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The Junk Parlor

Speed Queen Product Review

So you need a new washer and dryer? I’m sharing my product review of our Speed Queen washer and dryer set we’ve had for a few years now.

Whenever I share a picture of my laundry room on social media I get tons of questions about our Speed Queen set. After having a funny experience with my hand mixer, you can watch that here. I decided that you liked my product review, so I should do one on my Speed Queen set!

Our First Washer and Dryer

Now, my sense of time is terrible, so we either got these in 2018 or 2019… I CAN NOT remember and neither can my husband. I’m 99% sure it was winter time and our previous set was having issues. We had a Whirlpool front loading set and after some adjustments with that set, I had grown to love them.

Our issues with that Whirlpool set was that we had purchased the risers for them. Risers are drawers that you can put under the machine to raise it up higher off the floor. That way you don’t have to bend over or squat as much to put clothes in and out of the machine. The drawer also gives you some hidden storage. And who couldn’t use more of that!

But, with the risers comes a higher center of gravity and our machines would walk all over the place. By walk, I mean they would scoot around the room. Come to find out that they do this more often with risers AND when they are positioned on an interior wall. Basically, we were told that the machines were made to go on concrete, a solid surface. When people put them, in our case, on the main floor, there is obviously more give in wood. That combined with them being on an interior wall, again, less stability, that would cause the machines to move when they were ran.

Since we wouldn’t be moving our washer and dryer hook ups, we took them off of the risers which helped. Then, we built an addition and decided to move the outlets to an exterior wall. That took care of all of the movement issues.

Commonly front loaders have a smell, or leave a smell on clothing. We did have this problem in the beginning, but then it just stopped. I did clean out the rubber ring around the door a few times, but honestly the smell just stopped on it’s own. So we were VERY happy with this front loading set.

With a family of 5 active people who would go through at least a couple outfits a day, I’m pleased to say this set lasted 12 years!! Okay, and having remembered that I can say that we got our Speed Queen set in the end of 2018.

The dryer on the Whirlpool just wasn’t drying like it used to and we would have to run the dryer multiple times to get the clothes dry. Since we had the set so long we decided to just go ahead and replace both. I don’t remember the washer having any major issues when we replaced it, but we figured it would happen soon.

Purchasing the Speed Queen Washer and Dryer

Running my own small business, I like to shop local when I can. So, I went back to where we bought our first set to get our replacement. It was going to be a few months before they had anything available because they had been wiped out and there was some issue with getting new ones. This is pre Co-vid mind you! He did have one set on the floor, the showroom model that he could sell me, so we took that.

I didn’t really care what it looked like and I figured that last one had served us well, so this would too! A couple former students delivered the new set, got it all set up and loaded up our old set. But, when they tested everything, there was NO HEAT in the dryer. Short version of the long story. We did not keep that set nor will ever spend money with this shop owner again!

Since they had already taken our old set, here we are a family of 5 without a washer and dryer. My parents live across the road, so I’m sure at some point we hauled clothes over there to wash. But, that made picking a new set and getting it installed a priority.

At this point we are a little more gun shy. We shop at a few other local places, but just can’t decide what to do. Matt then goes by himself and comes home wanting to spend big money on a Speed Queen because they are durable and commercial…meaning they’re in hotels and laundromats.

I used Google a bit to help with the decision, but honestly the reviews aren’t that great. So, do not ask me why we actually went with the Speed Queen, because I’m really not sure. Basically the guy on the sales floor must have done a good job selling it to my husband!

3 Years Later

3 years later I can honestly say I am happy with our purchase. I am probably most happy with the warranty, which I’m not sure is something that the local business provided does or if it comes with all Speed Queen’s. The Speed Queen has had issues, but we have spent zero dollars repairing those issues.

And with the initial price tag, zero on the repairs sounds good, really good. Checkout what the Speed Queen set is going to run you HERE.

So what issues have we had with our Speed Queen set? The first issue was a crazy loud noise. Now this noise only happened a couple times, at least while we were home, but it was LOUD and CRAZY sounding! We can’t see any issues, everything seems to be working, but we call our retailer anyway to send out a repair man to check it out.

They immediately thought they knew what the issue was because it must commonly happen. The tub is metal but has a hard plastic ring on the top of it. When the tub gets out of balance for whatever reason on the spin cycle, it comes up and hits the top of the machine causing the plastic to come off.

On our machine, once we knew where to look, we could see that plastic had rubbed off of the ring. The repair man said normally you have white shavings in your laundry load, but we hadn’t noticed anything. So they replaced the tub. This actually ended up being an ordeal because the repair man couldn’t get our tub out and then didn’t have some special tool with him, so it took a few trips and a lot of muscle to get our old tub out.

The machine washed fine with the old tub and washed fine with the new tub.

The next issue we had was after we had the machine a couple years. The lid door would lock and remain locked while the wash paused. We tried unplugging it and replugging it in, which seems to work on most technology, but it didn’t solve the issue. Again we called and got the repair man out.

Everything looked fine. According to him, sometimes moisture causes damage to the boards (tech panel), but to the eye ours looked fine. I think he replaced it anyway, but we soon called back because we were having the same lid lock issues. This time they literally ordered every possible piece it could be and switched it all out. He was here almost ALL day taking the entire machine apart. But, we haven’t had any issues since.

What the Internet Says

The Internet says it doesn’t get your clothes clean. I have not noticed our clothes being less clean than with our previous set. Without getting super personal, when we first got the machine there was an issue with one piece of clothing getting cleaned. However, after having that issue about a year, that same item is always cleaned now.

We do not have anything heavily soiled. We do not farm, and our athletic uniforms and practice clothes are never overly dirty. I don’t have dirty diapers or baby food caked on everything. So, I can only say that normal clothes seem to clean like normal.

The Internet says it leaves soap residue. We always put the soap in first, which should prevent this if it was an issue.

The Internet says it isn’t very eco friendly. I honestly didn’t look for that when I selected our set. Our water bill is slightly higher, but that could be due to numerous other things as well.

Final Thoughts

I am very happy with our Speed Queen set, although we have had two issues with it in the first 3 years, those issues have been repaired for free. If this set lasts for another 10 years without needing any more repairs, that would be ideal, but if the repairs are covered under warranty then I guess it really doesn’t matter!

With a family of 5 we are doing a load every day, if not multiple loads. We need a washer and dryer that can handle that much use and that is one of the reasons we went with this commercial brand. If the Speed Queen can handle a laundromat, then it should be able to handle the Johnson’s!

Want a Speed Queen washer and dryer? You can purchase one HERE.

You can read more about my laundry room HERE.

This post may contain affiliate links for the products I use and recommend. I am not paid to promote these products. If you purchase using my affiliate links, I could make a small commission at no charge to you.

2 thoughts on “Speed Queen Product Review”

  1. Just bought a speed queen front loading FF7005WN since 7009 is not available. Installed and found is defective. The dealer suggests to repair. I try to contact SQ myself now…Who knows what is going to happen. …..

    1. Ugh! So frustrating when you spend that much money! Our retail store was so easy to work with, so I hope your is too!

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