Great, compact washer!

We bought this washer with its companion dryer roughly 7 months ago. After doing some research, we found a "standard size" front-load washer/dryer combo would not fit where we were intending to put them. Our house was built before the front-load washers really became widely available in the USA, so the laundry room is built to accommodate a "standard" top-load washer. There is not enough room front-to-back to have a front-load washer, which is a problem as we planned to stack the units, opening up valuable space in our laundry room / mud room.

So, we began looking for "compact" or "European model" front-load washer / dryer combos. We quickly found that there are only a few manufacturers who deliver these compact units to the USA, and most of them were prohibitively expensive. The one exception to this is Whirlpool.

This particular model is rumored to be manufactured by an Italian company, EuroTech. The Whirlpool has different trim, but is otherwise identical to the EWF272 model. The matching dryer is also based on a European model, and similarly small

The appearance of this model is pretty much what I expected. It is fairly bland, with a white exterior, grey door (with window), and controls along the top-front of the machine. It is really very small on the outside. We had these units (the dryer included) side-by-side for a short while, and they were very short (33 1/4" high). I believe they came up to my mid-thigh. Stacked, it is not as apparent. It is only 21 3/8" deep and 23 3/8" wide - very compact compared to the larger front-load machines.

For its compact size, it actually holds a lot of clothes! It is rated at 2.9 Cu. Ft. (or roughly 18 lbs of clothes). Our old top-load "super capacity" washer held 2.5 cu. ft. of clothes... so this is actually bigger! (Note more recent top-loaders will do 3.2 Cu. Ft. and large front-loaders will do 4.0+ cu. ft).

There are controls for spin speed (from low to "extra high") and for wash load type ("regular," "synthetics," or "delicates"). Each wash load type has multiple options, for colors, whites or heavy soil. Though it is not exactly clear at the surface, this is the only way to control whether it uses hot, warm or cold water. We typically try to keep the spin speed at no higher than "medium" because this little washer can spin extremely quickly, and just like all washers quick spinning and an off-balance load = banging noises and the machine creeping across the floor. Even only using "medium" spin, the clothes come out mostly dry. It is very impressive, and a big step up from the top-loader in this regard.

There is a slide-out drawer at the left top of the machine where pre-wash, fabric softener and soap go. Unfortunately, there is no place and no way to include bleach. That is not a big deal for us, but it may be for someone out there, so I thought I would mention it. While on this topic, you MUST use the detergent designed for front-load washers. It is called "HE" or high-efficiency detergent. Not using this type of detergent will send your machine to an early grave.

There is a long pause between the time you press "start" and the time the machine starts doing anything. The first few times, it caused a little concern, but we have gotten used to it. The wash cycles themselves are on the long side, with a lot of apparently wasted time between cycles.

This machine is QUIET. Coming from a top-load machine, it is night & day. The only time we even know it's running is when the load becomes unbalanced on the spin cycle. It also uses very little water. Like most front-load machines, it uses less than 1/2 the water of a top-loading machine (< 20gal vs 40+gal per load). According to the sticker, it uses 212 kwh per year, and roughly $9 per year to operate if you use a gas water heater ($19 for electric).

I think I've hit all the relevant points - but just to recap - it's compact, but has reasonable capacity. It's quiet, efficient and seems to be well made. We have had NO problems whatsoever with it. Finally, it gets the clothes clean, but also seems to be gentler on the clothes than our old top-loader.

I know others have had problems with this model - I can only comment on my experience, and it's been all good.