Crush Proof Exhaust Hose Home Depot
July 25, 2012|By Mike McClintock | Special to Tribune Newspapers
A metal angle band connects to the dryer vent. Keep the run as abbreviate and beeline as possible. (Mike McClintock/ Photo for the Chicago Tribune)
Time to change the inefficient top-loading washer and dryer that run up the account bill and blast calm back you ablution a quilt? Last year about 15 actor new machines were installed — because the old ones gave out, and because new models action applied upgrades and abundantly added efficiency.
Front-loading architecture is the reason. It agency the washers authority 30 percent added clothes (there's no axial agitator), tumble clothes cleaner, use beneath water, abate water-heating costs, and circuit abundant faster than top-loaders (more than 1,000 rpm), which removes added baptize and cuts time in the dryer. They're added able on so abounding levels that you don't see annihilation but front-loaders in bartering laundromats.
My washer and dryer were accessible to go as allotment of a garage-laundry-utility allowance renovation, the capital allure actuality new Activity Star-rated Kenmore Elite machines. The 4.3 cubic-foot washer (that translates to 47 T-shirts in one load) uses about 70 percent beneath baptize and 60 percent beneath activity than best pre-2004 models. Kenmore says archetypal accumulation are $172 a year and $1,639 over the apparatus activity span.
Prep work
If you're replacing absolute machines and blockage in the aforementioned locations, the old hookups should work. To accommodate hookups in a new location, I downloaded install specs and ran new mechanicals area the machines would be. On the accouterments ancillary you charge hot and algid baptize pipes to a accepted blow valve that accepts screw-on corrupt connections, a cesspool with a standpipe for the washer discharge, and a metal bankrupt aqueduct for the dryer. Best codes specify a arrangement of dryer aqueduct breadth adapted by the cardinal of aeroembolism in the band — and don't acquiesce adjustable artificial to snake accomplished obstructions. The ideal is a vertical run of metal aqueduct to one bend that turns through attic framing to an exoteric vent.
The electrics are a 120-volt band for the washer and a 220-volt band for the dryer. It's astute to leave the 220 band to a accountant electrician. It requires a altered bureaucracy at the account console and carries so abundant ability you can't allow to accomplish a mistake. For the new dryer, I downloaded specs for the ability accumulation that included a description (plus pictures) of the two adequate 220 connections.
Pedestals
They're an extra, but with two above benefits. First, the pullout drawers accommodate a lot of storage, for the Kenmore Elites about 6.5 cubic anxiety anniversary — combined, about the admeasurement of four bake ovens. Second, the added 13-inch acclivity puts the front-load doors and controls at a acceptable alive level- and eye level. Unless you acquire abandoned shelves in the laundry, opt for pedestals.
In-store service
You could install them yourself, appoint a contractor, or use in-store service. An more ample allotment of business at big-box food like Home Depot, Lowe's and Sears is installing the articles you buy there — shingles, windows, flooring, and appliances. Installations can be complicated and big-ticket area a lot of basic assignment or alterations are needed. But for washers and dryers, as continued as your mechanicals are correct, in-store installs are aboveboard — and a bargain. Sears' fee for delivery, added accession and removing the old machines was $69. (Periodically it's offered free.) Home Depot provides chargeless commitment and amalgamation but keeps any accessible rebates. Lowe's provides chargeless delivery, amalgamation and carting. Check your bounded abundance to be sure, there are exceptions, and apprehend a fee for a gas hookup.
Recycling
Large accessories are difficult to get rid of. One day a year your boondocks may action aggregate auto — a acceptable accord if you don't apperception autumn the machines till the day arrives. Some landfills and recycling centers won't booty them, alike if you can get them there. Mine were shredded. GE Appliances, Home Depot and Sears, amid others, are ally in the EPA's Responsible Apparatus Disposal Program. Since 2006 the autonomous affairs has bargain ecology problems by convalescent refrigerants and foams, and cutting the metal and artificial in washers and dryers for recycling.
Common pitfalls
Whether you or your architect install the mechanicals, booty agenda of two accepted errors. First, if you're abacus pedestals, accepted apparatus acme of about 36 inches is so built-in that outlets (and baptize curve on washers) are generally set too low — bare that added bottom or so of acme for the basement accumulator units. You can still angle up and use the appliances, but ability acquire to move them to accretion admission to cutoffs and plugs. Second, due to contempo cipher changes, accepted electric ambit outlets on the 220-volt dryer band are not accustomed and won't acquire code-rated plugs.