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What washing machine?...If I get one.


The Grumpy Triker

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Hi all,

Next on the list is a washing machine solution.....I haven't made up my mind whether to have one or if it should be twin tub in the shower room for ease of draining or if it is a fully automatic with dedicated electric cable from the shoreline power connection.

can you advise if you have one, if so was it worth it .....given that I am not going to be in one place all year.....and if so which is the best option. Pumping out the automatic is an unknown to me....sorry edit added - just to clarify, in that am not sure if it goes straight out into the canal or into a sewage tank etc.?

As always many thanks in advance folks....need to sort this before I start the rebuild as IF I get one, it will go in the first part of my rebuild...using the l-shape I'm cutting out of the back-up loo.....else this will be shelving.

Cheers folks :cheers:

Edited by The Grumpy Triker
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As a full time liveaboard and not being cavemen we would never be without one, others like humping bags of washing to launderettes as they are kinky but that's their choice. I prefer twintubs and they wash well with less leccy etc but hard to come buy for a full size one nowadays. DO NOT buy one of the smaller automatics we have done that in the past but in reality they take up nearly as much room as a proper one and cost too much.We have an LG which are not cheap but no silly belts to snap etc though we have owned lots of others. Generaly best to go with pure sine inverter or gennie but even then some machines can be arsey about the power source. Provided you get the set up correct from the start they are all simple enough to fit.

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1 minute ago, mrsmelly said:

As a full time liveaboard and not being cavemen we would never be without one, others like humping bags of washing to launderettes as they are kinky but that's their choice. I prefer twintubs and they wash well with less leccy etc but hard to come buy for a full size one nowadays. DO NOT buy one of the smaller automatics we have done that in the past but in reality they take up nearly as much room as a proper one and cost too much.We have an LG which are not cheap but no silly belts to snap etc though we have owned lots of others. Generaly best to go with pure sine inverter or gennie but even then some machines can be arsey about the power source. Provided you get the set up correct from the start they are all simple enough to fit.

Cheers for that....is it a gravity drain at end of cycle or a pump out?...guessing a drain....would then need to think of how to fit it in the shower room as was looking at the compacts so cheers for the warning.

Don't fancy the launderette route but not sure how people find it......and always worried about the waste water, not being too up on which powders / liquids to use on a boat.

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We had a washer dryer installed from when the boat was built. The inverter is a 3000VA sine wave Victron , but unless the boat is plugged in to a 16A shore supply the machine will not work - the drum merely "twitches" and won't rotate.  It has been suggested in the past that there is an "energy saving" mode that may be enabled that I think alters the output waveform, but not yet looked into switching that off..  I can't remember the make/model of the  machine but will edit this over the next few days..

Anyway the main point of this post is that if we ever wanted to remove the machine it would entail either dismantling it or removing a window to get it out of the central "dining" area, as it is far too wide to get it through the doors that were built, after it was put in to the centre area of the boat..

Nick

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1 minute ago, Nickhlx said:

We had a washer dryer installed from when the boat was built. The inverter is a 3000VA sine wave Victron , but unless the boat is plugged in to a 16A shore supply the machine will not work - the drum merely "twitches" and won't rotate.  It has been suggested in the past that there is an "energy saving" mode that may be enabled that I think alters the output waveform, but not yet looked into switching that off..  I can't remember the make/model of the  machine but will edit this over the next few days..

Anyway the main point of this post is that if we ever wanted to remove the machine it would entail either dismantling it or removing a window to get it out of the central "dining" area, as it is far too wide to get it through the doors that were built, after it was put in to the centre area of the boat..

Nick

Now that is a bugger....bit like my first flat, bought a new bed but couldn't get the old one out without chopping it up into small pieces. Was a steel framed bed as well:unsure:

Think I would only ever use mine when shoreline attached, given expectation on power requirements

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38 minutes ago, The Grumpy Triker said:

Pumping out the automatic is an unknown to me....sorry edit added - just to clarify, in that am not sure if it goes straight out into the canal or into a sewage tank etc.?

Ours goes straight into the cut via a hose attached to a skin fitting, pumped out by the machine. This has to be remembered at winterising time.

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25 minutes ago, Nickhlx said:

We had a washer dryer installed from when the boat was built. The inverter is a 3000VA sine wave Victron , but unless the boat is plugged in to a 16A shore supply the machine will not work - the drum merely "twitches" and won't rotate.  It has been suggested in the past that there is an "energy saving" mode that may be enabled that I think alters the output waveform, but not yet looked into switching that off..  I can't remember the make/model of the  machine but will edit this over the next few days..

Anyway the main point of this post is that if we ever wanted to remove the machine it would entail either dismantling it or removing a window to get it out of the central "dining" area, as it is far too wide to get it through the doors that were built, after it was put in to the centre area of the boat..

Nick

I switched our Victron to the power saving mode as we had a 230 volt fridge and found that the quiescent drain of the inverter was quite high. Then we found that the washing machine wouldn't work properly, especially when going from wash to spin so changed it back and later bought a 12 volt fridge. 

Our current Zanussi compact washer with not work from the Victron. The old one did.

Ours also pumps out via skin fitting. The Zanussi has a height requirement that the drain has to be above the bottom of the machine. We found that in its original position we had to tie the hose up otherwise the machine didn't fill to its proper level. 

Edited by pearley
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The washing machine will pump out no problem so you just need a suitable skin fitting (so the hose pushes on nice and tight and also use a jubilee clip). I think the w/m instructions will show that ordinarily the hose is set in a kind of goose neck - and there are limits as to how high the outlet can pump, but basically, do a hole where convenient (required distance above waterline obviously) and you should be fine. Use a tct holesaw - very easy to get through the hull.

Regarding washer dryers - I have heard that "condensing" dryers use a lot of cold water in the drying process, so something to avoid.

FYI I have a Bosch WWF2000, nothing special and I took it from the flat when I moved out as I wanted my tenants to have a washer dryer. It seems that newer machines are a little less deep - which can always be useful on a n/b.

PS: you should news eco friendly product (I use Ecover).

Edited by Johny London
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1 hour ago, The Grumpy Triker said:

Cheers for that....is it a gravity drain at end of cycle or a pump out?...guessing a drain....would then need to think of how to fit it in the shower room as was looking at the compacts so cheers for the warning.

Don't fancy the launderette route but not sure how people find it......and always worried about the waste water, not being too up on which powders / liquids to use on a boat.

Its pumped which as liveaboards and not winterisng is no problem. The compacts look great and we fell for it years ago but actual space used is no real saving and you need to do two wash loads to do the quantity of one standard wash load so in real world useage they use more water and more leccy!!

Edited by mrsmelly
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53 minutes ago, pearley said:

I switched our Victron to the power saving mode as we had a 230 volt fridge and found that the quiescent drain of the inverter was quite high. Then we found that the washing machine wouldn't work properly, especially when going from wash to spin so changed it back and later bought a 12 volt fridge. 

Our current Zanussi compact washer with not work from the Victron. The old one did.

Ours also pumps out via skin fitting. The Zanussi has a height requirement that the drain has to be above the bottom of the machine. We found that in its original position we had to tie the hose up otherwise the machine didn't fill to its proper level. 

OK - thanks for that - I will definitely try that and hope it solves the problem

Thanks,

Nick

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19 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Its pumped which as liveaboards and not winterisng is no problem. The compacts look great and we fell for it years ago but actual space used is no real saving and you need to do two wash loads to do the quantity of one standard wash load so in real world useage they use more water and more leccy!!

:cheers:

25 minutes ago, Johny London said:

Ecover liquid :)

PS their dishwasher tablets are excellent too.

Dishwasher!?....not even dreamt of one of those.....I am the dishwasher :D

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6 minutes ago, Johny London said:

Very good on saving water - 11 litres for a whole load, which when you think about how much you will prolly use doing item by item, is economical as well as labour saving.

I had a boat with a dishwasher fitted it was one of Mr Hudsons creations so obviously it was a standard fitment :rolleyes: I think we used it about four times in 4/5 years, the bloke who bought the boat from me had it removed. However whilst of no use to us they do as you say probably save on water useage.

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2 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

As a full time liveaboard and not being cavemen we would never be without one, others like humping bags of washing to launderettes as they are kinky but that's their choice. I prefer twintubs and they wash well with less leccy etc but hard to come buy for a full size one nowadays. DO NOT buy one of the smaller automatics we have done that in the past but in reality they take up nearly as much room as a proper one and cost too much.We have an LG which are not cheap but no silly belts to snap etc though we have owned lots of others. Generaly best to go with pure sine inverter or gennie but even then some machines can be arsey about the power source. Provided you get the set up correct from the start they are all simple enough to fit.

I thought you had a Travelpower in which case you have tons of leccy so an automatic would be fine.

Our boats came with  a (condensing) washer drier but the drier took ages, used loads of water, and did not dry too well. When it died we replaced it with a standard automatic from John Lewis. They delivered to the boat and lifted the machine into position, lifting it over the sofa, but would not connect it up as they did not understand boats! A special issue with the Travelpower is that the voltage will really drop if we go onto tickover when the heat cycle is running, its a bit unknown how machines will cope with this but I think most recent ones are ok. Ours just pauses, and resumes when the voltage recovers.

An engine room makes an excellent drying room. A passing boater once shouted to warn us that there was pile of washing on top of the engine. :D

.......Dave

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6 minutes ago, dmr said:

I thought you had a Travelpower in which case you have tons of leccy so an automatic would be fine.

Our boats came with  a (condensing) washer drier but the drier took ages, used loads of water, and did not dry too well. When it died we replaced it with a standard automatic from John Lewis. They delivered to the boat and lifted the machine into position, lifting it over the sofa, but would not connect it up as they did not understand boats! A special issue with the Travelpower is that the voltage will really drop if we go onto tickover when the heat cycle is running, its a bit unknown how machines will cope with this but I think most recent ones are ok. Ours just pauses, and resumes when the voltage recovers.

An engine room makes an excellent drying room. A passing boater once shouted to warn us that there was pile of washing on top of the engine. :D

.......Dave

I do have a travel power but was giving all the options to the OP. Some of our other boats didn't have one didn't even have an inverter as they hadn't been invented. Its not only how much leccy in one hit I was meaning with the compacts for instance they are something like 3kg? wash load from memory and use x water and still need heaters and take say 1 hour 30 or whatever. A standard washer will be at least twice and often now more than twice the capacity will not use twice the water and will do 6kg in the 1hr 30 whereas the compact would need more water and 3 hrs of leccy time. We did have one and soon realised the error of our ways on that boat. Our travel power is fine on tickover I think it depends who bloomin fitted em. We do however usualy use it when moving but if alongside raise to about 1k revs as its less hassle for the unit. Brill bit of kit aren't they :cheers:

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9 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

I do have a travel power but was giving all the options to the OP. Some of our other boats didn't have one didn't even have an inverter as they hadn't been invented. Its not only how much leccy in one hit I was meaning with the compacts for instance they are something like 3kg? wash load from memory and use x water and still need heaters and take say 1 hour 30 or whatever. A standard washer will be at least twice and often now more than twice the capacity will not use twice the water and will do 6kg in the 1hr 30 whereas the compact would need more water and 3 hrs of leccy time. We did have one and soon realised the error of our ways on that boat. Our travel power is fine on tickover I think it depends who bloomin fitted em. We do however usualy use it when moving but if alongside raise to about 1k revs as its less hassle for the unit. Brill bit of kit aren't they :cheers:

We are double lucky cus we have a TravelPower and a 1000litre water tank so the washing machine is no problem. We also have one of those slow revving engines of which I believe you disprove :D  so even with a big pulley on the engine the TP is still a bit slow on tickover. The washing machine has various "fast" washes including a 20 minute wash which is rather useful in the winter when we cruise less, though it usually takes at lease half an hour, suspect they are metric minutes.

..............Dave

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6 minutes ago, dmr said:

We are double lucky cus we have a TravelPower and a 1000litre water tank so the washing machine is no problem. We also have one of those slow revving engines of which I believe you disprove :D  so even with a big pulley on the engine the TP is still a bit slow on tickover. The washing machine has various "fast" washes including a 20 minute wash which is rather useful in the winter when we cruise less, though it usually takes at lease half an hour, suspect they are metric minutes.

..............Dave

My bro in law needs an anchor for our forthcoming trip so you could give him your engine and he could use it as a mud weight ( better use for it ) and you could buy a lovely JD3 to take the wasted boat space up again and run yer TP properly? :D

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1 minute ago, mrsmelly said:

My bro in law needs an anchor for our forthcoming trip so you could give him your engine and he could use it as a mud weight ( better use for it ) and you could buy a lovely JD3 to take the wasted boat space up again and run yer TP properly? :D

Not getting involved in this one :ninja:

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..... back to washing machines :) , I had both a compact washer and compact dryer , both 3kg which ran perfectly either on my inverter or my genny. I have recently replaced them with a 11kg wash/ 7kg dry washer dryer which is brilliant as it will wash a king size quilt... So, although it would be pushing it trying to run it on the inverter or genny, rather than doing that, whilst CC'ing i will just spend a night in a marina every 2-3 weeks and just spend 24 hours washing and drying on a hook up.

Rick

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I've had the compact Zanussi ZWC1300 for the last 12 years. It's a great machine but if you're not on shore power you'll need a decent generator to run it - or a good inverter, battery bank and alternators - or Travelpower. I use my washing machine unmodified cold fill and run it with a Honda EU30i generator. Sometimes it starts straight away from the generator and sometimes it waits for half an hour before it will accept the generator as a power source, but once it starts it's fine.

Edited by blackrose
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