I'm not sure you're ready to select appliances just yet. You might have some other homework to do first. You may well have vibration issues with this. How's the construction of the building? Do you own the building? If not, you'll probably need permission to do this for a number of reasons, not to mention vibration issues affecting the building and other residents, liability for damage from water, fire, etc. Are you thinking of an electric dryer or gas? You should spend the money to have electrical and plumbing run to the location with the shutoffs there. If it were my building and you ran an extension cord, I'd evict you. How do you plan to vent the dryer or are you going with condensation? Keep in mind that there could be shared breakers between units so your increased electrical needs could affect others so you need to work with your contractors and landlord (unless you own it) for the proper plumbing, for waste and water, electrical and venting needs. If you're going with an electric dryer, do you have 220v available at the position you want it? You can't just run an extension cord to the stove. If you're going with gas, do you have the gas lines run? You probably need to contact your insurance agent since most renter insurance policies might not cover the washer/dryer liability. If you flood the building you will affect other units most likely and you will be held responsible, same for fire liability. Do you have a direct wall outside for venting the dryer? If it's a brick building or concrete they likely won't want you just punching a hole through the wall. If time is an issue, remember that front load machines take a lot longer than top loads for doing a cycle so this could impact your laundry scheduling. You would probably adjust easily, but a heated cycle on a front load can be 2-3 hours for the wash cycle. If that's an issue, you may want to consider a top load, which you may have to consider anyway. During your remodel, your contractor could give you some guidance on beefing up the structure to eliminate vibration if the contractor is experienced in this area. Find out before you choose the contractor. Maybe you've considered all this already, but you haven't indicated anything to so suggest. Before worrying about a model to buy, I'd suggest looking into these aspects and make the arrangements for permission and possibly permits needed if any so you can then have this out of the way. Otherwise you might wind up with a couple machines sitting in storage that you can't use. BTW, FYI, you're finding out about dryers with the peeve you suggested. The normal guideline for sizing a dryer is to double the capacity of the washer, so for instance, if you have a 3.5 cf washer, you should have at least a 7 cf dryer. The extra room is for tumbling and air flow. In the combo units, if you do a full load, you have three options, remove 1/2 the load and dry them separately; do only 1/2 load at a time (which you probably wouldn't need to do large loads anyway, right?); or take an incredibly long time to dry and it could be very tangled and wrinkled. One last suggestion: Consider carefully the types of cycles you will need, whether you will need a heater and how big of loads you will be doing. If you often do just a shirt and a pair of pants, many FL machines seem to have trouble with balancing this from what I've been reading. Good luck!

fahrenheit_451: "I see this as opening the door to others of the same ilk and both the quirky charm and interactions between GardenWeb forum members runs the risk of deterioration." I, on the other hand, see it as a very creative ploy by an excellent and accomplished graduating college football player who was passed over in the first round of the NFL Draft last evening (Chris Polk, RB of the University of Washington) to enhance his chances of being picked in the second or third rounds this evening. See the link below. Here is a link that might be useful: Video of the perpetrator in action

Here is a trick to get as hot as possible wash for your whites if your water heater is a distance away from your front load washer without an internal heater. Just purge the water line. A similar principle as running your kitchen faucet a minute on hot before running the dishwasher. With the washing machine empty, start it on a hot wash and let water enter the tub until the window steams a bit (it takes mine about 20-30 seconds.) Stop the machine and cancel the cycle. Start it again set at "drain and spin," and cancel it as soon as the tub drains. Then load the machine with clothes, reset for hot wash and you are set. This whole little process takes about one minute and I pretreat any stains on the clothes while I do it, so no time wasted. And you get a piping hot wash for whites. A heater in a washer can heat the water much hotter than what is delivered by the water heater, good for sanitizing laundry. But I wouldn't advise passing up a good deal on a machine without a heater just to get a true hot wash for a load of whites when you can this.

You don't say whether your FP washer is a TL or FL. In my opinion and experience, having to buy ANY washer & dryer these days is a dilemma in itself. If you buy some Top Loaders you can have some control over the water level; otherwise, forget that with any and all Front Loaders. My Speed Queen FL (cost $1800) is built like a tank and works like a charm except for the water level (13.4 gal split between washing and rinsing!???). San Diego Steve will tell you that is plenty and he has even posted that he sold that model and bought the newer one which uses even less total water per wash cycle (11.xx gal I think). He and I are in complete disagreement on how 4 gal of water can rinse a set of King size sheets that remain in a wad. So FL vs TL is the first hurdle. I'm not sure how much water a SQ TL uses, but that would be my first question. My FL spins like crazy. I would have bought an FP but they are not sold anywhere in the Dallas, TX area. Maytag used to make a Centennial model which my daughter in law has and it has a deep rinse which fills the tub, but might no longer be made. Sorry not to have any more helpful information. The Chinese factor would scare me off as well with the FP. Good luck and please post your final decision with the outcome. It will be up to date and may help others.