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Comment by cebert | Hacker News Reader

If you’re looking for that reliability and simplicity, you may want to take a look at SpeedQueen. They’re a bit more expensive, but built like tanks.

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I did - I bought a Speed Queen set. To be fair, mine was a set of used units, but after reading thousands of these anecdotes across the internet, I knew that they were easily rated for 10k+ loads.

The part that was true - they're built like tanks. The part I didn't expect - they're super rudimentary machines. They're loud and not particularly efficient.

I had mine for just over a year before my wife voluntold me to find something else.

The newer Speed Queens are barely audible. I have to listen for the water sloshing to tell it's even on.

The Speed Queen TC5 is a splendid washer. Sadly they still felt the need to junk it up with ASICs for some reason, but it works extremely well. One warning, the "standard" clean or "EPA setting" is the one they included to pass regulatory requirements and doesn't clean like older washers do. Fortunately there are several other settings to achieve traditional performance.

> Fortunately there are several other settings to achieve traditional performance.

What are they? I'm thinking of getting one eventually?

Though, being a white collar worker, my clothes probably don't actually get dirty enough to really need more heavy duty settings.

There is a deep fill option that uses extra water. Then the cycle selection additionally has perm press, heavy duty, bulky/sheet, spin, and delicate. All of those are traditional. Only the default “normal eco” setting without the deep fill option doesn’t get soiled clothes properly clean. I use eco for most things by the way since I don’t work in the fields. But if I did this machine would handle it.

There’s an independent appliance store near my house that sells speed queen. I always drool over those!

Are the front load Speed Queens also best in class? I can see a front loader in our future; they do use less water. The old-school Maytag, especially with the wife's insistence on an extra rinse, uses a lot.

We bought a 20 year old Speed Queen last year for $100. Running great.

There's a reason most laundromats are full of them.

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