Someone mentioned the consideration of an icemaker being noisy. Yes, you can hear ice drop into the ice bin in the freezer if you are nearby, though it's not that often when the bin is already full. But really, would anyone consider going back to filling ice trays and not have an icemaker? I can't imagine it. Trays are a total PITA and you rarely have enough ice when you need it. We have never had a problem with ice/water in the door and had that for years in a sxs in a previous home. Presently we only have water in the door because that was how the French Door model we liked was made when we purchased it several years ago. Getting ice out of the bin in the bottom freezer is no problem, but we would have gladly bought it with ice in the door and actually would have preferred to have it again. If you take your glass off the lever that works the water in the door after the glass is full and just leave it under the spigot for a second for that last drop to go in the glass at least in my refrig there are no drips to wipe up. I love this board, but so many times I have seen one person post a problem with something and from then on so many posters will refer to the big "problem" with that appliance and always mention the poster who had the problem, as if everyone is having a major and continual problem with it. For every poster with a problem there are thousands and thousands of purchasers for whom that appliance works fine, but of course they have no reason to find a message board to say their appliance works great.

I just don't get where the customer is almost always getting blamed for being unhappy with front loader performance in this country. Or the new HE "almost no water" top loaders. Or the typical top loaders that dumb down water temps and select water levels for you. Give me a break...it's always the customer and never a flawed design...really? Look at the physics of a front loader with our insane laws combined. Then there's the "new" HE top load machines. Laws of physics will tell you gravity won't allow the water to properly get to the top where it needs to be. I don't care what these companies try to cliam. Many of the people working at the appliance stores where these were sold and who have purchased these, have dumped them and gone back to an old fashioned top load. At least this is what they are telling me. I'd take a front loader any day over those. At least they tumble the laundry into the water...what little water there is. Doing laundry is basically a no brainer chore. I don't buy the number of complaints in the USA are all due to customer error. There are stupid people, for sure, but not that many.Doing laundry is not rocket science. The front load machines available in Europe don't seem to have the number of complaints we have here. I have had front loaders since 1997. I'm not impressed. I've purchased and absolutely am thrilled with my new Speed Queen top loader. It gets my clothes clean and fresh with minimal wash times because it actually lets me choose hot water if I want it, and water level. Extra rinse too, if needed. It fills with enough water to actually clean the clothes for a change, and actually rinses them completely.Sorry, but it does take water to clean clothes. Maybe the key is to wear clothing more than once, not try to clean them in minimal water. It spins my towels out as well as my Duet did, and washes as large a load. Does it use more water.? Yes..well, sort of....but I used just as much (or more) washing and rinsing multiple times in my Duet. It sometimes took all day to get a load clean. I NEVER have stinky towels anymore and garden dirt gets out of the knees of my jeans...the first time. With no additives or spray pretreatments. Overall, I am using less water and less energy.Is this a fancy or sexy machine? No, but I don't need sexy or fancy appliances. I also don't need an appliance to do my thinking for me. I'm intelligent enough, thank you. That said, I like being able to wash a king size quilt at home. With the agitator in the top load, I risk quilt damage...it's just a tad too big. Smaller quilts move freely. So now I need a front loader too. Only to wash big quilts. We've been looking at new front load washers and are not impressed. At all. We've decided to put new bearings, a new boot, and rebuild the pump in my old Duet. It's German made and much better than the new ones out there. My husband will do the work and we will essentially have a new machine for a few hundred bucks. Contrary to what Whirlpool says, the bearings can be replaced without replacing the whole drum. One virtue of my old Duet is it did clean quilts well. It gets them wet throughout and they do come out clean, fresh, and well rinsed. However, this cycle actually uses some water. Therafter, I am saving up for a commercial Speed Queen front loader. Sad to say, but most of the washers available in the USA are going downhill fast, and I don't see it getting much better. I only hope we don't have to go back to a wringer washer to get clean clothes from a realiable machine in the future. I know there are many on this forum who are happy with how clean their clothes get and do not understand those of us who are not thrilled with the extreme water restricted machines. Well, maybe it's lifestyle. Maybe their clothes don't really get dirty. Ours do. We hike. We fish. We garden. We fall in mud puddles. We camp in the mountains. We canoe. We maintain our home ourselves. We got rid of our TV and do not miss it one bit. So we need something that is a washing machine. Not a soap, sray, spin, machine. It's time that the consumers out there stop being the scapegoats of all the blame. The fact is for the most part this country is now filled with lots of shoddy products. Hopefully Wall Street will not succeed in destroying Speed Queen so I can get that dream commercial front loader some day (their residential front loaders aren't quite large enough for a king quilt)....because I won't spend a dime on one of the newer ones commonbly available today.

I know your only asking for opinions from those who DON'T have in-the-door ice but couldn't resist giving the opposing opinion. We had never had a dispenser before the remodel and the fridge we wanted only came with that option. We reluctantly chose it and found that having the easy access to ice has been an incredible quality-of-life improvement. Every member of our family drinks a lot more water because of it. We have very cold water coming out of our tap during the winter but the coldness isn't enough. My family wants the crunch (and it's the "crushed ice" crunch that works, not the whole ice cubes.) Our fridge water isn't chilled and comes out tediously slow so we still get the water out of the tap (plus I like getting it when the faucet is in "spray" mode---the aerated water tastes better to me.) We have excellent spring water that leaves no deposits so no worry about filters. Now that I have the ice dispenser I don't mind the look. I guess it's an inner beauty type of thing where the function overides any aesthetic problems. Also the background color of the dispenser is the same color as the fridge and doesn't stand out as much as some. We never had an ice maker before the reno but I know my family well enough to know that they wouldn't drink as much water if they didn't have the ice dispenser staring them in the face (I kept unmolded in a tub in our old freezer and nobody ever thought to use them + they weren't crushed.) We use ice so often now that we don't have to worry about it sitting in the freezer too long and getting the stale-freezer-taste. We've had it for 3 1/2 years and it's still a draw. Guests also know how to easily help themselves without feeling awkward about about opening the freezer door if I forget to welcome them to do it. Good luck. We're happy we ended up with the dispenser by default.

Enduring (and Littlegreeny!), I did a search on enzymes and see many of you have been posting about this for years :) Below is a post from Livebetter. LB had read not to use enzymes on fine cottons .. I didn't see any comments on anyone disagreeing. ? On rare occasions, I've had some linens yellow and a couple of white shirts. Is this from anything I'm doing? I never use bleach. I assume oxygen bleach is safe on everything? livebetter These are the typical enzymes and the type of soil they break down to simpler forms for removal by detergent: Amylase (starch soils) Lipase (fatty and oily soils) Protease (protein soils) Cellulase (reduces pilling and greying of fabrics containing cotton and helps remove particulate soils) I have not read that they will âÂÂdamageâ cotton. They will damage wool/silk as wool/silk are made up of proteins and enzymes attack proteins. Enzyme detergent cannot differentiate between a bit of egg stain and a bit of silk so the enzymes will eat away at it. I have read several places where they say not to use an enzyme detergent for fine cottons like Egyptian and Pima (particularly sheets/towels). I personally think an enzyme detergent is only necessary when the laundry warrants it. If it does not contain the above types of stains why would you need them? ItâÂÂs over kill in my mind. I use a mild detergent without enzymes or brighteners on my fine sheets and towels (Vaska Herbatergent). I also use oxygen bleach when needed to keep them white. Never use chlorine bleach as this will destroy the fibres over time.