Well. Maybe I wouldn't care about the units matching if we had a laundry room, but we have a laundry closet, and those babies have to stack. I'm not quite willing to risk buying an unmatched set and the potential for some unimagined problem with the shapes or dimensions not lining up.
Because we're stacking, we also pretty much have to get front-loading units. There are some single unit washer dryer combos that have a top loading washer on the bottom and then a front loading dryer on the top. That's what we have now. It's really small, and I think it looks awful and cheap. The agitator is hard on the clothes, there's no way to fit blankets, and the basket becomes unbalanced with every load and makes a loud banging sound. I did look into a cool idea which is a washing machine with a built in condensing dryer, that way we could have the whole top of the closet to store laundry items and maybe even extra linens. Then I read the reviews for condensing dryers, and it sounds like they take a really, really long time. Several hours for one load.
Right now it looks like we'll get a top-rated washing machine with the matching mid-low rated dryer. The dryer still scored "very good" or "excellent" on its Consumer Reports performance tests, and the consumers that rated it seemed to like it. Besides, if you have to get one that's higher rated than the other, I think the better washer is the way to go.
Entirely too much thought is being put into this purchase decision. Is this what getting old is? Hours of thinking about washing machines?
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| Option 1 - #3 washer, less expensive, low rated dryer |
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| Option 2 - #1 washer, more expensive, dryer not reviewed, comes in red! |
