There are lots of reasons many apartments don’t have in-unit washers and dryers. They’re expensive and boxy. You often have to hide them in dedicated closets or behind the bathroom door. Considering some apartments are so cramped, they have to have showers in the kitchen, it’s no wonder many urban dwellers have to schlep their dirty clothes to the Laundromat once a week.
Electrolux wants to at least alleviate the space issue with its new Front-Load Compact Washer and Dryer. The 24-inch-wide machines, which you can currently find at Home Depot for $900 each, are stackable and 33.5 inches tall. That’s small enough to fit in kitchen cabinets, according to the company, although the washer’s 25-inch depth is an inch more than many base cabinets.
The washer has a 2.4-cubic-foot capacity, and the dryer has 4. The company’s full-size front-loaders have between 4.2 and 4.4 cubic feet of capacity, and the standard dryers have 8. Still, the compact washer has enough space to do a load containing a set of queen-sized sheets and five to six pillowcases, according to Electrolux.
The washer has 14 cycles, including six for wash, three for steam, and five for special circumstances, like when you want to a quick clean or just wash some jeans. With the steam options, you can skip the pretreating for many stains, and the Electrolux is the only compact washer on the market with the feature. There’s also a deep clean sanitize option, which kills 99 percent of bacteria and 95 percent of common allergens.
Instead of a vent to the outside, the dryer uses a condenser to extract the water from clothes. It then stores the moisture in a removable tray or diverts it down the drain, depending on your setup. While it’s nice not to need a vent, you’ll still require a water supply and drain, so it’s doubtful you’ll have the hookups in, say, your bedroom.
Electrolux’s compact washer and dryer aren’t the only space-saving machines on the market. Bosch has a line of washers, ranging from $1,000 to $1,400, with 2.2 cubic feet of capacity, and the paired 4-cubic-foot dryers can dry 18 bath towels at once, according to the company. Meanwhile, LG has a combination washer-dryer that’s also 24 inches wide for $1,530 at Home Depot.
As for the lack of space in your apartment for a pool table, well, this is the best we’ve got.
