Wash Day

We've had a Maytag Centennial "Featuring Commercial Technology" washing machine for a number of years -- probably 8. It has a big tub but no agitator. An impeller at the bottom of the tub takes its place. The washer is modern in that most of its settings use minimal amounts of water to sort of clean clothes. There is one setting that will nearly fill the tub with water, but it doesn't work very well any more. Sometimes you can get it to fill, other times -- most times -- it won't. After a partial fill, it just stops. Most of the settings are just as chancy. It's been frustrating to use since we got it, but lately it's taken on what seems like a mind of its own, rarely following instructions, and cleaning clothes worse and worse with every use.

Well. Repairs -- if they were possible -- would probably cost about $500. A new washer would run well more than that and we're told they are very hard to get due to something something. Be prepared to wait six months to a year, mKay? So what to do? There are some used machines available, but they are relatively costly and their functioning isn't necessarily any better than the Maytag in our laundry room. 

I thought, "Well why not try something?" For years, I've been seeing glowing reviews of twin tub portable washers, relatively small and surprisingly inexpensive. $150-200 range back in the day, somewhat more now, but still in a reasonable range. 

I ordered one, and in a few days it was delivered. It looked great, blue and white with see through tops on the wash side and spin side. It was light weight. Mostly plastic. Three knobs; a timer for washing, a function knob for gentle or normal wash, or drain function; a motorized drain pump was supposed to make that process easier. There was also a timer up to five minutes for the spinner.

There were two water inlets and a hookup hose to take water from your sink to the washer. Everyone who has these machines complains that the hookup hose doesn't fit on any normal faucet so hacks are necessary to fill the washer. Most use buckets. Well, I found the hookup hose fit perfectly on the kitchen sink sprayer, and it was an easy thing to use a small clamp to keep the sprayer open and to fill the wash tub with water. Hot water, something impossible on the Maytag. You may select hot water wash, but the machine mixes hot water with cold and the result is hot-ish. Barely above warm. And this hot-ish wash does not necessarily result in hot-water clean clothes.

We're told that the compact portable machine will wash 18 lbs of dry laundry in the wash tub, but I'm dubious. That's quite a lot of laundry, and as the tub was filled for the first time, it seemed that maximum capacity was reached at about 12-14 lbs. That's still a fair amount of laundry. 

Adjusting the amount of laundry detergent to suit the smaller machine was something of a challenge, but it seemed like two tablespoons was more than adequate. In other words, a small percentage of the amount used in the full sized machine. With hot water, that was plenty.

Turned it on, and the wash action was amazing. Like the Maytag, there was only an impeller at the bottom of the tub, but boy it worked to agitate the laundry and turn it over and over in the water. Nothing like the Maytag impeller that barely moved the laundry at all. We could see the dirt being released from the laundry as well. The water kept turning browner and browner. Wow.

So we gave it an initial ten minute wash, drained the wash tub and refilled for a rinse. The rinse water was kind of brownish at the end of the 5 minute cycle, so we rinsed again. However, on the second rinse, though we could hear the drain pump working, nothing came out of the drain hose. Hm. After repeatedly trying to drain the tub, we resorted to positioning the drain hose in a tub on the floor, and the water drained. Though the drain pump was working, or sounded like it was, the operation was of a gravity drain. And this was not what we paid for, so I contacted the seller who said there was something not allowing the the pump to form a vacuum to drain properly. Could I use the machine with a gravity drain? Well, yes. But that isn't what we paid for, and keeping an eye on it was quite an inconvenience. Seller said to check for clogs along the length of the hose and in the pump. That took some doing, but I didn't find a clog anywhere. What I did find, however, were tiny pinholes in the drain hose, and water was fountaining out of them. These holes were not visible, but I suspected they were the problem that didn't allow the drain pump to pump the water up to the sink.

I told the seller that if this problem couldn't be resolved, I'd have to return the washer. The seller suggested I install a new drain hose which he would supply, and he offered a $70 credit. 

On another test, I found out the wash tub filter would fall out of its housing. It seemed to be too small for the housing. I told the seller this was getting ridiculous. After a bit of back and forth, the seller offered to send a new machine, and I could keep or dispose of the one I had as I saw fit Just don't send it back.

I said OK. Give it a try. Why not?

The new machine arrived in a few days, and we tried it out. Everything went fine until it came time to use the spinner. The spinner worked but it drained into the washer tub rather than into the sink. The suggestion was to start the spinner drain in the tub on the floor, then raise it to sink level. I thought that was too much work, so we just let the spinner drain into the tub. It was annoying, but not a deal-breaker.

The washing action was and is startling. The results are 100% better than the full-sized Maytag, and the full wash/rinse/spin process is quicker. You do have to keep your eye on it and be prepared to do some work to fill, wash, rinse, drain and spin the laundry. This is not unlike what you had to do before fully automatic washers became standard in the early 1950s. I remember a neighbor woman who did her wash in a wringer washer on the back porch. She had to stand over it and keep track of it and run the laundry through the wringer because there wasn't a spinner. It took her a long time and was a lot of work, I thought.

Then there was another neighbor who had an Easy spinner washing machine. Even though there was no wringer, it was still quite a lot of work to do the laundry in it. Washing and multiple rinsing and spinning required her to stay with the machine for most of the time -- she could leave during the wash and rinse cycles only. The whole process from filling the tub to final spin took 45 minutes to an hour. Then of course she still had to hang the laundry on the line. 

A fully automatic washer -- something my mother bought in the early '50s -- could be left to do its thing and wouldn't have to be watched. No attention was required until the laundry was done, 25 to 40 minutes after the machine was started.

It was almost magical.

Then thanks to energy and water saving regulations, complex computer controlled washing machines that used very little water or energy became mandatory. Our Maytag is one of those.

However, complaints about them not cleaning clothes properly, not washing, not rinsing the way they should began immediately and haven't ceased. Complaints about them breaking down way too soon -- 3-5 years in many cases, compared to washers of the past that would last 20-30 years or more with only minor adjustments -- were filed constantly. I don't know anyone who had an old washer who is satisfied with their new washing machine. 

The twin tub portable washers have sought to fill that void. They are old fashioned, and they work like old fashioned Easy twin tub machines which requires you to stay with it and juggle things -- washing, rinsing, draining, spinning, and such -- throughout the process. It seems to me it becomes a Zen practice. It's not automatic. You have to think about it, think about where the laundry is in the process, and think about what you have to do in the Now to ensure the process goes right.

Is this progress? Not on the surface. And yet, as we struggle toward a common future, bits of regression, such as on wash day, may become more common. By necessity. 

[The first twin tub washer is going in the greenhouse to use for all the washing that needs to be done of the outside fabrics. It can drain on the ground without making puddles in the house. So far as we know, it washes and spins just fine. It's the leaky drain hose that's the problem.]