I have worked for two family owned businesses. One a twenty million dollar business and the other 80 million dollar. I still work for the last one, but it was acquired by a billion dollar, publically traded business. The ethos and work environment are very different between a family owned and publically owned business. There were years in the family owned business where the owners invested millions of their own dollars in the business and i know that they made less money in those years. You could walk ip to owner and talk with him. You could tell him there were problems with a product that needed to be fixed or improved. He actually listened and spent money on improving the product. We never felt the pressure to cheapen the product to make more money, but keep the price the same or lower. We made a lot of the parts in house. Outsourced machining was usually done locally, not made somewhere in china. A lot of that mentality changed once the company was acquired. Lots of systems and processes changed to meet the new owners priorities. The new owners were not a family. They were an invenment company. No one family owner who saw the company and its employees as part of a larger family. So I dont agree with your premis that private companies are chasing quartely profits. They for sure track them, but there is no preasure pf losing your job if you have a couple down quarters or a year. That makes a world of difference in how the compies are run and how employees are treated.

Good list, but a few edits on some of the commercial brands since you listed Cissel, D'Hooge, Unimac, and Washex, among others, commercial only brands: -Sanyo has made home-style washers, not sure if they still do -Hitachi has made home style washers -Panasonic makes home-style washers -Primus has a pending sale to Alliance Laundry -Primus makes some Maytag commercial units -Wascomat is a commercial brand of Electrolux -ADC commercial washers made for them by Fagor -Fisher paykel was bought by Haier a few years back -Dexter Laundry commercial -Pellerin Milnor commercial -B&C commercial -Girbau commercial -Edro commercial -Sea Lion (biggest Chinese commercial) -and dozens of Chinese and Indian manufacturers not listed A visit to the Clean Show website will identify many other players in the market place. Laundryvet

I hate to tell you this, but washing is no guarantee that fabrics won't bleed later. I have no idea why, but even fabric from the same bolt might act differently. Just yesterday, I had a small scrap of RJR panel print to make a label for a quilt. Spritzed it a bit first with cold water to press first, and very soon, the reds ran. All the fabrics were rinsed in cold water before I used them, and nothing ran. So, I got another idential scrap, and rinsed it in cold water first, to check. No running. Huh? So I got another and spritzed it. No running. It was all from the same bolt. Hmmmm. I guess I will just use one that didn't run. Go figure. I'm left to wonder what will happen if the quilt itself ever gets washed. It would not be the first time I've had this happen. BlueBars

Whirlpool (under all the brands they produce) has two basic toploader designs, which essentially differ on the type of motor ... one is belt-drive, the other is direct-drive (but not the type of direct-drive they produced from 1981 to 2010). Both have a transmission (gear box) but there are differences depending on whether the agitator is a center-post type (tall transmission agitator/tub shaft) or a low-profile impeller type (short transmission agitator/tub shaft). Softened water, if anything, should reasonably have an effect to reduce proclivity toward rusting and wear by eliminating mineral deposits remaining when residual water dries. Other brands also produce similar mechanical designs with their own nuances regards to construction quality ... bearings and seals and metals durability, etc. The consumer pays his money and takes his chances with any product, as has always been the case. Durability of products is one of the points affected by materials quality reduction to meet the market price-points that consumers are willing to pay.