The "Que Choisir" magazine provides good and reliable comparative information. Que choisir is a reference magazine for consumer information in France. View by subsciption or purchase i printed format.

Washers and dryer can be purchased on internet, always go for quality A/A/A label and check water consumption for washer, capacity (in Kg), numbers of programmes, noise (you can use your machine at night) and so on. For dryers you can chose:
- with condensator (water is evaporated within the machine) or
- with evacuation (vapour is channelled trough a conduct that you can connect to your balcony or outside).
Same criteria apply except for water consumption.

LG has an innovative engine system (direct drive) which prevents mechanical faults apparently.
Top range is Miele, AEG or some Bosch models.

electromust is good web site to look for (free delivery)
price minister
cdiscount
Darty is nice but not always friendly and after sale service can be poor, but they are close by.
I use comparator (that compares best deals for same model) such as kelkoo.

Good hunting

 

I've had good luck with Darty - though I generally buy from their website and avoid the sales pitch in the store.

I tend to trust the German brands for large appliances (Siemens, Miele, Bosch, etc.) though LG is also good, as Gallus says. Last time I checked Darty for dryers, most of the more highly rated ones were the condenser type dryers, which don't vent at all - the water collected from the clothing is stored in a container, which you have to empty as it fills up. These dryers seem to be popular for rental arrangements, as there is no "hole in the wall" needed.

Actually, many folks here prefer to hang laundry outside to dry if you have any sort of a yard or balcony. The dryer is mainly for wintertime or bad weather when you just "have to" do wash.
Cheers,
Bev

 

I have three small kids. The way I do laundry has dramatically changed versus when I was in the US. If you can, don't buy just off the internet. Go to the store and open the washing machines and peer in and judge the capacity that way. I was shocked at how tiny the drum was on some of the machines that claimed they could handle 8kg of wash. Just because it can handle the weight, doesn't mean it can handle the size of load you might want to do. Even my "giant sized" one that I bought has trouble with more than 3 towels.

I had Whirlpool back in the states that I loved, so I went with them here. Awful. (But one of the largest I could find.) My washing machine does do a good job on the daily 1 hour short cycle. (In case you haven't been warned, it takes forever to do a load of laundry.) But it is incredibly loud when it spins. The condensor dryer does a crappy job. The manufacter's own information is a 2.5hour drying time for a full load of cotton clothes! If I could do it again, I would have gone with Bosch. Typically, I put half the load directly on a drying rack and put the other half (stuff I want to try to get wrinkles out of ) in my dryer for 20-30 minutes and then I finish drying those items on hangars.

And my experience with Darty was not positive, but I don't know who else I would tell you to buy from either. Good luck.

 

Whirlpool here was bought out by someone else - I think the machines are now made by a German company that makes lots of "generic" appliances. And my luck with Whirlpool wasn't too good, either (though it was a dishwasher.)

A couple notes about washing machines here - they take so long because they heat the water in the machine. Big appliances are only connected to the cold water, so they have to include the extra stuff for heating the water. If you can get away with doing a 30 degree wash (or now, they even have 15 degree settings and detergents) you'll have a faster cycle. (More like 45 minutes - the hotter settings take 2 hours or more.)

I've started to see some of the big washers here lately - similar to the US front loading behemoths that always amaze me at Best Buy. Unfortunately, most French houses don't really have a space to put these machines (and there's still the issue about connecting them only to the cold water - that I haven't dared to ask about).

No one I know here considers items just out of the dryer as ready to wear. Everyone seems to iron their laundry. I've actually found the easiest stuff to iron is that which is line dried and ironed right away. (Yeah, it's a big shock to most North Americans.)

As far as brick and mortar shops where you can look over the options, besides Darty there is But (translates as "Target" but not the same chain at all), Castorama and most of the big hypermarkets also have various brands of appliances (Carrefour, Auchan, HyperU and others).

One other "cultural" factor is that I find most French and Europeans don't have the same habits as Americans regarding wearing something once and then tossing into the wash. They also tend to have far more limited wardrobes, which does cut down on the washing to some degree.
Cheers,
Bev

 

I bought a Hoover 9+6kg washer dryer about three months ago from ubaldi online (along with the rest of the whitegoods and a few other electrical goods to set up an empty apartment). Happy with the price and delivery from them, etc.

My experience goes along with the other comments: it's great for washing, and it has a 1hr all-in-one cycle where the clothes come out warm and steamy so they dry on the airer faster and makes for easier ironing. However, as a dryer I think it's not what I'm used to -- after 3hrs of drying time, my sheets get mostly dry but incredibly wrinkled and still damp in parts. It's beautifully quiet though (once I leveled it).

r13

 

I was warned about those "all in one" washer-dryers when I first came to live in Europe. They're meant to save space, but no one seems too happy with their drying abilities. Better, probably, to go with those stackable units if you don t have the floor space for both a washer and a dryer.
Cheers,
Bev