Slimline washing machine

[Nige]

Hi everyone,

 

If your fitting out - or changing your washing machine on board and are tight on space, check this out....

 

http://www.ogormans.ltd.uk/erol.html#442x0&&

 

I think it's going to be the one for me...

[Canal Shop Man]

Water consumption 69 litres

 

How big is your water tank??? Or your calorifier???

 

Try this twin-tub, it's cheaper, smaller and uses a lot less water:

 

[David]

Hi

Hotpoint technical say none off their machines are suitable for running direct from a generated supply, just in case you are using one.

How true this is I don't know as the people I spoke to seem very off hand when I was making enquiries. One assumes they would be OK from a pure sine inverter.

david

[Moley]

We're talking about liveaboards, right?

 

Otherwise, what's wrong with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washboard

 

or making a set of clothes last a week (you can be guaranteed a seat at the bar )

[John Orentas]

"Hotpoint technical say none off their machines are suitable for running direct from a generated supply".

 

Surely mains supplied from your freindly power company is a 'direct generated supply', makes you wonder what sort of people they employ in their technical department. The power from a decent generator is identical to a mains supply so how does the washing machine know.

[grandunion5]

How about this one: at 67.5cm x 46cm x 46cm, it is rather compact! They are expensive though!

 

http://www.eudora.at

 

click PRODUKTE, click WASHVOLLAUTOMATEN 3kgs on the left, click BABYNOVA 380 rapid on the left.

The site is in German but the figures are easy to understand

 

www.improducts.co.uk advertise another washing machine of the same brand. Although it is also compact,

the energy efficiency and water consumption are not as good.

 

Marc

[wrigglefingers]

Hello Nige

 

My friendly local washing machine mechanic (mends the ones at school regularly!) recommended this Zanussi top loader and this

Bosch top loader as both consumed less water and, he thought, probably electricity too. Both are reliable he thinks but doesn't fit too many. He doesn't like the Whirlpool for some reason and says they're regularly superseded. Apparently, that's a Bad Thing in the washing machine world. He said to check whether they'd run on 'dodgy' supply. It has to be said that he'd never considered having one on a narrowboat and thought that discharging vast amounts of soapy water into the canal was a bit anti-social though probably alright if it was Ecover or similar.

 

Still investigating and I'll post when I find out although I'd think that the usual caveats apply (pure sine supply and keeping it simple and as sustainable as possible seems to be best). This will take some time as I'm a stranger to the ways of electricity.

 

Good luck, Jill

[bottle]

 

"Hotpoint technical say none off their machines are suitable for running direct from a generated supply".

 

Surely mains supplied from your freindly power company is a 'direct generated supply', makes you wonder what sort of people they employ in their technical department. The power from a decent generator is identical to a mains supply so how does the washing machine know.

 

I have contacted many manufacturers about the use of their equipment, when the electricity is to come from a generator and they have 'all' said (paraphrased) that they would not guarantee the equipment as it was designed to worked with 'mains supply'.

 

I contacted the local generation company, for my home, and found out the parameters for their supply, also a generator company (Onan) for their generators parameters.

 

Guess what the generator (Onan) had a better control on the suply than that that comes from my local mains.

 

The parameters were much more tightly controled.

 

Having said that some electronic controls on appliances have had problems when running from a local generator.

 

Keep it simple if possible stay away from eletronic controls.

 

ps. the manufacturers also said that their engineers could not carry out repairs on board as they would not be insured (s'pose if it was on the towpath that would be OK)

Edited March 5, 2006 by bottle

[John Orentas]

"Keep it simple if possible stay away from electronic controls".

 

It sound like sound advice to stay away from electronic control, but mainly because many of the controls are manufactured to a very poor standard, who really wants electric control on a washing machine anyway. It is perfectly feasible to build electronics which will tolerate very bad mains supplies. When I was employed at a company in Bolton the building suffered a mains supply that was so bad with power surges and dips that machines on the shop floor could be heard to change note and the florescent lights would regularly go out and come back on again, I know from experience the voltage must drop below 150 for this to happen, but remarkably none of the computers and there must have been thirty or so never even blinked.

 

So it the computer manufacturers can do it then so can all the others, no good blaming the supply, they are producing rubbish electronics.

[pagan witch]

I know I'm kind of mixing the threads here but as liveaboards we use a Candy washer / tumble that runs fine from our admittedly slightly over the top 5.5 kVA generator. With the exception of one boat that runs the twin tub pictured in the thread all other washing machines here are Candy.

 

On the repair front ours recently stopped tumble drying - it tumbled but no heat. The cause was a power failure on the jetty (mains) and this lead to the machine stopping and the heater elements 'tripping' as without the passing air they overheated. Our local friendly one man band mechanic had no problems working on the boat and a simple reset was all that was required. It took longer to get the machine out and the top off than it did to press the re-set button.

 

We too are concerned about chucking detergents in the water so mainly use Ecover. That said, the ammount of detergent we throw in compared to what industrial users are allowed to throw in is miniscule but we feel that doing something is better than doing nothing.

 

As for computers they tend to use switch mode power supplies that very roughly speaking 'grab bits of the sine wave in passing' and are designed to run on anything between around 90v and 250v hence would be quite happy with a seemingly 'dodgy' supply.

[DHutch]

On the repair front ours recently stopped tumble drying - it tumbled but no heat. The cause was a power failure on the jetty (mains) and this lead to the machine stopping and the heater elements 'tripping' as without the passing air they overheated.

Yeah, my grandads machine did that when he opened the door to get cloths out, without letting it do its cool-down bit at the end.

- Never had a problem with our trusty 18year old dryed, and its not likly to do rust though its body pannels (which is what wrote off the matching washer)

 

 

Daniel

[mr toad]

Can I just say about those little twin tub washing machines. I have had one now for 6 months using it twice a week. They are good and a low power consumption. I run mine off my generator with a surge protect plug just for good measure. Also I have just ordered a 800w tabletop tumble dryer which I hope will be delivered before the weekend so I can try it out.