Experience with the Fisher and Paykel Aquasmart

[mum2lucas]

Ok so the washing machine has decided it has had enough and is playing up. We had a minor repair done last weekend and I thought we might get a bit more life out of it but it was not to be! I have been thinking about replacing it with the fisher and paykel aquasmart ( the one that is a top loader but has a low profile agitator and works like a front loader) it has a reasonably good water rating but I would love to hear peoples experiences IRL. It has had pretty good reviews on Choice but that was in 2007. Thoughts anyone.......

ETA - spelling mistake in the title

[~LoriMum~]

We have had one for a couple of months now and it is doing us fine. We are on tank water only, so that was a big consideration for us. There has been some discussion about lint problems, but I think this is when people put say towels in with polar fleece or something silly like that! I have only had lint probs with one item of clothing and it did the same thing in our old machine - it's just the fabric I think, it seems to attract lint off everything else.

About the only thing that is a little annoying is that I can't program it so that it does a rinse cycle then does a wash cycle straight after - what I mean is that I can't just add a prewash rinse on to the wash cycle (or maybe I can, but haven't figured out how), so when I do nappies I have to do the rinse cycle, then come back when it's finished and start it on the regular cycle. All that emans is that I can't "set and forget", I have to remember to come back and start the next cycle and also I can't just set it all to go and then go out.

Apart from that, we've been happy with it, and as we got an ex-demo model we got it quite a bit cheaper.

[mum2lucas]

Lori did you consider a front loader? How did you finally decide on the aquasmart? I am so confused about what to get........and I guess we really need to get something in the next week or so!

[~LoriMum~]

I considered a front loader - we actually had a new LG front loader (washer/dryer) before buynig this one when we moved house. The main prob with F/L for s is our timber floor - apparently you can get special brackets for themto attach to the floor, but we just couldnt' have it on full spin or it would take off across the floor and rattle the entire house. Even on 600rpm (medium spin) it shook the house and rattled the windows! Our new house is also timber floor, so we didn't want to risk it again. We also just hated the LG in general - the door locked us out on numerous occasions (once when DD was out of nappies and I really needed to get them out and on the clothes line because they were ALL in the washer and still wet!!). I also found F/L hard on my back - I know there were options to fix this (put it on a stand, etc), but in the end we decided we wanted a top loader that used less water, so the aquasmart was the one for us. I read so many online reviews including the Choice thing and went into the shop and had a good look at it.

Good luck with your decision (pity you didn't live closer, you could come have a test run of ours!!), and if you do get one spend a few minutes (or half hour or so) familiarising yourself with the menu options (not sure if you've seen one close up, but it's computer operated, not a dial one, so you have a little screen with wash options to choose from) before you even use it. 99% of the time I turn it on, press regular wash and start and that's it, but sometimes I use some of the other settings.

[davina]

Hi Meagan

I absolutely LOVE my washing machine! It is a Westinghouse LT959S Direct Drive Sensor Wash (9.5kg). So...not the Aquasmart, but similar in principle (in that it washes with watersaving in mind. You can, however, manually set it to use more water of course).

We bought it from Harvey Norman and it cost approx $900.00

The reasons I love it:

1) It is automatically set to Eco Wash, which is the water efficient feature. When using Eco Wash, the wash time is quicker than when using other settings. Despite there being less water used, our clothes and towels are coming out beautifully clean....so much better than any other machine I have ever used. (Random bit of info- we use Earth's Choice laundry liquid for detergent).

2) You have the option to do 'deep rinses' etc. With cloth nappies, in my opinion, a deep rinse is essential for clean nappies. So this feature was a must-have for me.

3) It has an electronic screen and is very, very user friendly (you can save settings if you want to).

4) It has settings for different soiling of garments, depending on how dirty they are.

5) It has a rinse and spin cycle, along with colours, whites, woollens, delicates and heavy duty.

6) It appears to be made from really good quality materials

7) It is quiet

8) you can choose the RPM of the spin speed

Our clothes and cloth nappies are washed so much cleaner, and yet, they come out HEAPS softer. It is a gentle yet effective machine.

And whilst I am at it, I am just going to put a note here that I also love my Miele dryer

Have fun shopping for a machine!