Kitchen Appliances - musings on buying washing machines

As far as I know launderettes didn’t exist anymore (it felt almost like they never did), although I did take a detour round town after work in search of one. By now I was wearing clothes I hadn’t seen for years, odd holey socks and shirts that were so out of date they’re probably back in vogue again.

It got to the stage where there was literally nothing left to wear that wasn’t going to grow legs and walk. Buying a washing machine is simply not an easy task. There’s just too much choice these days, too many features and styles and gadgets you think you’re going to miss out on something if you don’t get it right.

Fortunately we had some sort of goal in mind – to reduce energy costs around the home. We had one thing in mind – running costs. I could pretend I was concerned about the environment – which I am – but let’s be realistic, energy efficiency is also about saving money, which is also rather nice, especially when you don’t have a lot of it in the first place.

We were already spending a lot more on electricity, either through using more or it was just becoming more expensive, and are not the sort of household who have the available funds to just go out and buy a windmill to stick on the roof.

The energy ratings go from A or AA or something to something higher up the alphabet which is difficult to work out because most of the models we found were either A or AA, which means they’re either all really good or it’s easy to make them like that and there should really be a triple A rating for those really fantastically efficient models.

In the end we got a spanking new washing machine, white and chrome. It works, it cleans clothes, it apparently is energy efficient - I just hope it doesn’t break down. At least there’s a 12-month guarantee. None of the washing machines we looked at seemed particularly flash, although I can’t say I’ve ever actually seen a good-looking washing machine.

The pile of dirty clothes has now vanished from our kitchen floor, but you know? The one thing I did miss while were washing-machine less, was going to a launderette – I kind of miss that Zen like experience of sitting reading out of date gossip magazines to the tranquil, purposeful hum of commercial washers spinning in the background.

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Mark Rates sometimes looks at kitchen appliances at www.beko.co.uk