Clean washing at last (Hotpoint Aquarius WDL520P)

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	Hotpoint Aquarius WDL520P
Date:	13/07/09 (216 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 30 minute wash

Disadvantages: Cold fill only

The Hotpoint Aquarius 1200 is a washer dryer; however I never use the dryer section, so the review will only cover the washing machine side of the appliance.

Specifications.

The washer has a 7kg drum, 16 wash cycles which include quick wash, delicates, intensive and wool. Unfortunately it's a cold fill only (but I'll mention that later), and its energy ratings is B, with an A for wash performance and a B for spin performance. If you use the tumble dryer, there are two tumble temperatures, and the drying load is 5kg.
The washer is a manual dial, as opposed to a digital operation.

My Thoughts

Firstly, a bit of my background; I used to co-own an appliance retail outlet, so I have read all the bumph that the manufacturers send out about their washers, and know all the arguments for cold fill only and washing with minimal amounts of water. Although then, as now, as far as I'm concerned the manufacturers will always make their ideas look good on paper, but in practise they're not necessarily so great.

Take cold fill only for example, they say that you save energy using this method, but having had a hot and cold fill in the past, and used cold fill only as well, my electric bill rocketed. I prefer to use a Y adaptor and continue to use hot and cold fill together, which I've done here. It certainly saves me a lot of money in fuel bills, as the gas used for the hot fill is nowhere near as expensive as the electric the washer uses to heat the water up. And I'm not a heavy user, I put one clothes wash on per day, 3 bedding washes at the weekend, 3 quilt washes every fortnight and a hot towel wash once a week, and I can notice a big difference.

So that's one downside to the washer, the fact that it's cold fill only, but that can be overcome if you really want to with a Y adaptor for about £1.50.
The big plus point for this washer is the 30 minute wash. My last washer didn't have a quick wash and it was a pain waiting an hour and 50 minutes for the wash to run through. This one has a 30 minute wash and even better it actually washes with water!! I could never get my head around the logic of washing with barely any water in the drum; it's like trying to get a bath in a half inch of water. With the 30 minute wash you can actually see the water raising half way up the drum as it used to on the old machines. And with the very first wash I was impressed, stains from tomato based sauces disappeared, which they never did with my old washer, despite being in the washer for 3x the time. However, the quick wash only has an 800rpm spin at the end, but it's simple enough to twist the knob round to the full spin, which takes another 5 minutes. I've have just used the 800rpm spin a lot of the time, especially when the weather is great, when it's been a little overcast and looks like it might rain so the washing might need to come in quickly, I've done the 1200rpm spin so they dry quicker.

As I mentioned earlier it's a dial machine, which has its good and bad points. Dials were one of the regular call outs out repair department got, along with Hotpoint brushes (which are an appliance engineers bread and butter), as they snap easily, but then they are a lot cheaper to replace than a new circuit board if the digital ones break down.

My previous washer only had codes on the front of the machine, with no indication of what each code meant. This one however has all the programmes on the soap drawer, so there's no excuse for anyone to say they can't put the washing on because they don't know which programme to use.

There's not much else to say about it, after all a washer is just a washer, in this case you put in the tablets and conditioner, turn the knob and hey presto you get clean washing after 30 minutes.

Summary: A good choice in my opinion.

Reliability:
Ease of use:
Design:
Cleaning/Maintenance:
Quality: