Rant-view

 

This is a rant and a review.  Thus, it is a Rant-view.

I’m going to tell you what I think of the GE top loader washing machine that I purchased over 5 years ago.  Why am I reviewing it now?  

Because GE is still selling the D@$*%d thing! 

It has 16 cycles.  It has prewash, a separate rinse cycle as well as a separate drain and spin.  It has 6 temperature selections, 5 water levels, bleach and fabric softener dispensers, it’s quiet and you can wash 2 comforters in it

Best of all it’s HE and Energy star and all that crap.

What’s not to like?

It would be nice if it actually washed the clothes!

I tried to find an image of a woman lifting a wet comforter.  Since that resulted in X-rated images I can’t repeat, I’ll try to explain how one has to do laundry in the Washer from Hell (WFH).  I could probably search for examples until the cows come home but to no avail.  This is what Google spit out at me when I tried:

How does the wash come out the first time it goes through a full cycle?

How does the wash come out the second time it goes through a full cycle?

This is what I feel like doing to the GE executives who continue to allow a product on the market that isn’t even as useful as a tub, washboard and wringer:

Imagine you’re washing 2 comforters on the highest water level.  You put the 2 tablespoons of soap at the bottom (as instructed), add the comforters, and then come back 30 minutes later when the tub “fills.”  But…

Where the hell is the water?

You push down on the comforters, finding there’s hardly enough water to cover the bottom one.   You don’t know any better so you let it cycle, go to take out the wash and it smells like it did when you put it in the washer, only wet.  

That’s when you commandeer your gifted handyman of a spouse to figure out how to raise the “extra large” water level so that it’s actually…well, “extra large.”    

How, you may ask, does one change the water level on a fancy state-of-the-art WFH? 

Quite literally, the turn of a screw (getting to the screw wasn’t easy).

Now the water covers the comforters.  An hour later you’re back, finding a twisted mass that still smells like wet dog and dirty human.

Instead of the small amount of soap recommended, you pour in a whole cap full.  An hour later, the clothes look like this:

Now you know why there’s an additional rinse cycle on the Washer from Hell.  But  how do you get the extra water in it to rinse out the soap?   The D@$*%d thing is rigged to stop if you open the lid!  That’s when you commandeer your gifted handyman of a spouse to figure out how to make the WFH think the lid is closed.

You end up using this:

A SQUARE MAGNET

…holding a bucket of water while it slowly pours into this (sans agitator) for 20 minutes:

So then, after 3 full cycles, and a rinse that leaves your arms feeling like you tried to pick up Godzilla, the clothes look, feel and smell clean.

You’re ready to toss the comforters in the dryer.  Right?

Only if you can do this:

No, I’m not kidding. 

That’s when you find out why there’s an extra drain and spin cycle.  

So then, after a lot of trial and error, you discover that it takes 2 cycles (1 to wash and 1 to rinse)–and (for comforters and towels) an extra bucket rinse (i.e.,  4 hours of intense effort) just to get 1 load of  clothes clean.  After 3 loads and 20 hours of wash, rinse, dry and fold you have no weekend left.

SUMMARY:  High Efficiency my @$$!  Unless you don’t have a life and you’re looking for an exercise program that doesn’t require you to leave your home, buy a washer with an agitator or spend twice as much for a front loader. 

As for my needs, I live in the Florida countryside on a sand hill in a giant dog house.  The dogs just let us live there (They tolerate the cats) but understand there’s a price to be paid for the perpetual food bowl.   They couldn’t care less if I ever wash anything.   The humans, however, have their limits.  My husband plays in the dirt, fixes the cars and washes his own clothes.  He’s the one who figured out how to use the WFH.

After 5 years of doing my wash like this, it’s no secret why 107 pounds of me is able to carry 50 pounds of squirming dog and deposit him into the bathtub.

As I’ve said more times than I can remember, I can kill anything with software, moving parts or chlorophyll.  But no matter what I do to it, the WFH just won’t die.