Front-load washers: what 205 certified models measure

What this page measures#

Every number below comes from fw_models certified registries: 205 catalogued front-load washers from 40 brands.

A certified-product listing is a manufacturer filing, so this is a census of what is CERTIFIED — not of what is on sale, not of what is installed, and not of every brand on the market. Read each row as "of the 205 front-load washers in this corpus", never as "of all front-load washers". Each row states its own count, because not every listing fills in every field. Method: /methodology.

The short answer for front-load washers#

The 205 front-load washers catalogued here come from 40 brands, and the middle listing holds 4.5 cubic feet against a full range of 1.9 to 5.8. That median is a real filing's value, not an average, so a machine of about four and a half cubic feet is an ordinary one in this corpus. Annual water use runs from 1,728 to 5,003 gallons a year with a middle listing at 3,867, and the integrated water factor — gallons per cycle for each cubic foot of drum — from 2.6 to 4.2 around a median of 3.2. Efficiency is the one row that is not complete: 187 of the 205 listings state an integrated modified energy factor, and among those it runs 2.07 to 3.2 with a median of 2.76. Every figure describes this catalogue of certified filings, not what is on sale and not what is installed in laundry rooms.

How front-load washers measure#

Lowest, middle and highest value stated by the front-load washers in this corpus. The middle value is a median, so a real listing holds it.

Every row above is a claim about one corpus — fw_models certified registries: 205 catalogued front-load washers from 40 brands (a certified-product census is not a census of units in service, and not every brand on the market is certified). Not every listing fills in every field, so the "Models stating it" and "Brands" columns are that ROW's own denominators: they count the models that state THAT spec, never the corpus total. Method: /methodology.

How to use these numbers#

The most useful thing here is the relationship between the two water rows, because they answer different questions. Annual water use is a total: it assumes a standard number of cycles a year and tells you roughly what a machine of that kind draws over twelve months. The integrated water factor is a rate, water per cycle for each cubic foot of capacity, and it is what lets you compare a large drum against a small one fairly. A big machine can post a high annual figure and still be efficient per cubic foot, which is exactly the case the annual number alone would get wrong. If you are choosing between two listings of different sizes, the factor is the honest comparison and the annual total is the budgeting one.

For measuring a space, read the capacity range as what the class contains rather than as a guide to any cabinet. A spread of 1.9 to 5.8 cubic feet is wide, and its low end is a different kind of machine from the middle — compact units built for a closet. The median tells you where the bulk of the catalogue sits; it says nothing about door swing, the dimension that actually decides whether a front-loader fits, which this table does not carry.

The efficiency row is the one to read carefully, because it is the only incomplete one. Eighteen of the 205 listings state no integrated modified energy factor, so that row describes 187 filings rather than the corpus — and a filing omits a field for reasons the data never records. What it supports is the spread among listings that stated a value; what it cannot support is any claim about the eighteen that did not.