Nice to finally get an explanation for the identical situation that we encountered 3 years ago in London. However, I'm not sure it's entirely accurate, because we usually did walk away from the unit every day (put the clothes in and left the apartment to go sightseeing) and STILL came back to find wet clothes that needed to be hung up. Usually the socks. On the other hand, the t-shirts occasionally got scorched in places. Perhaps that was British revenge for wearing white socks and t-shirts. The other thing I think they did on purpose was to not tell us that the entrance to the flat was not really on the street listed in the address, but around the corner in an alley,cleverly hidden under on overhang. Oh, well, we had a nice time anyway in spite of minor annoyances. London was a wonderful city.

Candidly, as someone who lived in London for a year with one of these horrid machines, if you are only there for a short trip, I would almost recommend sending out laundry as opposed to doing it with this kind of machine. Perhaps we really are "dumb Americans," but every encounter with The Beast (my friendly nickname for the machine) ended up in previously white socks turned gray, a laundry cycle which lasted several hours yet still left everything wet, and general hilarity as we hung everything up to dry all over the house.

Hi,

Thanks for the detailed explanation. We did leave the unit going for at least two hours each time we did a load. I set up the dryer time for 80 minutes which was in addition to the washing time but our clothes were still very damp. I knew that it took forever for the european washer/dryer combos to work because my brother (who is in the appliance business) had warned me.

The good news was we did get our clothes washed and dried eventually.

The hotel should supply detailed instructions for the machines because we weren't even sure how to put the soap in the machine since there were two slots you could put it in. After the first load we figured that out and then just had to contend with the damp clothes problem.

Oh well, that was the only inconvience we had on our 15 day trip so not much to get too excited about.

Interesting! We had a separate washer and dryer in the apartment we rented in London this spring and the washer seemed to take forever and the dryer even more time and they were fairly new. The "quick" wash took about 45 min. This particular apt. complex was inhabited mostly by British people (not tourists) and it really intrigued me as to how they ever got their laundry done. I really wanted to ask,but felt funny about it. Can someone answer this for me .. how do you do sheets/towels, etc. in these small machines where each load is tiny to start with and takes hours to dry??? I would take our stuff out of the dryer half done and put them on a rack in the tub to finish drying.

We have a Miele washer and dryer in our apartment (stacked, not combo) and yes, the washer takes a lot longer than our U.S. washer did--about 1.5 hours for a regular load. However, it uses less water and our clothes seem to come out cleaner. The dryer doesn't take that much longer than our U.S. dryer--maybe 20 minutes longer for lighter weight clothing and about half an hour to 45 minutes longer for heavy stuff like towels. I like that the dryer doesn't need to be vented--it collects the water in a condenser and you simply empty it at the end. We use the water for our plants--it really adds up and what a great idea for people who live in drought areas (although we don't) or older homes/apts where putting in a vented dryer would be difficult.
BTilke

Hi!
What these combo washer/dryers do in the dry cycle is actually bake your laundry. It takes me at least 3 hours for 1 load of laundry. Everyone asks what I do with my time since I don't work...the answer is laundry! If anyone ever runs across one of these while in Europe, my advise is to do small loads and when the wash cycle is done, hang to dry things like t-shirts, etc. If you dry just your socks and underware, they will dry in about 1 1/2 - 2hours. For towels, run them through a dry cycle once and then hang to dry. Don't even think about washing jeans!!!

Needless to say, I will not miss this Beast (very appropriate name!) when we move back to the States!

My husband and I noticed on train trips out of London that there were many apartment balconies/patios that had laundry lines set up with laundry hanging from them. We laughed because we knew that since the "dryers" don't dry then the locals must just contend with hanging up laundry where ever they can.

And you are right, Michele. We didn't even try to wash blue jeans. We would still be waiting for those to dry if we had tried that.

I lived in the UK for 5 years and even tho' I had a separate dryer, I much preferred to hang clothes out. Clothes dried outside smell wonderful and the reduction in utility bills is amazing. And the heated towel rail finised off anything that didn't dry. I really missed that when I moved back to California - and guess what - they are now recommending we ALL start hanging clothes out due to the energy "crisis". What goes around comes around I guess.

And that is another reason not to take jeans on a European trip. Besides being too casual for many events, they take forever to dry and are very heavy in the suitcase.

These were the most interesting reports to read! Really, we are spoiled here. When I stayed at my daughter's apt. in Paris it took over an hour to do one load of laundry (dryer not an option) and the cost of electricity isn't cheap! I opted for the launromat. Guess they wouldn't go for these in California.

Glad to see that we weren't the only ones who were mistified by the combo unit. We had one in our self catering cottage in scotland and spent hours washing clothes. Since the electricity was monitored and charged in addition to the rent, it was quite a large amount.

As other posters have mentioned, it's not just the "combo" units that don't do the job over there. We stayed at a cottage in Ireland that had a common laundry area with what looked like fairly new equipment. The washer did alright, but 2 hours in the dryer (a vented unit, just like here) yielded still damp and barely luke warm clothes. I'm sure it uses less energy than our appliances, but actually it's wasted since it doesn't actually do anything! And yes, we tried both dryers with identical results.

I live in China, and had to put up with one of those combo machines for nearly two years. We just moved into a larger house here, and I was THRILLED to find a "normal" washer and "normal" SEPARATE dryer. We can't believe how quick our laundry gets done now - we're probably the two happiest people in the world with our washing machine and dryer!!

Two US loads are 4 here (maybe 5) in France (looks like it's not only in France!), and what took an hour takes 3 hours! Hour and 1/2 for washing and the same for drying. And we don't have the combo (the machines are sooo small -- I miss my Maytag!)

Our Miele w/d handles just about the same size load we did in the U.S. (and washes and dries jeans just fine), maybe just a bit less than the big machines, but overall pretty close. However, we had bad experiences in a Paris apartment with a cheaper brand and older machine so we bit the bullet in Brussels and sprung for top of the line machines--I think it really does make a difference.
BTilke