I absolutely love my Maytag Bravos washer/dryer set. The washer is an HE toploader. I have the best of both worlds -- low water usage, huge capacity (I can wash a king-size comforter and 2-3x the laundry I could wash in my former washer), I can soak clothes (very important to me), the high spin speed spins so well, laundry dries quickly, and I can add clothes as long as the Add A Garment light is on. Because of the huge capacity, I only wash 3-5 loads max per week, whereas I used to wash 7-10 loads per week. This has made an appreciable difference in our utility bills.

We are choosing a new washer/dryer set and would like to buy something in the mid-range. I had a Miele set in our previous home for the last 15 years, which I absolutely loved, but think that for half the price I might be able to get something that works well enough. There seems to have been a lot of changes in the mid-range since I last made a purchase. I'm considering either the new Maytag Maxima steam set or a Whirlpool Duet steam set. I want to have something that will do a good job on delicates (something that Miele does extremely well) and will also sanitize my micro fibre cleaning cloths. Any comments or suggestions?

You will get night & day opinions on FL vs TL. IMO and you can research this yourself TL are more dependable "in general". They do not have even remotely close to the mold/mildew problems of FL. They do not suffer from the inherent premature bearing failure problems. Nor are they prone to seal leaks like FL. You can of course get lucky and buy a FL and never have a problem for 10 years as long as you are diligent about cleaning it and leaving the door open. We bought a LG WT5101HV Washer with matching Dryer after quiet a bit of research. It is a HE TL, the difference in water & electricity usage between that and the nearest FL in size (4.5cu.ft) I figured out to roughly between $7-$10 per YEAR, so totally meaningless efficiency difference. As for clothes cleaning, it is fantastic, have zero complaints in that department. It is quiet, seems well made. It has an 1100rpm spin so clothes come out virtually dry so Drying times are very short. It has 2 true Hot water cycles, one is Sanitary which last almost 3 hours and heats the water to between 155-158 degrees. The second is Bright Whites which last almost 90 minutes and heats the water to between 120-122 degrees. So if you are one of those people that must wash everything in super hot water for some reason then your wash times will be 90 minutes plus. The warm cycles depends on how your house is set up and what temp your water heater is set to and if you have a recirculator or are able to flush the cold water from your how water line prior to running the machine. On mine I get anywhere between 80-90 degree warm wash cycles, with 54 degree cold water coming in and hot water coming in at 126 degrees from water heater, IF I flush my hot water line prior to starting. Now we wash I would say 85+% of all our laundry in Cold water of which this machine really shines at. The method of which it washes by "pushing the detergent water through the cloths" works very well especially in cold water. We pretty much only wash Whites and very dirty "greasy" items in Hot water of which it also does a very good job of. The Dryer does have sensors which are working very well. We can wash a small load and throw it in the dryer, set it to what ever and even if that cycle is supposed to last up to 40-50 minutes it will dry the clothes, sense they are dry and turn off sometimes in just 5-10 minutes and 90% of the time the clothes are perfectly dry. Sometimes a single piece might have a section or something that isn't bone dry but in general is does very well without over drying your clothes and wasting electricity. All in all I am very pleased with them, though have only had them for a few months now.

I'm not sure how many children you have, but I have four and I feel like have a lot of laundry. The machines I bought 3 years ago hold twice as much as the ones we replaced. The newer machines are also much more energy efficient and they take less time to complete a load. I have the largest, top load, LG units available and I've had no issues with them in the 3 years we've owned them. I can fit my king sized sheets and comforter in one load, I could barely fit my comforter in my old machine. As a result, I'm spending a lot less time doing laundry these days! I didn't go with front loaders as my experience with them hasn't been good. We temporarily left our permeant home for a work assignment and we bought front loaders to use. No matter what I did, the seal in the washer always smelled of mildew which I felt made the laundry smell as well. And I was diligent about wiping it out each time, sticking paper towels in the recessed seal between loads to absorb the access water and bleaching the area frequently, nothing helped. I have several friends who have front loaders now, who complain about the same issue.