That’s a lot of water and a lot of money off the utility bill. On average, front-loaders use five gallons less water per load, which adds up to a savings of 2,000 gallons per year. Not only does that kinetic action help with the cleaning, but it also saves a ton of water.Īnd there you have the primary attraction for front-loading washers over their top-fed counterparts: energy efficiency. The wash load is simply dipped repeatedly into a reservoir of water at the bottom as it rotates through. The difference here is that there’s no need to fill the entire drum. During that high-efficiency wash cycle, clothes are spun on a horizontal axis. Rather than a hatch at the top, you put clothes into a front-loading washer through a door at the front. Clothes are simply cleaned by the spinning action of the drum, which rubs clothes repeatedly against each other and the serrated edges on the sides.Īll front-loading washing machines work on that same basic principle, too. That means, among other things, that there’s no agitator in the middle of the drum. That’s why you see an increasing number of top-loading washers marked as high-efficiency. That agitator is great for getting out stains, but it’s also a bit rough on delicate materials. The agitator spins at various speeds and in various directions, rubbing dirt and particles off the clothes and distributing detergent through the mix. That’s a large column in the middle of the drum with paddles running diagonally down the side, reminiscent of a boat propeller. In a traditional top-loading washer, that cleaning is done primarily with an agitator. The machine then dumps in whatever detergent you’ve added, and the wash cycle begins. Once they’re in the drum, it fills up with enough water to submerge the clothes, the amount of which can generally be adjusted by load size. As you might imagine, top-loading washers are called that because that’s how the clothes are loaded in: through the top. To get a fair comparison, let’s get a quick look at how these two types of washing machines work. And while top-loaders may fit the needs (and budget) of the average laundromat, front-loading washers are the way to go for many homeowners.
Maybe that traditional image is why top-loading washers are still out there in many homes. When you’re picturing a washing machine, a lot of people still pull up a mental image from the laundromat: rows and rows of top-loading washers, all dutifully churning away.
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