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Second floor laundry room

7 years ago

I am interested in any suggestions you all may have for me. I am in the process of shopping for new washer/dryer for a second floor laundry in a new home.

I do want HE, large-ish capacity - currently have a Maytag topload HE and I think the vibrations/noise would be disruptive on the second floor. Maybe a frontloader would vibrate less?

I'm pretty much limited to the standard brands - Miele, Speed Queen, etc. are not in the budget.

The pipe knocking I've heard about with LG scares me - this is an OLD house. Is this still an issue?

Finally, are pans under washer for leaks a thing? I have had two machines that died with leaks. A second story leak would be BAD.

Any and all input appreciated!

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Comments (4)

poppy214
7 years ago
Any large FL on a pedestal will vibrate more than a machine located on the floor. Be sure your floor in the laundry room is reinforced to minimize vibrations. Some manufacturers have suggestions for machine placement with respect to load bearing walls. You might want to look into that. Electrolux is known to be 2nd floor friendly but is only a family sized machine at 4.4 cu ft. If you need a monster i.e. 5.0+ cu ft be aware that they are larger than the 27 in wide machine and will not fit through a standard door. In an old house you also need to account for stairways and turns. My favorite monster is the LG. The water hammer issue is still there but not for everyone. There are inexpensive water hammer arrestors that can solve the problem. In an old house the water hammer might be an issue. I would not consider Samsung or GE for customer service issues and lack of available service. There are lemons and winners in every brand. Be sure you have local service for anything you select and do your research. Floor pans are a good idea for peace of mind, but your pedestal might not fit or be able to open a drawer. Happy hunting.
er1998 thanked poppy214
CubeDweller
7 years ago
I have seen pans for washers on amazon. Never used one, but living on the 11th floor, maybe I should. I do have a FloodStop system, which cuts off the water to the washer if the sensor (placed under the washer) gets so much as a tiny drop of water on it. Those are also on amazon.
er1998 thanked CubeDweller
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Thanks for the replies! I know TL is better for a second floor installation, but we're pretty set on FL. We're converting a bedroom into the laundry room. It's in a pretty prominent location, so we don't want it to scream laundry room. We're planning to fully enclose the set, which wouldn't be possible with a TL set. It's also why size is a consideration even though the room is rather large for a laundry room. Incidentally, this will be our third FL set. We left one set behind at our last house and have another set in our basement, which we're planning to keep for extra capacity. Both are LG. We've never had an issue with mold or any funky smells, even though we keep the doors closed at all times. I'm not sure if LG doesn't have the same issues as other machines or if we're just lucky, but definitely not anything we're worried about. I've also been impressed with how well they clean. We have looked at Miele. The price is on the high end, but I've mostly ruled those out because they are just too small. We don't need a compact set, we just want something an inch or two smaller than standard or at least not as big as some of the 30" FL machines have gotten. Otherwise the cabinets will be huge. We started out looking at Eletrolux because of their second floor guarantee, but have ruled them out after talking with salespeople at a number of different stores. They all seemed to have the same opinion - they'll sell us one if we really want them to, but hate selling them because of all the complaints they get after the sale. That sort of confirmed the feeling I got after reading a bunch of online reviews. Right now, we're leaning LG because we haven't really gotten any additional information on the SQ FL. We are familiar with and like the LG, so it seems like a safe choice. We've never had vibration, noise or walking issues with our previous LG washers, but they've both been in the basement on concrete.
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sandy1616
7 years ago
I have an Asko set on the 2nd floor but there is a water heater and furnace there as well so it has a large drain, vented, etc. The Asko sounds like a jet taking off at full spin but I really don't notice it with the door closed or when I'm downstairs. It's very convenient to have the laundry near the bedrooms.
er1998 thanked sandy1616
sashanikki
7 years ago
Our Electrolux 517 is on the second floor. It doesn't shake the floor. We do have a floor plan and thank goodness. Our first set, the Electrolux 60 leaked from day one. We built a platform rather than using the pedestals as we were concerned it might shake on the second floor with pedestals.
er1998 thanked sashanikki

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