Jim,
the statistic for water usage are very confusing because the different organizations assume different "average" amounts of loads per week and cycle settings used. Even the numbers for the capacity of the washers are different when you look at various sources.
The energy star website gives the most specific information as it lists actual numbers and explains reasonably clear what they mean.
They assume that people do 8 full loads per week on the "normal" cycle of each washer. The annual water consumption of the different washers can't be directly compared since the load size varies a lot. The best number to look at is the water factor. This number multiplied by the capacity of the washer (as listed on their website) gives you the amount of gallons used per load on a normal cycle.
The water usage alone doesn't account for all the energy savings though. You should also look at the modified energy factor which takes the drying times into account.

A few other things you should consider:

1. Is your floor sturdy enough for a FL? The best water savings won't help if you experience excessive vibration which wouldn't be good for your house or your washer.

2. Look at the build quality of the washers. A washer that breaks down after a couple of years is less eco-friendly than a washer that lasts 8 to 10 years. At this time it is tough to predict how durable and reliable the newer FLs will be, but you can get a few clues by looking at the door hinges, the detergent drawer, the materials used, etc.

3. Don't forget to consider the cleaning performance. Most FLs will clean at least as good as cheap TLs, but there are differences. A FL with internal heater is more effective in removing stains and smells than the ones without it. The occasional use of high temperature cycles (like sanitizing) also helps to keep the washer free of mildew and gunk.

Hope this helps!

looser says "They assume that people do 8 full loads per week on the "normal" cycle of each washer. The annual water consumption of the different washers can't be directly compared since the load size varies a lot."

Which is correct being that FL's sense the load size and dispense the correct amount of water accordingly, unlike your traditional TL's that have; small, medium, & large etc for water levels.

looser also said "Most FLs will clean at least as good as cheap TLs, but there are differences."

I think Consumer Reports (June issue) has shown this to be an inaccurate statement. FL's were tested and shown to be superior in cleaning to ALL TL's from the most expensive to the cheapest not to mention the fact of the energy/water savings alone. Reliability between the two is not a factor either considering both of the technologies recently have had their woes.
This is in no way a knock on "looser" but "summertime2006" if you are new here you will find that folks quote from or rely CR when it suits them and when it does not they totally discount it.
Back to water usage it is uncanny how little water is used to the point where one would wonder how clothes are getting cleaned based on what we are accustomed to seeing w/TL's.
Good luck with whatever you decide and happy shopping!

But there are differences in cleaning between TLers and FLers. If you don't mind lint or fur on your cloths then maybe FLers clean to your satisfaction. Personally, finding fur and lint on my cloths means they are not clean. I do hope no one is going to say that the FLer left rabbit fur on my cloths because it was not balanced. With pets that shed a lot, I would stick with a TLer. My Cabrio HE uses a lot less water than a traditional TLer, it also senses the load size like FLers, but it does wash all the rabbit fur off my cloths, and even off my rabbit's bedding.

I can't speak on that, as I don't like animals and fur all up in my house. I have heard/read this debate and there were owners of FL's that stated their FL's removed fur from their clothes. Apparently that was not the case with you.
Thanks for the info though about the water usage and load sensing on the Cabrio.

luvmylg,
I am sorry if I offended you in any way with my post. I have the latest CR results printed out right here in front of me. I, personally, believe in FLs and that they clean better, but there are a few TLs that got BETTER ratings than some of the FLs. Some TLs (the Cabrio, the Elite Oasis, Oasis, and Harmony) got a "very good" rating from CR while some FLs got just "good" and one even a "fair" result (Frigidaire Affinity) for washing performance. Even the overall score of the Cabrio is better than that of some FLs. Please correct me if I am wrong, but where was my mistake?
Maybe you misunderstood my post. Right now I have a TL which I hate and as soon as we move I am going to buy a FL (probably the Bosch Nexxt 500). I just posted a few critical issues that everybody should be aware of. Like jcrowley, there are other people that were disappointed with the performance or vibration of their FLs. I absolutely prefer FLs, but I can stay critical enough to accept other people's opinions and experiences.

And as much as I like FLs, they do in fact have a slight disadvantage in getting rid of fur, human hair or lint. I wouldn't consider clothes with fur or hair on them "dirty" though. The hair has been through the wash and is as clean as the rest of the laundry and it usually comes off in the dryer. I can respect, however, that not everybody shares my view on that.

Regarding reliability, maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. I didn't mean to compare the quality of TLs versus FLs. I know that FLs can be very reliable and durable. My mother's (European size AEG) FL is over 15 years old. I was referring to the OP saying that he wants to buy the FL wich uses the least amount of water. He said he wasn't even considering a TL, so why should I refer to a TLs quality?
What I meant to say was that a few extra gallons per year may be worth it if the washer is more durable than the one that is most water efficient. All FLs use a LOT less water than TLs (even the HE ones), so you don't have to be overly critical of the numbers. However, I think you'll like to see that the LGs are among the most water efficient washers!

You in no way, shape, form or fashion offended me. To be honest I was worried that my post may have come off a little snippy.
My copy of CR is at home but I was comparing the top three FL's against the top 3 TL's and I think overall the FL's came out on top, I even think CR went so far as to endorse the FL's over the old TL technology.
As for reliability that was not in response to anything you had posted, just some additional food for thought for "summertime2006" in terms of making his/her decision.

luvmylg,
okay, I guess we are on the same sheet of music now. You didn't say that you were just referring to the top 3...but no big deal.
You are right, overall CR stated that traditional TLs are not doing as good (anymore) as FLs. They gave the HE TLs some credit for water and energy efficiency, but also noted that they are as expensive as most FLs and that the technology may not be as reliable. The FL technology itself is not new at all. They have been using FLs in Europe for over 50 years without any major problems. The only modification is the increase in capacity and that may cause an increase in wear and tear and vibration issues. I would try pretty much everything to make a FL work in my home before I'd consider a TL with agitator!

Some definition of washer terms that might make the discussion clearer, hopefully, at least in the USA.

For the discussions in the past, it made sense to just say TL VS FL. Today we have in forum discussions on the forum four classes of washers, sometimes with out much distinction of classes in the forum.

1) FLs- essentially the same technology used for years. Some are just now a lot bigger and with even more water efficiency.

2) Pre-2207 USA EPA TLs (i.e. not HE)- Traditional "TL" that used a lot of water. Sometimes even had a two rinse option. The ones that in the USA, until a few years ago, was about all you could find. Most folks just accepted it as the norm without much thought on a purchase.

3) Post-2007 EPA TL (still not HE, but attempts to use less water). These are the machines that CR dinged. Apparently they just cut the water use to meet EPA standard- no new technology. Similar to the first generation of 70's EPA starved cars. Crxp.

4) HE TL w/washplates- these existed prior to 2007 in various infamous incarnations. Today most have no traditional agitator and most cycles use considerately less water, but still more than a FL. Usually spin faster than traditional Tl. Almost a FL stood upright. IMO, fights gravaity instead of using it. Some love them, other hate.

5) HE TL w/agitators. IMO, an attempt to blend the best of traditional TL with water savings. Some even allow full traditional water loads with extra rinses. Other cycles are the HE. Spin faster than traditional TL. Generally get good feedback.

crooks101,
thank you for listing all the different types of washers that are out there right now. It is true that they get confused in some of the discussions. I find some humor in the fact that you say there are four classes of washers and then you list five...;-)

A lot of traditional TLs don't actually use a considerably less water since the 2007 EPA standards went into effect. CR stated that many just decreased the temperature of the wash and rinse cycles. The EPA standard "asked" for 27% less ENERGY usage, not 27% water savings. If you use 40 gallons or more and just heat it a few degrees less than you used to, you'll save lots of energy. But the cleaning performance probably decreases more than your energy bill.

Regarding the HE TL with agi, I got a giggle out of your statement "an attempt to blend the best of traditional TL with water savings". What was the best of a traditional TL? The quick cycle times or the fact that they rinse hair and particles a little better than a FL? Those are the only good things I can say about a traditional TL...and we have a pre-2007 one that uses lots of energy and water. It doesn't clean well (I guess our hot water heater isn't set high enough) and I hate the agitator. I can't imagine using a high spin in one of those.

Besides a FL, a TL without agitator would be the only thing I would even consider. But I grew up with FLs (in Germany), so I never got accustomed to the waste of water and the poor cleaning performance of traditional TLs.

Looser,
You are correct of course, the fur, hair and lint are as clean as the cloths after washing! I just don't want them on my cloths. It is bad enough that I have to use a lint roller on my cloths after playing with my bunny, I don't want to have to use a lint roller on freshly cleaned cloths! It is just my preference. Some people might not mind this.

jcrowley99,
I understand that you don't want a bunch of fur on your clean clothes. I wouldn't want that either. Right now we don't have any pets. When I grew up we used to have guinnea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, birds, and later dogs (one at a time) and rats. My mom used to hang dry everything since we didn't have a dryer, so yes, we occasionally had a few hairs on our clean clothes...not as bad as you describe it though. The old FLs did, however, use quite a bit more water than the newer ones.
When using an electric dryer, I found that most hair and lint (and cleenex leftovers after occasionally washing them) comes off during the drying cycle.

I still prefer FLs, but like I said, if it wouldn't work in my house I'd give the TL without agi a chance. It sure sounds like an interesting technology and seems to really work.

"I find some humor in the fact that you say there are four classes of washers and then you list five...;-)"

Opps, at airport and about to take-off and just posted note. I forgot I broke out the HE-TLs into an extra class.

On fur/hair topic. I think on the low water FL rinses (and on new machines only a little more than wash), I think one must assume you will be using a dryer. I can't image just letting the clothes dry with all my cat's hair. Yuck, I give this one to the TLs that still allow the full drum rinse water. Considering all things, I still prefer FLs. But if no dryer -I might recant. Several times, I have noticed all the cat hair in dryer filer and wondered what the ramification of not using dryer would be. Somehow knowing it is clean cat hair just does not work. :-).

Note: Miele large commercial machines apparently can do horse hair well. They even brag about it in some of the marketing literature.

I know of no FL that gets much over 1/3 of the glass in rinse water. But the "HE" TL spray rinse/spin, I would assume is actually worse than a FL- the hair does not even have a change to move, so you are back to a full drum of water. And in next gens of TLs, this might go away,if the water police have their way.

I am not totally pleased with this new FL trend of low rinse water. I was able to override the current W4840 Miele on most cycles for extra water. But not all. On the current Miele is is a service level option. It should be an extra button. I watched a Kenmore HE5, it was a bad as the Miele. The LG, with the extra water button, was actually pretty good. And the LG heats the water on normal cycle, something my Miele does not not do.

looser, best is of course relative. I work in technical sales. I sometimes show how a cheap, small car is "better" over a Lexus, if the metrics are getting from point A-B with the lowest TCA and TCO. Of course, this ignores the non-functional aspects like comfort, reliability, trade-in value, security, safety, quality of post-sale service, pride of ownership, etc.

But on TL, even as a kid, I always thought they seemed like a bad design. If you loaded lots of clothes, the ones on the bottom got pulled with great force, but at least got whacked clean by the agitator. The ones on the top hardly ever moved and sometimes just floated on the water surface for most of the cycle. If you loaded lightly, you reduced the efficiency, but at least the you did not wear your clothes as much and they got cleaner. I also thought the wash time was too short and back in the day of mechanical timers, I would just reset the wash or rinse cycle.

And the typical Tl one rinse, I married a chemist. She always said three small rinse is better than one big one - test tubes thing. :-)

And forget about washing some reasonable delicate that was large like a latex-backed rug. Or a down jacket, etc.

Bought my first FL in 2000, I would never go back. Even when the Bosch FL broke and waiting for new machines, I took my clothes to a laundromat that had FLs.

Oh my gosh, I did it myself. I used TL with the understanding one would know my TL context. That would be pre-2007 TL non-HE- the old stuff. :-) A TL HE washplate would work differently. And per jcrowley99, he loves his.

I do have an HE TLer, the Cabrio HE. It does a spray rinse not a deep fill rinse. It does remove fur, hair, and lint with the spray rinse. I would guess that the fur is actually removed from the water before it even gets to the rinse. I'm not sure exactly how the rinse works, I rarely have the leisure time to watch the whole cycle, but I have noticed that it seems to alternate spraying the cloths with water and spinning the water out. It did this three times while I was working in the laundry room one day, and it was still on the rinse cycle when I left the room. Whatever it does, I like it! But it is definitely not a deep fill rinse.

crooks101,
I am impressed that you actually check out the laundry forum while at the airport. It is kind of addictive, isn't it? My compliments on figuring out as a kid that the design of traditional TLs sucks.

Yes, I have tried to wash bath mats in our TL...didn't work too good. I am not going to handwash them and when my daughter (almost 3) had occasional accidents it just had to be washed. There were several holes in the rubber back the first time and the second or third time the holes go all the way through. The ones with a thinner layer of rubber do a little better, but I'll never like a TL with agitator. The low actual temperatures and the low spin speed caused me another nightmare. A roach that had gotten into my stack of dirty towels survived the wash and unfolded itself when I was shaking out the towels to put them into the dryer. YUCK!!! It didn't help at all to think of it as being a clean roach...you can ask my husband how much I screamed. He had to do a deep fill without any clothes to catch it and dispose of it. I absolutely love animals (I am actually a vegetarian), but I can't stand those bugs. They just totally freak me out.

TLs are available in Germany, however, they are not the same kind as the US TLs. They are H-axis machines, so they really work like a FL that you load from the top. Those are not too bad, but I don't really understand why people find the loading and unloading more convenient if they transfer the clothes into a FL dryer.

I agree that the trend to save water even on the rinse cycle of a FL goes a little too far. People shouldn't have to routinely select an extra rinse. I am glad you found a way to override that on most of the cycles. I'd like to get the Miele set, but I can't quite convince myself and especially my husband to spend that much on the w/d set. The Miele HQ was about 15 miles away from the city I was born and raised... They do make great appliances. My husband is not very picky about any kind of washer, but he is a little worried that he'll have to do more sorting and that he won't be able to pick the appropriate cycles. He is smart though, he'll figure it out...;-)

About hair and fur. I have never expected a washer TL or FL to remove pet hair or fur. This seems to be the job of another device and if an item is full of hair then it is not ready to meet any washer....that is only my thought.

I have had TL and FL. The top loaders I had were older and used about 23 to 27 gallons of water each fill. They never rinsed anything worth a darn. I sent one of my white loads through a full deep rinse 5 times....23 gallons X five...and still there was detergent foam in the last rinse water...That wouldn't be so bad but the clothes in that load were not clean. My washer drains into the utility sink next to it and rinsing ability or inability is very obvious.

So sometimes high water usage does not equal good washing or rinsing.

Perhaps Miele doesn't put a high water button on the machine because this would make the Energy Star police aware that people could easily override the "energy efficiency" of the machine.

Energy Efficiency - all this standard seems to talk about is KWH used to wash and dry clothes. I personally use gas to heat my water(tank-less heater) and dry clothes so these numbers don't mean anything too much to me.... and you can probably do a more efficient job overall if all of the heating was done in the machine that needs to have the hot water rather than external to it but of course this would make that machine use more energy than those that don't heat as high--and we can't have that can we.

However I do pay a lot of money for water and sewer use so I am more interested in the amount of water being used than the amount of energy used to heat anything. I want good rinsing in my washer and dishwasher and don't mind paying to use water to get it.

Last week around here is was 98F in the day, 85F at night with relative humidity running above 66% and I continued to have my central air cool the house to 73F. This took more energy than any washer or dryer could ever approach.

And if we are really worried about energy use we could get out of our cars.

Thanks everyone!

I'm blown away by the responses!

The part about the water factor helped me out I never thought of using that as a measurement.

I still have a top loader and the more I read these forums and look around the more that I just can't wait to get one!

Jim

I bought a Bosch 3200 a year ago and almost never use a dryer. I have 2 English Springers that leave hair all over my house & clothes. I have not noticed any more hair on my clothes now then I had when I used my 1984 TL Maytag. I never use an additional rinse either. I have been very happy with the FL performance.

Okay, I've just checked out the European websites from LG, Bosch and Whirlpool and looked for consumption data. In Europe, every washing machine has to carry a label on which the water & energy comsumption is displayed. Usually, this "energy label cycle" uses extra little water and power - but I can't access the product manuals for each washer now to give you consumption data for other cycles than the extra frugal energy label cycle. So here it goes anyway:

LG 10 kg capacity: 89 liters
Bosch Nexxt 10 kg capacity: 69 liters
Whirlpool DreamSpace 9 kg capacity: 78 litres

Note: these are the UK versions of the US machines. Consumption data may be different - this is just a guideline. All these figures are for washing a full load of cottons. The regular cycle includes four fills (wash, rinse, rinse, rinse with fabric softener).

HTH, Alex

For those of you metrically challenged.
89 liters = 23.5 gallons
69 liters = 18.2 gallons
78 liters = 20.6 gallons

Of course all water measurements depend on the type of load and how much water is held by the clothes.
Cottons hold more poly blends hold less.

crooks101 wrote:

"I was able to override the current W4840 Miele on most cycles for extra water".

crooks101,

I would highly appreciate if you could share your "extra water" setup experience with us, what exactly did you set in the service menu?

Hmm

Thanks for the info Alex. I wonder how many of these machines in the U.S.A rinse 3 times in the normal cycle? Without the user setting it to rinse 3 times?

flyingkite,

The only setting that seemed to affect the rinse water levels was turning Maximum Water Level setting to ON, but this did not change the Custom cycle rinse levels at all. The water level, when it worked, was just to lower door glass. I did not see any significant changes in wash levels on any changed settings. Allergy/Water+ setting did almost nothing on my machine. Other bizarre behavior, the separate rinse/spin cycle had higher water levels, but the Beach towels rinse water levels did not change- same as Custom.

I am quite disappointed in their implementation. And the heater still does not work on Normal.

We have 4 kids and I do day care in our home so I do a LOT of laundry. The first month we had our FL, we used 3000 gals less than the previous months. It was a marked difference. We came up with a roundabout figure of about 15 gals per load on our FL compared to 45 gals on our TL.

We also have fur-producing dogs.. Bernese Mtn Dogs... and have not experienced any more fur or hair on our finished laundry. I can't imagine that a rabbit would have leave more hair than one of our dogs so I wonder if the problem isn't with the actual washer instead of FLs.

This is late but I Read crooks reply about the water levels and about the water level in the rinse and spin cycle.

I don't have these models but have an older W1986. It has a cycle named fine rinse. This provides two very high fill rinses and then a spin. The fills are higher than any other cycle. I find this useful if you want to provide an extra two rinses to something you have washed. The second rinse of this fine rinse cycle pulls the water through the fabric softener so FS can be dispensed into this rinse(although this fact is never mentioned in the user manual). Maybe other newer models have this feature as well.

This document may be helpful. Just multiply the water factor by the volume of the washer to find out the amount of water used in a cycle.

Keep in mind that the advertised size of the wash drum is the I.E.C. equivalent of a top load washer, so the actual drum size, as listed in this document, is smaller.

Joe

Here is a link that might be useful: Approved High Efficiency Clothes Washers