Before being ready to toss out your current machine ... what is the brand/model and further details of the spin trouble? It may be a simple/reasonable repair.

If rinsing diapers in an HE Bravos is a problem when running a standard cycle, you could rerun the load on a Quick (without detergent) or Rinse/Spin cycle, whichever your Bravos of choice may have. Takes a little extra time, not a whole lot more water, and insures adequate rinsing.

Some FL Washers (our LG WM2688) have:

a sensor that senses how much water is left after soaking up into the clothes (adds more as needed)

on-board heater for the Sanitary and Baby Wear cycles

Water Plus option (more water during wash)

Extra Rinse option ( 3 rinses vs 2 )

Otherwise a good TL may work better for you...

Speed Queen

GE Harmony (made by LG)

I currently cloth diaper in a FL machine. We have a Kenmore HE3 with not a lot of bells and whistles (no extra water button or sanitary cycle). But what I found has worked for me is to do a quick rinse spin with a little vinegar to balance out the urine and saturate diapers. Then full/longest hot wash with Tide w/ extra rinse. Then additional fill wash/rinse cycle to rinse completely. My washer seems to fill up until it senses the correct amount of water sloshing around. If I have a larger load that absorbs more water, more water is added automatically by the machine.
Up until about a month ago we were having ammonia issues but I feel it was due to not using a strong enough detergent. I was using Charlies Soap/Allen's to wash diapers and went about 3 days between washings. It just wasn't cutting it. I need to rinse a little bit more with Tide but it's worth it for clean diapers. With the HE machine I haven't noticed any change in my water bill.
I believe that HE machines are a bit more work in finding a wash system that works for your washer, water and detergent type but it's worth it. To use less water overall.
A website I have gotten a lot of information from on all aspects of cloth diapering is www.diaperswappers.com. Their forum is amazing and you can find or ask information on everything!!
Good luck and enjoy your new machine if you purchase one. :)

Dadoes, our current machine is a Kenmore 70 Series #CR2631632. We bought our house a year ago, and this washing machine was left inside. It's been fine up until it stopped spinning regularly. After it agitates, the tub almost never spins when draining the water from the cleaning part of the cycle. But the tub spins sometimes when draining the water from the rinse part of the cycle. Have you had experience with any spinning problems?

Also, thank you so much for the info, regus_patoff! :)

Hi amm0810,

I'm so glad to hear that someone has been able to successfully use a high efficiency washing machine for cloth diapers! I'm also truly grateful for the diaperswappers.com tip. I thought that site was only for buying and selling. It's great to know that they have forums, too.

Thanks again! :)

NewMama,

Assuming it's a Whirlpool-sourced machine, CR2631632 is a serial number, not a model number. The model number should be 110. followed by more numbers. The serial number seems to indicate your machine was manufactured in 2004, so it's not old enough to need tossing out.

Are you saying there are instances in which the machine does not spin at all after the wash, or rinse, or perhaps both? It should not normally spin while draining the water. There should be a brief pause (3 to 5 seconds) after the wash period, then a neutral drain (no spin), another pause, then spin. Same thing after the rinse agitation period ... pause, drain, pause, spin. The pauses are required for the transmission to shift properly between agitate, drain, and spin. If the pauses are non-existent or too short, then you have a bad timer. If the machine goes dead after the agitation periods when the timer moves to drain, then you probably have a bad lid switch, which is an easy and inexpensive fix. Timers are more expensive, but not as much as a new machine.

There can be a situation in which the machine does spin during neutral drain, which is an issue inside the transmission. While this is technically a malfunction, it isn't as serious since the machine does spin. It's more of a problem if the machine won't spin at all.

Wow, this came up just at the right time. Now that I'm down to only three in diapers, I'm thinking about getting a high capacity unit and switching everybody over to cloth. The current machine I'm thinking about is the GE Harmony (a HE top loader) which people have nice things to say about on this board. Thanks for the tip on diaperswappers...I've got a lot to learn!

newmama, I own a Maytag Bravos washer. It is the best washer I've ever owned and I highly recommend it. It rinses all my laundry very well.

You could add an extra rinse (an option on the Bravos) if you wanted to be sure the diapers were rinsed well. Whether you use an extra rinse or not, using white vinegar in the final rinse is a wonderful way to be sure all detergent is fully rinsed out of laundry.

I would recommend you get a washer with an internal water heater, regardless of what washer you buy, so that you can be sure the water is hot enough to sanitize the diapers.

I used cloth diapers, and this is what I did to make laundering them quick and easy:

I used a 5-gallon diaper pail for soaking them between washings.

I filled it up with hot water, 1 cup borax, and 1/2 cup Clorox, stirring well to dissolve.

When I took off a soiled diaper, I dumped the poop in the toilet and put the diaper in the soak pail.

When I took off a wet diaper, I put it in the soak pail.

When the pail was full and/or I was low on diapers, I dumped the whole thing, diapers and soak water, into the washer and used the Spin cycle only to drain the water out.

I washed the diapers with hot water and Ivory Snow (I don't know if that's available anymore).

I used white vinegar in the final rinse to ensure there was no detergent residue. (This was recommended by a nurse even for a traditional washer w/agitator.)

1 cup of white vinegar in a traditional washer and 1/2 cup of vinegar in an HE washer would be sufficient.

The diapers always came out of the dryer very soft and fluffy -- no vinegar odor at all.

Hope this helps! :-)

I use a miele w4820 with cloth diapers. I use hot water, max spin, extended, heavy soil, and sensitive options. We're using seventh generation liquid detergent right now. We dump diapers in the pail, and then empty the pail liner into the washer. It takes a while for the load but everything comes out nice and clean. We could probably use a shorter cycle, but this is working for us so far. Our daughter is 4 weeks old.

newmama, I forgot to mention the fact that Maytag Bravos is an HE top loading washer. The current model has a huge capacity of 5 cu ft of laundry.

The link below should take you to the page which shows model MVWB850WL. You can cut and paste that model number to be sure you get to that page. It has the internal water heater which provides for a sanitizing wash cycle.

Here is a link that might be useful: Maytag Bravos MVWB850WL

I cloth diapered both my girls with my Whirlpool Duet frontloader. I never had any issues. I didn;t research it or buy it to CD, it;s what we already had though.... I used HE powdered only detergent (tide always) and baking soda vinegar in the rinse and I always did an extra rinse. Often I would do an extra wash every other load after they were clean, no soap at all and turn up the hot water heater for it to the max. It was not always needed. Sometimes I would add in 20 mule team borax to my powdered detergent. I used hemp diapers and wool covers. I handwashed my wool covers in lanolin soap. The extra rinse and low amount of soap was the key IMO. I really enjoyed cloth diapering my babies. It was necessary for our girls, as they had (still have) super fair skin that breaks out if you look at it wrong.

Thought I would post back. We've now got a bit over a week in on the new washer and cloth diapers. The person I ordered the diapers from recommended avoiding the bleach soak so I skipped that. We can hit about two days before the diaper pails (one in our room, one it the boys) get full. Each pail does about a load.

The person I got the diapers from said getting water trapped in the AIOs we are using might be a problem, but the HE washer seems to spin the water out good so I've not had any trouble.

I'm using the HE "FREE" detergent from Kirkland (Costco) and some oxyclean

Thanks for all the advice guys.