Sorry to take so long to get back to this thread. Very happy to get so much input. Thanks! Sandy, good to know that you've used Seventh Generation and good to hear that Sears has one that seems to work for people. Thanks for sharing all the comments you have heard on different machines. cynic...Yes, I've heard that from the appliance store that we have dealt with over the years. They also do the service calls and he thought that a good portion of the probs people have are because they are either using cold water or too much detergent or not the right kind of detergent. Going to spend some time this afternoon looking into Speed Queen. Thanks mattstarr as well. Liriodendron....hello fellow gardener. [g] I LOVE to hang clothes outside. We bought two retractable lines for outdoors and haven't got them up but hope to soon. What's better than fresh sheets and towels off the line? We also try to buy no chemicals on our clothes and hate the 'no iron' clothes that are more and more the norm. No seasonal allergies here either. I also love sleeping with open windows. My mother used to tell me stories of how their family always had windows open in the winter but kept snuggly under thick comforters. I will make sure to look for that heater and figure out if it functions correctly. Thanks. Yes, I hadn't thought of the fact that using the front door dryer is already a fact of life, I suspect as suburbanmd points out, it would just be more of what we would like to avoid. Something to think about though. I have been told by the appliance dealer that with new Top Loaders you are not supposed to shove all the clothes in, but carefully load by dropping clothes in one at a time. Still they come out tangled and wrinkled according to some.

My Maytag Bravos washer has a Wrinkle Control cycle which I use for the great majority of our nicer office and church clothes. I use the Delicates cycle for more delicate fabrics and the Hand Wash cycle for the most delicate fabrics and sweaters. I use the Medium spin with the Wrinkle Control cycle and the Slow spin with the Delicates and Hand Wash cycle. When I wash towels and jeans/T-shirts, I use the normal wash cycles and fast spin. I haven't yet had ANY problem with wrinkling OR tangling. I have found the main way to prevent wrinkles in jeans is not to overload the machine (which is emphasized in the manual). My washer does not have an agitator; it has an impeller. The clothes come out much cleaner than they did in my former conventional TL's.

Do not buy Asko washer wl6511xxlw. We've had it for three years and it's required at least one repair a year sometimes two. It under warranty-so what. The time it's out of service waiting on parts and repair cancels out the usefulness of the coverage. Getting in-touch with someone fromThe service center of Appliances, Inc. takes for ever. You'll be on hold for everand forget about any empathy. You should pass on the Asko dryer tl751xxlw. It's loud and has required repair within the two years we've owned it. We feel suckered having bought into the "20 year life" of hype of these appliances. Learn from our experience. Do not buy.

Either you people have owned only poor-performing front loaders, or you haven't used them properly, or you and I are living in alternate universes. The PHYSICS of how clothes are cleaned in a front loader, dictates that they will come out cleaner than in your average top loader. If your front loader has way too much water during the wash cycle(s), clothes won't tumble correctly (the MAIN reason a FL cleans so well is the tumbling), or by having a unit that uses far less water than it SHOULD be using, in which case cleaning results will be problematic. Another reason for poor cleaning in a FL is if the unit doesn't get hot enough for the type of load (a pretty common issue, giving all the regulations), in which case you are going to have problems with grease-laden items. You have to choose the right cycle and you have to own a unit that works well, but if you take a properly functioning FL and a TL, the FL is going to clean far more efficiently and completely, due to the way fabrics are tumbled. Sure it takes longer for loads to run, but so what--we aren't running a race. We owned a properly functioning Maytag TL long before Maytag dipped in quality. It never could clean greasy rags well and left a lot of black residue in the tub (at the water line). Our FL never has residue and that's saying a hell of a lot, given the nasty, greasy rags that are periodically washed in it. The one thing I did do to optimize cleaning in our FL was to SLIGHTLY increase the water level. No amount of water level choices, cycle times, water temp choices, ever gave decent results in any of our models of front loaders. Sloshing clothes around in a tub of water just isn't going to get them adequately clean, as compared to tumbling in a horizontal drum with properly sized paddles and the correct amount of water (too much water will keep the clothes floating above the height of the paddles, preventing them from being lifted up and over).