The best washing machine I have ever used! (Hotpoint WDL520G)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Hotpoint WDL520G
Date:	10/11/08 (751 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Washes clothes well, a nice design, a good range of programmes, good instruction manual

Disadvantages: Takes a long time to dry clothes, creases badly

My last big buy was a new combined washer dryer back in July, the ventilation tube of my tumble dryer was posing a hazard to my baby granddaughter as she learned to walk so I had the perfect excuse to treat myself to a condenser dryer which didn't need a tube to work.

I decided on the Hotpoint WDL520G because it was reasonably priced and had all the functions I needed, it was also highly recommended by the girl in the shop who could have sold me a more expensive machine but instead told me of her own good experience with the model. Costing just £299.99, this combined machine costs less than some of the more standard Hotpoint washing machines and you have the benefit of more space in your kitchen when you get rid of your tumble dryer.

This has proved to be the best washing machine I have ever owned. It's so simple to use that a cursory glance of the easy to read instruction manual was all it took before I felt I knew the machine inside out. The manual is very good incidentally and covers all the things I would need to know or look up before using the machine, it's well written with basic instructions on how to do everything as well as easy to follow illustrations.

In the shop I was not overly impressed with how the machine looked, I don't know why but it looked very old fashioned to me. It's graphite in colour with the main body of the machine being a lighter shade than the top and the section which houses the dials and dispenser drawer. I suppose it was because this machine was surrounded with crisp looking white washing machines in the shop that it looked so old fashioned because as soon as it arrived and was plumbed in it looked great, my kitchen has a pine and silver theme and I think this machine blends in much better than the bright silver Servis one I had before.

The machine is operated by way of three dials which set the programme, wash temperature and drying time. They are self explanatory and a full key to the programme numbers is printed clearly on the detergent drawer. As with any washing machine you will soon learn which programmes are most suited to your family and the majority of them are surplus to requirements for day to day washing, but occasionally you'll need to use one of the more obscure programmes and then you'll be glad there are 16 to choose from!

I tend to use the cottons programme on 30° with a 100 minute drying cycle and my clothes always come out perfectly clean and dry ready to be ironed. This machine has been given an A Grade wash performance rating, which means it will remove the most stubborn of stains. I can agree with this because everything I have washed has come out spotlessly clean, right down to my baby granddaughter's dirty bibs and that has got to be the ultimate test for any washing machine!

A couple of the programmes I use fairly often are the Easy Iron and Ready To Wear options. I also press the button which tells the machine that this is a small load sometimes as I live alone and often need to wash just a few items, the small load function saves water and energy but still cleans the clothes perfectly. Easy Iron is a good addition to the machine, it soaks the clothes for a while in water before the final spin which means there are fewer deep creases in the fabric. One dislike I have with this machine is that the clothes are unbelievably creased when I take them out and ironing is an absolute necessity, my old tumble dryer would leave the majority of my clothes needing no ironing at all as took most of the creases out! Easy Iron doesn't remove all the creases but my clothes certainly don't come out crumpled as they do using the standard cottons programme.

Ready To Wear is a good programme which works well with smaller loads of thin fabrics and allows you to wash and dry in 60 minutes. This is great when I'm short of time as the long drying cycle of this machine would have me tearing out my hair otherwise. I am quite an organised person when it comes to my laundry so put a load on in the morning and then I don't care how long the washing and drying cycle takes. The machine takes much longer than my previous Servis washing machine though, the wash taking around an hour and then up to a further 180 minutes to dry the clothes. You can opt for a quick wash which will take just 30 minutes, but this doesn't seem an adequate length of time compared to the standard wash although I have used it on barely soiled items.

The spin speed is 1200 rpm and the clothes certainly seem to be have spun well on the odd occasion we have had dry enough weather to peg it out on the line, they dry slightly slower than those from my Servis machine but this had an rpm of 1600 so I expected this.

Whichever programme you choose you will have to select a temperature on the second dial, temperatures range from 30°C to 90°C or you can choose a cold wash. Obviously some of the programmes give you a limited choice of temperature, but this is clearly marked on the key and the machine will not allow you to choose an incorrect temperature. I find 30° is fine for me but my daughter, who has the exact same machine, finds she needs to go up to 40° to get all the girls' clothes clean and she even washes at 80° when my son in law comes home from work in particularly filthy overalls!

Talking of my daughter, she has a pre-payment electricity meter and has actually calculated that a full wash and dry cycle costs only 72p which astounded me as it seems to take such a long time. According to the booklet it has an energy consumption of 5.67kW, although that means absolutely nothing to me so I'll just say that 72p a cycle is pretty impressive in my opinion! It saves on water too because one of the excellent eco related features is the fact that the machine will adjust the amount of water needed depending on the weight of the load, perhaps all washing machines do this I don't know.

You can fit 7kg of laundry into the washing machine drum, although it will only dry 5kg worth so if you regularly fill your machine to bursting point then please be aware that you will need to remove some of the wet washing in order to dry the rest thoroughly. This is no problem for me as I don't like tumble dried towels and have several items which will shrink if dried in the machine, so if my load looks too heavy for the dryer to cope with then I simply remove all these things and reduce the weight by around half as towels in particular are very heavy once wet.

All in all I'm very happy with my Hotpoint WDL520G. I registered it with Hotpoint as soon as it arrived and am now covered with a 5 year parts warranty and 1 year labour warranty, this is in addition to my statutory rights as a consumer. There were various options for me to purchase an extended warranty and the prices did not actually seem too bad, but as my best friends husband is a washing machine repair man I didn't bother to take them up on it as he'll generally fix any problems for the price of a few beers!

Summary: A fantastic washer/dryer at a brilliant price.

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