DIYbanter - View Single Post - Does anyone know how badly designed the conical LG washer/dryer drainfilter unit is?

Cydrome Leader

wrote:
Warning: This is a bit of a rant....

I would not accuse you of being a Luddite, but I do question your understanding of basic care-and-feeding of appliances. You admit to doing tear-down maintenance of a microwave oven (surely not in any operations manual), yet will not admit to the most basic understanding of the car-and-feeding of other, larger appliances.

Sure, our range has as much computing power as the Space Shuttle ((but so did the Commodore VIC20), and as such probably should be on a circuit protected by a surge-suppressor (and it is). It is now 12 years old and doing fine. The oven gets used very nearly every day, so it does need cleaning (maintenance), and every so often, beyond just the self-clean feature - and that is not in any manual either.

As to the clothes washer - cleaning the sump quarterly is no big deal, is it? If the alternative is replacing the pump, probably annually (with heavy use)? Now:

a) The typical old-style top-loader used between 35 and 45 gallons of water per full load. The average washer is used 400 times per year (family of four(4)). Splitting the difference, that is 16,000 gallons of water per year. That is 44 gallons per day, just for washing clothes. Which is, typically, also heated at least in part.
b) The typical old-style top-loader leaves between one and two gallons of water behind in a full load. Which must be dried, either mechanically or on a clothes line. How many here use a clothes line? For everything?
c) Our LG uses five (5) gallons of water on the heavy-duty cycle, and seven (7) if we use a pre-rinse (never needed to, at least so far). Giving it a 8:1 advantage over the top-loader. and a 3:1 advantage over even the most efficient modern top-loader. Making that occasional vinegar douche not so horrible - well, we use chlorine bleach often enough that the vinegar is rarely needed.

At our summer house, where we both make and dispose of our water on-site, and we are on a Class A trout-stream, water consumption is a huge factor. Just below functionality, but above first-cost and even maintenance - although so far, that has been minimal. We are also exceedingly careful of the materials we use such as soaps and detergents.

(Definition of Class A Waters:
Streams that support a population of naturally produced trout of sufficient size and abundance to support a long-term and rewarding sport fishery.
Management:
Natural reproduction, wild populations with no stocking)

And learning what works over the last 30 years upstate has translated into choices we make "at home" to keep to a more gentle footprint - OK, not the "American Way" but so what?

It is a matter of choices made. But it does gripe me when individuals
blame the object rather than the caretaker of that object for its
failure after years of negligence.

I live in Chicago. We have too much fresh water (yeah, this is really a
problem, lake michigan has record high water levels and the bike paths is
getting splashed with water). I'm going to run the biggest, oldest most
water using washing machine I can get my hands on. They clean better too,
there's more space in the drum, you don't get everything all knotted up
trying to save the last drops of the cheapest more infinite resource we
have in the great lakes. LG appliances will be long shut down, sold,
divested or whatever is hot long before the parts supply for even a
kenmore washer dries up.

None of those asian appliances brands are meant to be serviced. They are
meant to be thrown away, like a cell phone.