These New Front Loading Washers

[Henry]

Well, don't know how many of you have these front loading washers, but they are truly great as far as the amount of water they use and how well they clean.

A word of caution however, make sure you use the low sudsing HE soap.  I had some regular liquid tide left and being a typical Conservative Vermonter, decided I would finish it up before I spent money on this new soap and just use a little less.  Everything went find for the regular washing until Maryann gave me a chenille bed jacket to wash.  Well, I put it in the washing machine and when I went in the wash room to check to see if it was done, could see nothing but soap through the glass window.  I opened up the door and out onto the floor spewed soap bubbles in an area about 5 foot by 5 foot.  Went in the bathroom and got a bath towel and scooped up most of it with a couple of bath towels.  Soooooooo, decided I would put it through the rinse cycle again, once more the same thing, another 5x5 foot area of soap bubbles all over the floor and a couple more bath towels to soak it up.  It took me 4 tries until finally I got the soap out of the chenille bed jacket.  Then of course I had lots and lots of bath towels to wash, without adding any soap, however, as luck would have it had no problem.

And that's not all, went through the same thing with the bath mats that are on the floor in the bathroom, well one of them anyways.  Next time I went to Costco, but Tide HE for front loading washers on my list.  As for the rest of the tide I have, will use it very sparingly until it is gone as I still refuse to throw it out, although was somewhat tempted as I walked through the soap suds to the washing machine to pick up the sea of soap suds.

[fletchtb]

We have a front loader too and when we use the regular detergent (not HE), we just use half the normal amount and don't run into any problems.

[MSoule]

I agree with fletchtb, Henry.  In a bind, you can use 1/3 the recommended amount of regular detergent in lieu of the HE detergent.  It should not be a regular practice, though.  Heavy suds will also cause your washer to not drain properly.  If you run into this problem again, you can try (please don't laugh) 2-3 tablespoons of cooking oil directly into the washer.  The oil will give the soap something on which to bind and clear up the suds.

[chelseaclark]

Wow, that's a great trick I wish I had known when we first got our front loader and I was doing loads of cloth diapers daily.  We had to have the fixit guy come twice until we finally realized you really truly only need a couple of tablespoons of that HE soap. (Well that, and it really is worth double checking pockets for screws and whatnot before tossing them in.)