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Comment by therealmarv | Hacker News Reader

In Europe you will find nowhere toploader. We know they are poor engineering: Bad water and electricity efficiency combined with more stress and wear out for the fabrics during washing. Only plus side I can see is that it is faster... but wasting so much resources does not justifies it IMHO.

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This is not true. Modern top loaders, such as Samsung High Efficiency top loaders don't waste water like the old mechanical top loaders. They weigh the clothing, adjusting the water levels accordingly. They also don't have agitators, and wear fabrics less than the spinning action of a rotating drum. For a 2nd story laundry, they are a no-brainer, because the spin cycle (which is much faster than an old-school top loader) results in significantly less vibration than a front loader.

Source: owned a front-loader, several cheap "old school" top loaders, and a modern, High Efficiency top loader. The last one, is the best by far.

Even Samsungs best top loaders still use significantly more water and energy than a front loader.

No. They're fucking terrible. Don't buy one. Buy a front-loader. Trust me.

Why would a spin cycle wear clothes more when oriented one direction versus the other?

They also have ridiculously long cycles. No thanks, I'll take the front loader and 22 minute cycles.

We had a top loader that spins around horizontal axis, just as front loaders do, should have the same water consumption.

Oh yes, that's true! In Europe they are also used when there is not enough space for purely front loaders... nevertheless they still spin around horizontal axis.

> Only plus side I can see is that it is faster...

I enjoy being able to wash my blankets. When I had a front loader, it was impossible to get anything large clean, especially with how many fabrics here in America at least are all synthetic so water beads off rather than being adsorbed. The only way to clean cheap linen here is to completely immerse it in water.

All front loaders I know (Europe) have programs for all use cases (it's more complicated for sure). But when I compare a usual top loader in the US with a usual front loader in Europa I can relate to the top loader having much more space (when you get space problems in any loader it will not wash good). Never had a problem to wash the largest blanket in a normal front loader here were I live (Germany) but we also do not like synthetics so much for blankets.

> All front loaders I know (Europe) have programs for all use cases (it's more complicated for sure).

My US front loader forced water saving mode, it sprayed a light mist of water, which quickly beaded off of synthetics.

It was otherwise a great machine, but until I moved out I had multiple large comforters I couldn't use.

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