Candy 1000t Washing Machine

[Jim Wortelhock]

Midland Chandlers told me that they supplied Candy washing machines up until last year but no longer. I have looked online but the smallest Candy I can find is a 7kg.

Do they still make the 3.5kg? And if not, what might my alternatives be with a new Victron 3000 multi.

My current Candy is 15 years old, still going but parts are hard to come by and it won't last forever. 

[mrsmelly]

I fitted the candy in my new build umpteen years ago. In reality, I found that at twice the price of a standard washing machine it didnt make much sense. It used more electric, water and powder than a standard as it needed switching on twice as often. It didnt use much less leccy, you will find a standard will run off your 3000 without problem provided its compatible, not all makes work with all inverters. All my boats since had full size, the space is easily found in all but the smallest boat, if you are talking narrowboats anyway. Of course if your boat has a purpose built area for the smaller machine then you are stuffed. Didnt Zanussi also make the smaller one at one time?

Just checked and Zanussi still do a 3kg one.

Edited March 11, 2023 by mrsmelly

[Jon57]

59 minutes ago, Jim Wortelhock said:

Midland Chandlers told me that they supplied Candy washing machines up until last year but no longer. I have looked online but the smallest Candy I can find is a 7kg.

Do they still make the 3.5kg? And if not, what might my alternatives be with a new Victron 3000 multi.

My current Candy is 15 years old, still going but parts are hard to come by and it won't last forever. 

One on eBay ATM £550 with delivery 😱😱

[Jim Wortelhock]

18 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

I fitted the candy in my new build umpteen years ago. In reality, I found that at twice the price of a standard washing machine it didnt make much sense. It used more electric, water and powder than a standard as it needed switching on twice as often. It didnt use much less leccy, you will find a standard will run off your 3000 without problem provided its compatible, not all makes work with all inverters. All my boats since had full size, the space is easily found in all but the smallest boat, if you are talking narrowboats anyway. Of course if your boat has a purpose built area for the smaller machine then you are stuffed. Didnt Zanussi also make the smaller one at one time?

Just checked and Zanussi still do a 3kg one.

Good point. We can fit a bigger unit up to 900h 600w and almost 600 deep.  

I suppose that the older style with clockwork like controls are less sensitive to boat electrics.

I have come across a Candy 4kg which must be the upgraded model. 

[DaveP]

I had a 1000t until the drum bearings went and I replaced it with a Candy 1042D1 (which is the replacement 4kg model) because it fitted the same cubbyhole.  It's happy with a cheapo pure-sine inverter, but only has a cold-water feed and has a higher power (1.25kW)heater.  But it doesn't object to being fed hot water from a Morco and on the cold-wash option the heater does not activate at all.  Having uprated my batteries to lithium and a skip-found 1800w inverter, I can now run the heater - but had to upgrade my battery-inverter wiring to cope with the near 2kW draw....

[magnetman]

The little Zanussi machines arrr good. I had one on the barge for a number of yars while the woman and children were residents. It did a lot of work and was good. Make sure to RTFM and take the transport bolts off otherwise it walks all over the place. I strapped it down with a ratchet strap. Then realised ! 

Also had a Candy 10 before that but never got on well with it as that boat was cruising and had MSW inverter which wouldn't run the machine properly. 

 

I think the candy had hot and cold fill which was handy. 

[DShK]

If you are happy with second hand - I have a little 3kg zanussi for sale. Check my thread history  (mods let me know if this kind of post isn't allowed).

Edited March 11, 2023 by DShK

[Jim Wortelhock]

25 minutes ago, magnetman said:

The little Zanussi machines arrr good. I had one on the barge for a number of yars while the woman and children were residents. It did a lot of work and was good. Make sure to RTFM and take the transport bolts off otherwise it walks all over the place. I strapped it down with a ratchet strap. Then realised ! 

Also had a Candy 10 before that but never got on well with it as that boat was cruising and had MSW inverter which wouldn't run the machine properly. 

 

I think the candy had hot and cold fill which was handy. 

Having always been poor I had never bought new. Eventually I bought a new washing machine when we moved into a flat. Installed it, having thrown the manual in the bin first, turned it on and marveled at its quietness. You can guess what happened during the spin cycle.  Furious, I phoned the shop to complain only to be asked whether I'd removed the transport bars. That's when I went through the bin to retrieve the manual. 

 

[pearley]

17 hours ago, magnetman said:

The little Zanussi machines arrr good. I had one on the barge for a number of yars while the woman and children were residents. It did a lot of work and was good. Make sure to RTFM and take the transport bolts off otherwise it walks all over the place. I strapped it down with a ratchet strap. Then realised ! 

Also had a Candy 10 before that but never got on well with it as that boat was cruising and had MSW inverter which wouldn't run the machine properly. 

 

I think the candy had hot and cold fill which was handy. 

We had 3 of those during our narrowboat days. The first required it's drum bearings replaced under warranty. The 'engineer' refused to do it onboard and took the machine away. At 8 years old the bearings went again so it was replaced by the later version. That lasted 4 years before the drum bearings failed. John Lewis refunded the purchase price under the terms of the extended warranty and we bought the 3rd one from Currys. That was still ok when we sold the boat.

 

The first and third ones worked fine with our Victron Multiplus. The second one refused.

 

On our widebeam we bought an Ebac 8kg machine because it was British, had a 1600rpm spin speed and a 7 year warranty. However, seemingly in common with many modern machines, it doesn't like small loads. Again, like many modern machines it is programmed to balance the load at the start of the spin programme and if it can't do this will either spin at much slower speeds or just stop.

 

One answer would be to save the dirty washing until we have a drum full but not so easy for just two of us if you need to separate cotton's from synthetics from coloureds. When we change the bedding each week one king size sheet, one topper and 4 pillowcases only weighs around 2 1/2 kgs.

 

Might have go for something cheap and just let it shake itself to bits.

[Jon57]

2 minutes ago, pearley said:

We had 3 of those during our narrowboat days. The first required it's drum bearings replaced under warranty. The 'engineer' refused to do it onboard and took the machine away. At 8 years old the bearings went again so it was replaced by the later version. That lasted 4 years before the drum bearings failed. John Lewis refunded the purchase price under the terms of the extended warranty and we bought the 3rd one from Currys. That was still ok when we sold the boat.

 

The first and third ones worked fine with our Victron Multiplus. The second one refused.

 

On our widebeam we bought an Ebac 8kg machine because it was British, had a 1600rpm spin speed and a 7 year warranty. However, seemingly in common with many modern machines, it doesn't like small loads. Again, like many modern machines it is programmed to balance the load at the start of the spin programme and if it can't do this will either spin at much slower speeds or just stop.

 

One answer would be to save the dirty washing until we have a drum full but not so easy for just two of us if you need to separate cotton's from synthetics from coloureds. When we change the bedding each week one king size sheet, one topper and 4 pillowcases only weighs around 2 1/2 kgs.

 

Might have go for something cheap and just let it shake itself to bits.

Or become a nudist 😁

[magnetman]

Or don't wash.

 

On my little inner city boat which does have mains electric I have a Burco wash boiler (the one with the spinning agitator) and a miniature tumble drier. They both use 2kw which is shocking.

 

I do some hand washing as well. 

 

I could be described as a little scruffy at times I suppose. 

 

[blackrose]

I've had a Zanussi ZWC 1300W (3kg) on my boat since 2006. Been used a couple of times a week as a liveaboard since then with no problems. These days I run it off the solar panels/inverter on a 30C cycle, but when I start it I pour a kettle of hot water into the detergent tray to reduce the time that the heating element is drawing from the batteries.

Edited March 12, 2023 by blackrose

[pearley]

1 hour ago, blackrose said:

I've had a Zanussi ZWC 1300W (3kg) on my boat since 2006. Been used a couple of times a week as a liveaboard since then with no problems. These days I run it off the solar panels/inverter on a 30C cycle, but when I start it I pour a kettle of hot water into the detergent tray to reduce the time that the heating element is drawing from the batteries.

That's outlasted all 3 of ours combined. Although in fairness my wife dud use it almost everyday

 

[magnetman]

When I had the woman accompanying me on the boat I found she tended to overload the 3kg washing machine. 

 

She lives ashore now and one less person in the household as I still live on boats but despite having a large washing machine she still overloads it. 

 

I suppose this is a personality thing. 

Edited March 12, 2023 by magnetman

[blackrose]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

 

I suppose this is a personality thing. 

 

Rather than a gender thing?

 

The 3kg machines are easy to overload, but for one or two people they're fine. When I bought mine in 2006 there was very little on the market that drew less than 2kW. The little Zanussi drew 1.6kW. However as someone else said, these days as long as you have the space there's no reason not to buy a full size energy efficient machine as some of them only draw about 1.6kW. The only difficulty is making sure your inverter will run the machine. 

[Jim Wortelhock]

We bought a second hand Zanussi and recently tried it out on the boat . It runs fine until it doesn't.  All the lights go out and won't work unless I turn on the toaster! Incompatible with the 3kw Victron clearly.

Works fine on mains.

[Tracy D'arth]

52 minutes ago, Jim Wortelhock said:

We bought a second hand Zanussi and recently tried it out on the boat . It runs fine until it doesn't.  All the lights go out and won't work unless I turn on the toaster! Incompatible with the 3kw Victron clearly.

Works fine on mains.

This is a common problem.  In the program pauses the electronics lose the feed  and the brain goes dead as the inverter voltage changes due to there being no load on the power. If you have a lamp with a filament bulb and run it at the same time you will find that it will go through the program. The load of a toaster is a lot more than you need!