Technological improvements work their way into washers, dryers

ELLSWORTH — Leave it to the Europeans to develop a washer that uses less water than American models.

Blake “Cubby” Brown owns Brown Appliance & Television Inc., located in the Mill Mall at 240 State St., Ellsworth. He sells washers, dryers, stoves, and other appliances, plus TVs and VCRs. Brand names among washers and dryers include Amana, GE, Whirlpool, Maytag, Gibson, Kitchen-Aid, RCA, and ASKO.

For many years, the basic washer and dryer changed little, Brown said. He has seen some technological improvements during the past few years, though.

Available washers range in size from an 8-pound ASKO model to the 20-pound “big boys” made by Maytag and GE. Recently, washer manufacturers “have gone to self-cleaning lint systems on their machines, instead of the system where you had to manually clean the lint trap,” Brown said.

He explained that “on the last rinse, the water just flushes it (the lint) out and down the drain.” The technology has appeared on almost all new models (Maytag and GE make only one model apiece with a manual lint trap).

Maytag has solved one problem common to washers: the unbalanced load. After imitating the thud made by an unbalanced washer, Brown smiled and said, “With a Maytag, if the washer is out of balance, it will automatically shut off. You don’t have to go tearing downstairs to stop it. It’s a feature that people will like.”

ASKO, a Swedish company, has introduced to the United States a washer that “averages 14-16 gallons of water per load. The typical American washer uses 46-48 gallons. The ASKO model uses one-third the detergent. People are noticing,” Brown said. “With the Europeans coming in, it’s opened a few eyes about energy-efficiency.”

An ASKO washer has a stainless steel tub and spins about 1,300 revolutions per minute during the spin cycle, much faster than most American models. With a higher speed, the ASKO washer “basically all but spins the clothes dry,” said Brown.

The front-load ASKO can handle a heavy laundry load. “A front-load washer traditionally does a better job of washing because of how the agitator’s been mounted inside the machine. With a front-load, you can really cram the stuff in there. That’s what we tell people who buy a front-load: stuff it full,” Brown explained.

The ASKO has one drawback: Its price runs between $1,500-$1,600, vs. $300-$400 for a top-load washer. “The average person doesn’t buy an ASKO because of the price,” Brown said. “Most people still buy the traditional top load.”

Among American manufacturers, Amana sells best at Brown Appliance. “Amana is a very good product, reasonably priced, a lot of nice features to it…a quality line,” he observed. “Maytag is very good. They produce an excellent machine. Maytag and Amana do a good job of turning up the RPMs and spin-drying the clothing.”

In the past year or so, the federal government has required a new automatic-drying feature on new dryers. This feature senses the moisture in clothes, then adjusts the drying time.

Automatic drying improves energy efficiency by eliminating overdrying. “It takes the guesswork out of drying. You can set adjust it for how you want your clothes, extra dry or not so dry or whatever, and the dryer does all the work. You don’t set the time at all,” Brown said.

Automatic drying does not involve a timer, he stressed, but the traditional timed drying remains available on all new dryers.

Responding to customers’ demands, some appliance manufacturers (including GE, Amana, and Maytag) are installing reversible doors on their dryers. Such a feature “carries over from the reversible doors you find on refrigerators,” Brown said.

He has noticed a solid shift toward gas dryers. “It costs less to operate a gas dryer, and it does as good a job as electricity,” Brown said. “We’re selling a lot more than we used to.”

After experimenting with other colors in the past, appliance manufacturers have settled on white and almond as the standard colors for washers and dryers. Brown recalled the colors like coppertone, avocado, and harvest, “which all bombed. People didn’t like them.”