In the Laundry Room, Luxury That's Worth It

If your budget for building or remodeling your home is so tight that you can afford to splurge on only one appliance, make it an upscale, high-efficiency, front-loading washing machine.

It won't have the cachet of a six-burner professional gas range, but I can attest that it will make your life easier.

For starters, laundry chores will take less time. With a spin speed of 1,200 revolutions per minute, my high-efficiency front-loader wrings out so much water that the drying time is reduced by as much as 50 percent. The washer holds more clothes than my old top-loader, so I have fewer loads. This shortens the whole operation.

The 13 washing cycles include silk, wool and hand-washables. In my household, this means that garments requiring special care actually get washed.

Alas, these high-tech wonders are not perfect. After several months of use, front-loaders can develop a vexing musty odor.

However, according to Anthony Hardaway, a detergent chemist and washing machine designer for Whirlpool, the musty odor occurs with every type of washer, though it can be worse with the front-loaders.

Hardaway explained the science behind the odor. His account could change your laundry habits.

The source of the odor is a residue of water, detergent and dirt that collects in the cavity that holds the washing drum. The residue accumulates more quickly when all laundry is washed in cold water. Many households do that to save energy and because garment washing instructions frequently recommend a cold-water wash.

Unfortunately, Hardaway said, laundry detergents do not perform well in cold water. They remove only about 60 percent of the dirt on soiled laundry. The other 40 percent is re-deposited on your clothes and in your washer, where it eventually turns into that residue.

Hardaway said most people are satisfied with the results of their cold-water washing because the dirt that remains on their clothing is not obvious. Only a detergent chemist would know that the colored shirt you are wearing looks a bit faded because it is covered with layers of microscopic dirt particles deposited with each laundering. The dirt is noticeable only on white garments, where the particles give the clothes a yellow or gray tint.

When the laundry is washed in warm water, the results improve dramatically because detergents perform significantly better in higher water temperatures, Hardaway said.

Just 10 to 15 percent of the dirt remains on the laundered items or in the machine. The odor-causing residue accumulates much more slowly, and laundered clothes are much cleaner. Colored garments will not look faded, and white ones will be only slightly discolored, if at all.