Washing machine

Our washing machine died 2 weeks ago. It was technically still working and alive, but the last of the remaining supports at the bottom which held the tub up gave up and broke. We ran 2 more loads of wash after the last support broke and the machine kept making these awful noises that really scared us. I began to see visions of burst hoses and cleaning up flooding messes so we decided to let our washer move on.

The thing is, we reside in a small two-bedroom condo and our washer resides in one of our upstairs hall closets - not a lot of space. Given the situation, we're limited to compact portable washers and they're not exactly cheap.

Another factor to consider is that God-willing, we don't plan on staying here any longer than we have to (translation: real house!) and when we do move out, we want a full-sized, heavy-duty washer in the new place. In short, the washer is staying.

What i'm trying to say is that at this point, we're looking for something:
- small, should fit in the closet
- usable, of course!
- cheap, preferably below the $500 mark (cost of the new washing machine + cost to get rid of the old one)


And our search has brought up to this point, we found a nice portable washer from Walmart.com and it had good reviews.

To save on shipping costs, we availed of their site-to-store service (free) and picked the washer up from the nearest location. Hubby and I carried, pulled, pushed, rolled (we had a trolley) this all the way from the car to our 2nd floor condo entrance and then up another flight of stairs to our 2nd floor closet (3rd floor relative to the bldg).

It was a BIG 90 lb package. the weight wasn't really an issue, it's just that it was so big and well, hallways, doorways and stairways are tight around here.

As for the old washer, we had paid our fave handyman & his son $80 to haul it out ($40 goes to the town dump for recycling fees).

Next came the unboxing. I will not bore you with the tons of pictures I took - excited kasi - and let's jump to the part where we already have it installed in its place.

It fits just right, no ?

There's 27 inches from the back wall to the sliding door. The new washer's depth is 22 inches, add a few more inches for the hoses & water connections at the back and that is it. Looking at this makes me really relieved that we did not go for the heavy-duty full-sized washer that wasn't a lot more expensive than this (and is a good and known brand), it was 25 inches deep and we were thinking that it might fit.

Hindi pala. now, I realize why my neighbor had to take the doors off her laundry closet - she had a full sized washer installed.

here is a top view of the new machine.

Yes, it's a Magic Chef. We've run a few loads and it does clean nicely, it's also more spacious than the old one because there is no agitator in the center of the tub.

I also like that we can program a delay so you can load up the washer at night and delay the actual run till the next day. You can also program the load size (6 settings), water temperature (hot, warm, cold), wash types (cotton, permanent press, delicates, etc) and cycles (wash, rinse and spin). It's so useful for us because hubby always likes to run an extra rinse cycle after everything is done - oo, magastos sa tubig. My only complaint is that there's no way to change/program the default settings so we have to go through the entire selection process each time we use it.

Sound levels are also amazing. I barely hear a swishing or humming sound, depending on what type of cycle it is on, and only when I listen intently.


Our total costs came to a little less than $400 + some hard work in bringing the new one home and setting it up. Overall, I'm happy and the past 1.5 weeks that we've had to live with using our bldg laundry room for washing our clothes has not been easy - it's so very inconvenient - because we have to walk back/forth and remember to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer and then pick it up afterwards.

Eto pang si bulilit, kung kelan nagtitipid sa clean clothes, saka pa gumagamit ng up to 3 sets of clothes sa daycare and anther 3 sets of sleeping clothes at night (leaks).