heard of them; took me ages to come to the price (of the 8 kg one), but reasonable if the quality and performance as as claimed. So many models, though; surely more than other manufacturers.
 
We recently bought an LG FWV696 cost circa £650. Very impressed, it's even got app access. Delivered and fitted by AO. Our previous washing machine was over 20 years old. Never had any previous dealings with AO but their delivery and fitting guys were great. Polite, proficient and tidy. They removed our old machine and fitted the new one in 10-15 minutes. Come 9:30 they'd been on the road for just over an hour and fitted 3 machines! Just hope they get properly paid.
 


advertisement


Back
Top