Dirty Laundry

Last spring I got my dream washer/dryer. I’d researched for a few months and decided on a stacking front-load set. They’re compact, they’re really water and energy efficient, they’re new and they’re awesome. Except for one thing… we live in the second floor apartment of a hundred-year-old house.

One of the things that makes the front-load washer so efficient is that it spins at a super high rate of speed. It’s a little like listening to a jet spin up, and as it spins up it vibrates at varying frequencies. So first the glasses rattle. Then the stuff on the counter rattles. Then the house starts to shake.

I leveled that machine within a gnat’s ass front to back, side to side and on the diagonals. I made sure that all four feet were in complete contact with the floor. I spent hours tweaking the bugger. Nevertheless, it was impossible to run the washer on the highest spin setting without getting that primal urge to flee. It felt like an earthquake. Not a big one - more like a 3.2 trembler than a full-on 6.0 rumbler – but even so it’s more than a little disconcerting.

So we ran the washer on a lighter cycle and that was better but the house still shimmied on the spin. It got to the point where I only did a load of laundry if I knew I was going to be out of the house by the time it spun up (17 minutes from pushing start). This usually worked - except for when my guy was working from home. On those days we either didn't do laundry or he'd have to suffer through the shimmy. Not ideal.

Finally, after about 8 months of mounting laundry anxiety we arrived at the conclusion that despite of all their positive green and earth-friendly attributes, the dream washer and dryer do not necessarily qualify as a home improvement.

I considered my options. I could install a concrete foundation from the ground up through the downstairs bedroom and up to our laundry station and separate it from the surrounding house structure using neoprene isolation pads. Or I could do a complete seismic retrofit of the house, adding hold-downs, seismic straps and shear panels across the main framing members in the building. Or I could put the washer and dryer up for sale on Craig’s list and go on down to Sears and buy an old fashioned energy guzzling water wasting laundry center with a top loading washer.

I chose the most expedient of the three options and went to Sears.

The dream washer/dryer set went to a friend of mine from work who plans to install it on the concrete floor in his basement. He’s really happy. He got a screamin’ deal.

And we now have a fully functioning super capacity old school stacked washer/dryer. We are very happy with it and the house is much relieved too.