Top Load water usage question

[Howard]

How much water do older top load Maytags use per wash?

[championlaundry]

Howard,

I have some of the older maytag toploaders
and they use approx. 40 gallons.

Mike

[Dave_in_Minnesota]

How much water is a front load #20 using?

[Howard]

My front load Wascomats use approximately 2 gallons per rated pound of capacity.

[Marianne]

Have you measured the water that the machines use, or taken the water usage from the manufacturers specs?

[Howard]

I've taken this from their detailed literature. You can reduce this number some if you eliminate one of the three rinses or cut-out the pre-soak cycle.

[petefritz]

I run my fronts with prewash,wash and 2 rinse. I would not want to get rid of the prewash. I think it is worth the extra costs, but I do charge a little more than most.
People pay it, so they must know, or notice, the difference.

[PeterH]

I'd like to remove the prewash and 1 rinse, but I'm not going to leave my customers with a 6 minute wash. If I could increase the wash time, I'd do it in a heartbeat! I'd also eliminate 1 rinse if the soapbox was 1/4 the size it is now. Too many people love too much soap.

-ph

[LEEHUSTON]

Most frontloaders are designed for a prewash, a wash and three rinses for a reason. The reason is to give a quality wash. If you shorten the cycle you are not giving a high quality wash. There are no new laws of physics, it takes mechanical action to clean clothes in cojunction with water and chemicals. If you shorten the cycle you can't get them as clean. What we need to be doing is charging what it costs for a high quality wash and not just try to take the cheap way out. If somebody in my town shortens the wash I let people know that my wash is better! Love to let them know how they are getting gyped!

[Marianne]

Leehuston, the new frontloaders that I have ordered are factory preset, I believe, for only two rinses. Are they building cheap in?

[LEEHUSTON]

YES, I think they are building in cheap. It is common knowledge that 3 rinses is the standard not only in coin laundry but any commercial laundry situation. The manufacturers are substituting a cheap way out instead of R&D and spending money on creative ways to make new equipment that will conserve water but give the high quality wash that people deserve and want to pay for. Don't you feel gyped? Speed queen did a similar thing on the machines I just ordered and received. If a person requests a hot wash the machine mixes cold water in also to save on energy costs! Wow that really took some ingenuity! The fact is now the customer does not get a hot wash, but warm at best. Lets don't throught the baby out with the bath water!

[Marianne]

I was told that I can let customers choose to pay more for the third rinse and the prewash cycles. Pay more for what they always used to get as a matter of course.

Oh, well, you should hear what they say when I complain because the card machines don't refund unused 'card value.' This is supposed to be one of the great things about cards. You get their money without earning it.

[LEEHUSTON]

I hear what you are saying. Some of these distributors remind me of the way automobile companies used to be in the seventies. "Make anything,any way you can, and the public will have to buy it." I for one really feel that alot of the ideas being sold today are contrary to good customer service and still support the idea that coin laundry customers are idots and the owners aren't much better! Keep up the fight for decent laundries that try to provide a good product!

[petefritz]

Hey PeteH... I went to that website, could not find the comments on the new whirlpool. To many topics. What is the scoop on them? I have toploads I want to replace soon, am even going to clean 01 just to look for the best option. The we16 is a possibility, I want to see a ipso 12#frontloader also. I don't want to rob business from my hard mount doubles, and want a washer I can price like a toploader, with similar capacity, that will cost me less to run. So the new Whirlpool is of interest to me.
thanks
Pete

[PeterH]

Speaking of good products and good customer service, is anyone out there considering putting in Whirlpool Calypso machines when they come available for the coin market later this year? I've been following the discussion about them over at thathomesite.com, and I would seriously think twice before doing so. Anyone out there in ownersland have any firsthand experience with this machine at home (the Kenmore Calypso)?

-ph

[PeterH]

It was just a short piece in a recent American Coin-Op issue that featured a top loader review. It didn't come out and say it was the Calypso, but I don't think Whirlpool is coming out with a true toploading H-axis washer -- the reps at the Clean 99 show were very negative on front loaders. The scoop is they bounce the load around the tub under a waterfall of recirculating water and detergent. The load is never immersed in water, only subject to the shower, so water savings are significant over toploaders.

http://www.thathomesite.com/forums/load/appl/msg0922492316193.html?293

-ph

[LEEHUSTON]

Consumer reports gave the calypso a very high rating, but also commented that the price is very high. Would be interesting to see if this thing really works. This is an example of a company trying something new instead of just trying to cheapen an already proven washing method.

[petefritz]

Thanks PeteH, I read up on the Calypso. I was amazed at how much was posted about it. From what I read, it still does not really solve my problem of replacing a topload with something of similar tub size, so I can price it the same. The Whirlpool had a big tub like Neptune, which some owners around here have put in instead of hard mount double loaders, and pricing them like doubles. The most likely replacement I have seen so far is the Wasco w-16. That tub is a little smaller than the others, and holds just a little more than a regular toploader, I tested one last week.
Will look in New Orleans at the Clean show to see what else they have come up with, but right now the w-16 seems to be the best replacement, size wize.