I’m not a laundry guy, but we just got a new GE washer and dryer pair to replace the old set. I’m just going to make a few comments about the washer, model GFW850SPNDG. This is not an exhaustive review and I don’t have any conflict of interests with GE.
First let me get something off my chest about the much-vaunted ULTRAFRESH VENT System with ODORBLOCK, trademarked by Microban International, Ltd. Most of the YouTube videos I’ve seen about this feature promise you can say goodbye to leaving the washer door open to avoid the basket getting stinky from things like mold and old tootsie rolls. That might be true if you’re willing to leave the system running for up to 8 hours as it intermittently spins. Look, you can give the gasket and other areas of the washer a quick wipe-down and just leave the door open, OK?
Let’s turn to the SmartDispenser. This has to be filled in order to get the prewash option on any wash cycle. If you don’t fill the SmartDispenser compartment, I strongly suspect you won’t get prewash. My wife stood in front of the machine and watched it like a hawk after trying to add a little detergent to the SmartDispenser in addition to the detergent compartment in the front part of the dispenser drawer. The machine skipped the prewash. It’s important to be aware of this because you need to fill the SmartDispenser with up to 50 ounces of detergent, which is about half a bottle of liquid Tide. In our old GE washer, there was a dedicated, labeled prewash compartment. You can’t just put a little extra detergent in the front compartment and hope to get prewash. It won’t happen because it has to come from the SmartDispenser. Hey, I don’t make these rules.
The nice thing about the SmartDispenser is that once it’s filled, you can forget about adding detergent at all for every load. You still need to fill the fabric softener and bleach compartments as needed. When the detergent is about to run out in the SmartDispenser you’ll see a red-colored light message on the Smart Dispense digital display on the control panel saying “Tank Low” and another message below that which is labeled “Loads Left” in the SmartDispenser tank. The “Tank Low” message comes on when there are about 8-10 loads of detergent remaining (according to instructions).
The SmartDispenser adjusts the amount of soap to squirt out according to the size and composition of the load. According to instructions, a normal load weighs 8 pounds and when the SMART DISPENSE pad is set to “Auto,” it will magically determine how much to add or subtract from the standard 1.5-ounce dollop of soap. Otherwise, you can press “More” or “Less” to add or subtract 40%. If your load of clothes weighs more than 8 pounds, you should calmly put it on a diet and hire a personal trainer for it. Never fat shame your laundry.
While we’re at it, let’s look at the dispenser drawer in a little more detail. The front compartment is for liquid or powder detergent. You put either kind on the right-hand side of the goofy-looking blue flap. What matters is whether that blue flap is up or down. Flip the flap down—use liquid. Flip the flap up, use powder. The way to remember this is that when the flap covers the left-hand side, that means the flap is up. If you repeatedly flip the flap back and forth, you can put yourself into a deeply meditative state and cause world peace—which nobody seems to want.
The next two compartments to the rear of the detergent compartment are the bleach and fabric softener compartments. It’s normal for them to be swamped with water between wash cycles, according to the instructions. I don’t think you’re obligated to take the whole drawer out and turn it upside down to empty them, especially if you don’t have a sink in the laundry room. I suspect the compartments get flushed during washes. Or maybe a tiny alien flies in and sucks the liquid up to use as spaceship fuel.
The next compartment back is the SmartDispenser. It proudly advertises the Tide label. In order to get the lid open to load soap, you have to press the small blue tab in back of it so you can pull the drawer out a bit further. You can also remove the whole drawer by continuing to pull on it. Just be careful to press the tab in again as you push the drawer slowly back in place. If you slam it shut, you’ll upset the balance of the cosmos and a supernova will destroy the galaxy.
Remember, there are several GE washer models out there. Some features will not be available and some instructions will not apply—and they might mystify you. The section in our instruction book which tells you that, in order to manually select the amount of soap for a load, you should press the SMART DISPENSE pad on the control panel to select detergent for a Small or Large load. Don’t believe it; this is probably left over from a now defunct model.
OK, that’s all I got for now. I heard it through the grapevine that the next model will be a wringer washer.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 