Until the end of my days our Pinehurst home will haunt me. It was everything. It was new, it had custom detail like crown molding, it had space for everyone, it had luxury well beyond what one needs or expects from a home.
And one of those things was the new LG front loading washer and dryer I purchased when we moved into the home as the first owners. When compiling my due diligence on washers and dryers, size was a factor. As a family of five I do not enjoy doing 28 loads of laundry a week. The chances of giving one of our children up for adoption remains a low probability–around 5%. That leaves two remaining options.
One is to instruct my children to spend their days as if they are in their Sunday best, never soiling their clothes, thus reducing the amount of clothing requiring wash. I put that probability below the adoption option–2%.
The final option–get the largest washer and dryer available. Okay, well perhaps not the largest I could acquire. I suppose I could have purchased one of those commercial washers that $5.75 in the public laundromats gets everything you own into one wash.. But nevertheless, it was a pretty big washer and dryer
Fast forward to Deutschland. The housing situation for US military in the Bavarian Garrison is a bit complicated but just know that as a military family we have access to certain household goods from the military post that we can borrow for the year. Among them are washers and dryers.
When the delivery team finished setting up the washer and dryer in our home I wondered if they had brought the Barbie washer and dryer from the toy section by mistake. Back to 28 loads of laundry a week. I think you can fit a pair of socks, one pair of underwear, one pair of pants, and one button down shirt per load. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration.
Interesting fact–Deutsche dryers do not vent to the outdoors. In fact they send the moisture to a compartment inside the dryer that must be taken out and emptied every few loads (the moisture condenses as water). And let me tell you, Deutsche dryers are notorious for not drying. Drying towels is like bailing out the ocean with a thimble–takes forever and no visible results appear.
Interesting fact number two–there is no hot water hookup for your washer. There is simply a cold water hookup and if you wash towels or sheets, the washing machine will ‘cook’ the water while washing. I’m sure it’s environmentally great but I had one load take over FOUR HOURS to wash. That is no exaggeration. Add that to the 90 minutes to dry the towels and now you’re talking one day per load! Now I just put the towels in when I go to bed knowing, well more like hoping, they will be finished by morning.
I will say I find this funny not frustrating. I love living in Bayern and like EVERYTHING in life, it’s best to chuckle and adjust…..besides, it gives me time to post random thoughts while I wait for the load to finish.