Washer Dryer Whew
Glug. Glurgle. Whir. The sounds of a new washer/dryer are my soundtrack for this evening’s writing. Finally, there’s a washer/dryer in the tiny house. This satisfies a want, not necessarily a need. It is a utilitarian luxury. I hope it works. It sounds like it is. Whew.
Laundromats are fine.
They’re economical in terms of money. For the laundromats in my area, be prepared with lots of quarters. The machines look like they were equipped for credit cards, but all of them require quarters. Go figure. Did someone break them? Were they too easy to cheat? Maybe this is why we can’t have nice things.
Laundromats are not economical in terms of time. It doesn’t make sense to load up a bunch of quarters for a shirt or some towels. A big load? Yes. Lots of little loads? No. As a minimalist, by the time I’ve accumulated enough dirty laundry there’s nothing left to wear. Load it all up. Drive to the laundry. Wash and spin and maybe a bit of sorting. Drive home. Put everything away again. Save up those quarters.
That was fine for a few months, but I could tell that, of all the luxuries, washing clothes at home was higher than the fancier things I see in ads.
But, there’s a price. ~$2,200
And that was on sale from ~$3,200.
Appliances for tiny homes cost a lot. Mass market appliances are manufactured in mega-quantities, which drives down the price. Appliances that fit in a tiny house are rarer, which means the price is higher.
And then, there’s the space, or more correctly, the volume. Over on my oldest blog (about personal finance - https://trimbathcreative.net/2024/10/05/stores-malls-and-loyalty/) I wrote about the buying process. I waited until the unit was delivered before writing about it here. Over there, I played with the dollars per square foot.
My new old (2006) tiny house : $76,500 / 391 square feet = $195/square foot
Washer/dryer ~ 30 inches wide and deep = 900 square inches = 6.25 square feet
The value of the house’s square footage occupied by the washer/dryer = $1,218
For me, that puts the price of the washer/dryer in some perspective.
BTW, the similar-sized tiny next door is new and ~$130,000. (Won’t you be my neighbor?)
$130,000/$76,500 = 1.7
1.7 x $1,218 = $2,070
The washer/dryer seems expensive, but floor space is valuable. So is the space above the floor.
The unit I bought is all-in-one, which is really just two-in-one. Throw the clothes in. It washes them, then dries them, no need to take them from one tub to another. There are washer/dryer combinations that are stacked, and cheaper, but they are also taller. I want to use that space for hanging clothes and such. Hence, a pricier machine.
It is also a fancier machine. Maybe the manufacturer decided that, if the buyer is willing to pay more, maybe they’ll also pay more and get some more features. Washer and dryer in one is one feature. Slick styling is another. AI Inside (?!) may not make much sense, but it has that too. Somehow it is also ‘connected’, though I do not intend to hook this up to the internet. Tomorrow, I’ll open the manual and probably wonder at the range of cleaning and drying modes. One feature I like but didn’t expect is a heat pump to drive the dryer. Energy needs go down. No need to vent the hot exhaust. And it runs on regular three-pronged plug current. My 240V outlet remains unused.
MSRP was something like ~$3,200. I got the floor model (which they used for the store’s laundry) for $1,999. Ironically, the unit is running through its installation mode as I type. That mode cleans out the manufacturing oils. That should’ve been cleared out long ago. That’s okay. I’d do it anyway, just to make sure everything is hooked up right, and the unit doesn’t wobble, or whatever.
This is not big news. A customer buying a washer/dryer is common enough for an appliance company, but for the buyer it should only happen every decade or so. The bigger news is what is required to make it work in a tiny house. That three-pronged plug is an advance. So is the heat pump. Connectivity is an advance, but not one with value to me.
Saving two or three hours a week is the main advantage for me. Time is precious. Precious. Not having to mask up to do the laundry, ah. Not worrying about not knowing how dirty the laundry area is will be one of those easily forgotten benefits. Laundromats aren’t bad, but they can have some icky moments. I’ll spare you the details.
The machine is whirring now. It is drying the empty load of laundry. Okay. It may be silly, but this way, I also now know what the machine sounds like even when there’s nothing going on. That can be handy.
I’ve written this while sitting in My Big Comfy Chair, sitting beside my fancy toaster oven, which is warming up leftovers. I’d planned on going out for dinner and dancing, but instead, the evening will be one of a little domesticity. What’s that worth?