Trending In The Laundry

What’s Trending in the Laundry Room

By Dani Messick

House and Home Feature Writer

Forever the bane of our existence, the primary goal of most households when it comes to laundry is making it quick and convenient, but let’s face it - laundry’s not convenient. We’ve made tremendous strides from the washbasin/board combo, but we always want more.

According to Energy Star, the average American household washes around 300 loads of laundry per year. Estimated to last around 10 years, that means your washer and dryer will wash nearly 3,000 loads of laundry in their lifetime. If you’re in the market for a new one after a decade with old reliable, there’s a lot to consider, and not everything is worth the money.

“Maybe I’m just jaded,” admitted Bob Micunek of Lee Supply Corp. He’s been in the appliance business for almost 40 years and has seen his share of changes in the industry and its products.

In the 1980s, washing machine manufacturers began letting us control the water level, spin speed, and load size, considering the color of the load, the material, temperature of the water and even adding options for additional types of cycles. Then in the late 1990s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began offering its Energy Star logo to units that used 30 percent less energy and 50 percent less water than their counterparts.

The Modified Energy Factor will tell you how efficiently a prospective washer runs. To qualify for Energy Star, washers must have an MEF rating of 1.80 or higher, but Micunek says his customers don’t seem to care much.

“People talk a great game about ‘green building’ but when it comes to paying for it, they don’t care,” he said.

Instead, Micunek says his customers care more about the price and the ways the unit saves them time.

“They want clean dishes, they want clean clothes, they want it done quickly, and they want it cheap, and they want the product to work,” he explained.

What people want, he said, is large capacity, so they can do sheets, blankets and even rugs.

“The new machines are huge,” Micunek said. “You can wash just about anything in them.”

In addition to that, high speeds of front load washing machines, especially, Micunek said, wring those large pieces dry much more efficiently too, allowing them to be hung to dry quickly.

When it comes to efficiency, Micunek admitted front-loading units are more efficient than top-loading units because they are able to squeeze more water out, reducing drying time in the dryer. n