community of dyers

The down-turn of front loaders, like Paula said, is that the water first runs in cold and is then heated to operational temperature during the washing cycle. The major problem as far as I see is that you don't place the things to wash out in a big vat of water that you've got in a top loader. In a front loader you put a big wad of colored textiles in with no water in the mashine. Then it turns over and makes a big mess of things...... Oh I wish I had a top loader, but they aren't really available in Germany. If I have something really nice to wash out, I use my camping washing mashine, which is something like a mineature top loader.

If you were dyeing in the washing machine, the top-loader would be necessary, but I'm not sure that you really need to stop the machine in the middle or take stuff out or add it when you're just washing out the dyes after dyeing. I never do that (with my top-loader). I don't usually bother to check the color of the wash water, either. I dump everything in, wash once on cold, then two or (if necessary) three times in hot hot water, and if I'm concerned, dampen a bit of fabric and press it dry between two white rags with a hot iron, to check for inadequately washed out dye..

Here's a link to a couple of posts here on this forum complaining about problems with front loader washing machines for washing out. THC and Sara have complained about dye transfer. Really hot water will remove dye that transfer from one garment to another, assuming you let the fiber reactive dye react completely before washing out, but THC says his washer won't use hot water.

If you could get a front-loader that can use really hot water, or that has a heater in it to heat the water further, that should be ideal. Sufficiently hot water will get rid of unwanted dye transfers, and the front loader will save a lot of water, which you've mentioned before as a problem for you. I know that there are some front-loading washing machines in Europe that can heat the water up to ten degrees below boiling!

I'd want to also keep the top-loader for high water ratio immersion dyeing, though, if there is enough room to have both. Front loaders are not very good for dyeing in. Do you do much of that?

Paula