Ok let me just have a moment of truth telling. I should name this "What I Learned from the Maytag Repairman" because he had to come out recently to service our fairly new machine, and I learned alot! What I mostly learned is that I had caused the issue by not taking the time to learn about and understand how the machine really works!
No Massively large loads! I don't do much of those anyway, but if you look in the photo below (from my washing machine lid) the larger washer on the left shows the new machine only uses 3 inches of water. The machine on the right shows my old machine that used a TON of water. These new machines are meant for much smaller loads! There is a setting for "Bulky Items" such as sheets as well as a "Deep Water Wash". These settings will bring your water level up to 8 inches instead of 3, so use this for larger loads.
Load Clothes Carefully!
These new machines use a "floating" bottom plate so if you just dump your clothes into the machine you can easily start the load off balance. This was really my undoing. Because I didn't understand that with no middle agitator you have to be a bit more carefully how you load the clothes. I had unbalanced the agitator plate. The repairman did a simple calibration to fix it but he had me go get some clothes and he physically showed me how to load it. Below I'll show you what he taught me:
Think of your machine like a clock. Load the clothes into the machine by placing them one by one "around the clock".
Wash Like things together: Because of the floating plate and low water is best to wash Jeans seperately from other clothes. Same goes for towels. They are water hogs and also weigh down the plate off balance in comparison to say the t-shirts. so keep them out of the regular loads. This will also help the load to spin nearly dry.
Use less Detergent: Reminder with the smaller amounts of water and super concentrated laundry detergent these days you really should use the recommended amounts. More soap is not better! It will not rinse well, and be harder on the machine also.
Reduce Your Drying Time: Your dryer will get a lot less use! Regular clothes come out of these new machines, nearly dry sometimes! They really reduce the drying time in the dryer, so don't just set the timer out of habit, you may be over using your energy consumption needlessly!
