By Katherine Salant
The laundry is the Rodney Dangerfield room of most floor plans. Tucked into a leftover corner, it is almost never big enough to accommodate its designated function, perhaps because the designer has never performed this essential household task. As anyone who does do the laundry knows, it's not just a matter of tossing clothes into a washer and dryer. You need enough floor area to sort out loads and a place to hang wet clothes that can't go into the dryer. If your household includes a teenaged daughter who frets that the dryer will shrink or otherwise damage nearly everything she owns, there will be a lot of wet clothes to air dry. A flat surface, such as a table, that can be used when folding up clean clothes is also handy.
The person who does the household laundry also knows that an inadequate laundry room is not just a minor inconvenience. It's a major one because for a household of any size, laundry is not a once-a-week task; it's ongoing, usually done several times a week. If there are small children or newborns, it may be done every day. When the laundry room has been reduced to an oversized closet off a kitchen or in an upstairs hallway, loads of wash will be underfoot constantly, and there's no place to hang wet clothes.
Another laundry room gripe: where it's located in the house. Putting the laundry room one or two floors below the bedrooms, where most of the dirty clothes and linens are generated, means a lot of extra trips up and down stairs hauling loads of wash. The laundry room location can be a lifestyle issue, however. For example, if the person who does the wash works outside the home, putting the laundry room next to the kitchen so that he or she can do wash while preparing meals may be more convenient.
Besides size and location issues, there's the matter of a laundry tub, which many builders do not provide. Not only is this a must for dumping dirty wash water when washing floors, it's also a place to work on stained garments before putting them into the washing machine and to hand wash delicate items that can't go into the washer. If there is no alternative but to put the washer and drier in a closet, you can still have the laundry tub if you get a stacked washer and drier.
A stacked arrangement means a front loading washer, however. Many buyers may find this objectionable, but in recent years, this type of washer has become much more user friendly. For example, after starting the cycle, you can open the door of the machine to toss in another item without water pouring out onto the floor.
Other pluses: The agitating action of front loaders is less wearing on clothes than top loaders, so clothes may last longer. Since there's no central agitator taking up space, the washing drum can hold more clothes, which can mean fewer loads per week to get the household laundry done. During the spin cycle, the front loader removes more water, so the clothes require less time in the drier. This can also shorten up the time a household devotes to laundry each week.
The front loading washers are more environmentally benign than the top loaders. They use less water; more importantly, they use less heated water and thus less energy. Compared to conventional top loaders, they use about half as much water and energy, said Howard Newman of the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) in Boston, which has been promoting high efficiency clothes washers for the last five years. CEE has also helped utilities around the country develop rebate programs to induce customers to purchase more efficient washers.
The only down side to the front loading washers, or H-axis washers as the washing machine industry calls them, is the price - about $800 to $1,000. This is $400 to $500 more than most conventional top loaders, but the price has begun to come down as more manufacturers are producing front loaders and the competition among them has increased, Newman said.
If price is a major deterrent, Whirlpool now makes a top loading washer that meets the stringent requirements of the Energy Star Program. It's not as efficient in terms of water and energy consumption as the front loaders, but it's less expensive, selling for about $600, Newman said.
The changes in dryer design have not been as dramatic as those in washers. The biggest difference compared to several years ago is moisture sensors. These prevent the dryer from over drying clothes, potentially shrinking them or excessively wrinkling them, said Peggy Palter, a marketing expert in washers and dryers for Sears.
More important than the particulars of the dryer for someone building a new house, however, is making sure that the dryer is vented properly. It must be vented to the outside, and the shorter the length of the vent, the better, said Alex Wilson, executive editor of Environmental Building News.
If the dryer is located in the center of the house, the vent should be made of smooth metal, rather than flexible vinyl or metal because the longer the venting duct, the more likely lint will collect if it's not smooth. Even with smooth sides, lint can still clog the vent, so homeowners need to clean it out by sticking a vacuum cleaner hose down it periodically, Wilson said.
Though venting the dryer's exhaust into the house might seem to be an easy way to add humidity to indoor air during winter, Wilson cautioned against it for several reasons. In places where summers are humid, venting the dryer indoors would be a "disaster because you would get mold developing in your house." Venting the dryer exhaust indoors would also disperse lint fibers and chemical and bleach residues that were not completely rinsed out of the clothes throughout the house, he added.
If a gas dryer is purchased, venting the exhaust air into the house instead of to the outside is a safety hazard. When the dryer operates, the gas is not completely burned and some of it will be exhausted along with the hot air, lint particles and chemical residues, Wilson said.
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