apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Hello L: I have had an LG combo unit for almost one year. I bought it as a 'small space solution' and for that purpose it is great. It is also really easy to use, incredibly efficient (energy, laundy soap requirements) and nice looking (considering it replaced a early-'80s stackable in a horrible beige colorway). My one caveat is that it is not a machine for a) a multi-person household or b) an incredibly inpatient laundry customer. The dry cycle works by sucking all the moisture out of the drum and, in theory, out of the laundry. Almost always, however, I have to 'line dry' (ie hang from my shower curtain pole) most everything before the last bits of damp disappear. While lots of items - delicates, shirts, tees - don't need much air-drying, heavy duty stuff - towels, blue jeans - I usually let hang overnight. The trade-off is worth it to me as I am somewhat eco-conscious and I HATE the clothes shrinkage that sometimes happens in a conventional dryer. I can't imagine, however, dealing with this process if I had kids, or tons of laundry to do all the time, or if I lived in a really cold/wet climate. I also admit to sometimes missing that warm and fluffy feeling you get pulling towels out of the dryer! But that's just me. Now that I have written more than you probably wanted to hear, I will stop.

I don't have any first-hand experience, but a friend of mine has one that came installed in his condo (I think his is Bosch). He loves it; very energy and space efficient, but doing even a small load is pretty time consuming. He has gotten into the habit of starting the load before he goes to bed and everything is dry in the morning. Took a bit of getting used to, but now he is really happy with it.

I recently moved into a condo that has a LG combo and have the same experience JenDC described - that is, nothing gets 100% dry (unless you run it for literally 4 hours and even then it's not guranteed). Jen sounds much more acclimated (maybe because she chose rather than inherited her combo...or I'm just impatient), but whenever I feel myself getting annoyed at having to re-think the way I've done laundry my whole life I tell myself how better this is for the environment. But I do miss the fluffy towel thing as well.

In our last house we had to create a laundry room in a closet.
we bought a Miele stackable W/D and loved it. Very small, but quite expensive. Absolutely worth the money if take it with you. Also, the dryer vented into a drawer in the unit which had to be emptied with each load, but you don't need to vent it to the outdoors.

My mother had a similar problem in her great big house in Virginia. The laundry was in a particularly unpleasent basement that frequently flooded. She replaced it with an LG combo unit, which she placed in an upstairs room.

The unit seems to be working great - she loves being able to put things in dirty in the morning and have them clean and dry at night.

However, with it being on the top floor you can really feel it if it is running. The whole house shakes! It might be just because it is a somewhat older house, so I do not know if it would be an issue in your condo. If you have thin floors/celings in your building, you might want to prepare for neighbor complaints.

Check before you buy a washer; many stackable's are intended for placement on "concrete only" - so if you have a wood frame building, the vibrations may be bad.

my girlfriend and i have an LG combo unit in our condo. the main problems are the drying taking forever, which has been mentioned, and the fairly small load size. however, it is incredibly convenient to put it in dirty at night and remove it clean and dry in the morning. it seems pretty efficient energy and water wise, plus the space savings are great. it vibrated a lot at first but we spent a few minutes leveling it and it's much quieter and smoother now. our neighbors all have the same unit, and we can hear theirs but very faintly.

I have the Malber 2 in 1. I love it. It does take a long time, but I rarely have to air dry afterward. It was less expensive than the LG.

i wish i had an extra faucet in my rental apartment, i would totally buy one of these.

I have a combo in my condo kitchen. ditto what others said. Running a cycle to get pretty dry takes over 3 hours. If you run a big load they will come out wet, period. I run small loads and it's fine, but I tend to wash sheets and towels in the coin laundry room downstairs or I just take it to the dry cleaners for fluff n fold. So, I suppose in my case it *mostly* works for me.

By the way, brand matters. I did a lot of online research, ended up with an LG in stainless. Lesser brands don't work well. Also, FYI, in Europe these combo units work WAY better at drying because the voltage is totally diff.

I have a Malber and it works fine if you don't overpack it. It does take longer to dry things than a traditional system but I love having it. Also, it does not need to be vented like a traditional system would which makes it a great solution for my apartment.

I had one in a rental ten years ago and it was just okay, maybe they have improved since then. It was a european brand, though I don't remember which one.
The downside was that my clothes would come out incredibly wrinkled, especially if the load was on the larger side. Therefore I had to do small loads which meant doing laundry more often.

i like them a lot. in my previous flat, we had cheap night time electricity. so i could program my machine to wash at night and get crisply dry clothes the next morning.

if you have the money go for a miele. very reliable and very good in energy efficiency, water usage as well. the most important criteria are the spin speed of the washing machine and the energy efficiency of the tumble dryer. this will keep the operating costs down as well

i have a AEG (german brand) machine here in the UK. not sure if it is available in the states, but i find it good and performance and value for money as well.

I had the Malber 2 in 1 for over 10 years -- the washer is great, but the dryer took forever. When the dryer part broke, I didn't bother to fix it, and hung things to dry (or if desparate, used drier in our skanky basement laundryroom).

I recently replaced it with a washer only (Malber p21) and am happy. Here in NYC, the apartments are so overheated that things hang dry quite quickly.

These machines work better in europe becasue of the higher voltage over there. Also, for drying, it is best to get a vented unit. As many above have said, the clothes come out a bit damp with most portable units.

I have a 2-in-1 Eurotech that I love. It's compact but there are only two of us in our household so it's perfect for us. We mostly do 1/2 loads and hang dry, reserving the dryer for large items like sheets and towels (which take a long time to become bone dry.) Our apartment is tiny and we put the Eurotech in one of our closets. My one suggestion if you decide to go the 2-in-1 route is to ensure that you allocate sufficient space for hanging things. We put an IKEA Pressa drying rack on the inside of the door that encloses the machine. It's pretty nifty.

I have to agree with most of the comments. I lived in London (where practically every flat comes with a unit like this) for a couple of years. They spin your clothes at about 7200 RPM (ripping off the odd loose button and label), sound like a 747 taking off, shake the place with their vibration--but no matter how long you leave your clothes in, they don't seem to reduce the moisture content by more than, say, 10 percent. Hence the ubiquitous drying racks also found in most London flats. Of course, having a w/d in your actual apt. is still preferable to trudging to the laundromat or the typical apt. building's dingy, depressing laundry room. Just be prepared to hang your stuff up until it's actually dry. Which may be a space and/or aesthetic consideration in a really small apt. Still, now that I live in NYC (where in-apt. w/d's of any kind are mostly a rarity except in upscale buildings) I miss not being able to just toss in a load of laundry when I need to without making a major production out of the process.

A month ago we purchased an Ariston w/d combo to conserve space. After a few washes we discovered that the dryer feature was useless - we stopped using it altogether. However, we are extremely happy with the washer! We discovered that a high spinning speed makes a world of difference. Our washer has an RPM (rotations per min) of 1000 and at the end of every wash our clothes come out 98% dry. Instead of using the dryer we line dry everything in an enclosed room and it takes just as long to dry as a stand alone dryer. If we had to make the purchase all over again we would definitely just go with a washer that has a high RPM and purchase a used dryer for emergencies.

I have a Malber 2-in-1 and I don't know what I would do without it. I had my super install it under my kitchen counter (I don't have a dishwasher.) It's not a large machine, so the loads have to be smallish, but it's fine for 1 people (or 2 if one of them is a man who sends his shirts to the cleaners!)
It does take longer to dry, but like the others, I take out my t-shirts, socks, etc. after maybe 1/2 an hour and then let them air dry- when my heat is on, I put almost everything besides towels on a drying rack by my radiator.

Using a small amount of laundry detergent is key to preserving the heating element of the dryer I have been told- also using fabric softener really helps w/ the wrinkle factor.

We also have the Malber and have been very happy with it. Stuff does take long to dry (and yes, in the winters when the heat is on it is definitely more efficient to simply hang the clothes) but it's in my apt: no trips to the laundromat! We have a toddler, so it can be done with more than one person...you just have to do laundry pretty frequently.

I happened to be looking at these w/d combos and considering buying one when, fortuitously, this entry came in on AT.

Considering people's comments about the noise and the length of drying time, I think I'm going to pass. I just can't see myself running a noisy machine all night (or all day); the comfort of having a way to do laundry at home would be nil if I had to line-dry or put up with yet another roaring machine.

Yet for all of you who have one of these and like them, I'm very happy that you do.

Would that some company would design a w/d combo that worked well and with good sound insulation. They'd clean up in cities where space is at a premium.

The Malber 2 in 1 that I have shakes out of control. Sometimes it literally "walks" it's way out of it's cubby hole in my kitchen. Is there a way to prevent this? I noticed that it usually happens after about 20 mins of washing.

My washer is leaking and I dont know where the leak is coming from and my dryer is blowing cold air what should check for and what should I do?