GE Profile All-in-One Washer/Dryer Review

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The efficiency of heat pumps in tackling carbon emissions has often been covered here at CleanTechnica thanks to Joe Wachunas, who has often shared his expertise in this area. With heat pumps, you typically get a 3-to-1 bonus in heat produced versus energy consumed in electricity! The benefit achieved depends on the performance coefficient, which itself depends on the temperature of the lower and upper tanks, in the ideal theoretical sense that is covered in the college’s thermodynamics course.

My family recently purchased a GE Profile washer/dryer, and it not only saves space in the laundry room (with other benefits as well, more on those later), but it also uses a heat pump for the drying cycle to save energy. The price for this washer/dryer isn’t cheap, at $2,300 at Best Buy and other on-sale retailers.

However, it’s supposed to replace both the washer and dryer, so you’ll have to add those separate costs. In our case, we had a washer that needed a $1,000 repair as quoted by Excelsior Appliance, so the repair was not worthwhile. On the other hand, the dryer was probably a 30-year-old Kenmore by the looks of it, which we inherited when we bought our house. The dryer was still working fine, albeit very inefficient, running on 240 volts and probably drawing 20 amps or so.

Overall, the GE Profile cost us $2,800, including sales price, sales tax, installation, transferring old appliances, and starting a Best Buy protection plan. We went with the protection plan because the GE Profile is fairly new and comes with a not-so-great warranty. That’s not cheap, and considering a standalone heat pump dryer only makes sense if you don’t need to replace your washer and if space isn’t tight.

Use a GE Profile washer/dryer

Using the GE profile is very simple. It comes with a manual that I admit I haven’t read, as well as a getting started card. For this review, I ran a mix of clothes through a ‘normal’ cycle, and only had to adjust to cold water use with a simple press of the ‘temperature’ button, which cycles through the available temperatures. When adding clothes, I was careful not to fill them more than a third full, as overfilling them would likely prolong the drying cycle.

However, I’ve run several loads, one less than half full, two almost half full, and two thirds full. All of these loads ended up with good results in terms of getting a dry load at the end of the cycle. GE Profile will change drying time based on the size of the load through its ability to sense how dry the load currently is.

As an added bonus, the GE Profile comes with a “Dog Grooming Mode!” No, this is just a reflection of my dog, who wants to be on hand :-).

The time on the display shows 2 hours and 11 minutes, which is about what you should expect for a load of just over half. This is a downside to an all-in-one, as with two separate machines you can wash and dry them in parallel. However, you also don’t have to spend time in transit, don’t have to worry about leaving a load of washing machine behind, and if you can just relax and do other things while you wait for the machine to finish, it’s all good!

Energy use

I connected the unit to a Kill-A-Watt to track power usage. I was a little concerned here as I had to use an extension cord to be able to see the readings on the Kill-A-Watt. I checked by feel regularly to make sure the wire didn’t overheat! I do not recommend using an extension cord long term without supervision.

During the dry cycle, I took a picture of this power draw. The maximum power draw I observed was 1160 watts, which at 120 volts comes out to 9.7 amps (P=IV).

At the end of the wash/dry cycle (wash and dry is the default), I just press the “KWH” button on the Kill-A-Watt, which then displays the total energy used in kilowatt-hours. Drumroll please…that only works out to 1.25 kWh! Here in Minneapolis electricity is about 20 US cents for a combined wash/dry cycle. I think this is excellent, since an electric dryer might draw 20 amps at 240 volts for an hour, which equates to 20*240/1000 = 4.8 kWh just for drying! It’s possible that my numbers for typical dryer amperage draw and drying time are off, so let me know in the comments if that’s the case.

How dry is it?

After the default dry cycle has finished, which I recommend so you don’t over-dry your clothes, GE claims that the environment your clothes sit in is hot and humid, and that each item of clothing deserves to be shaken a few times before folding. I can confirm that, and since you probably want to shake your clothes a few times to remove wrinkles, there is no need to worry!

Also, while I was washing clothes as part of the exercise of cleaning out the closet and getting rid of pet hair so they would be suitable for perhaps donation, I left one load of clothes out overnight. The next day I found that the clothes were slightly damp, but only to a small degree. So don’t worry if that’s the case, just leave it in the laundry basket for a few hours before putting it in a drawer. Or if you want to put it on hold, go ahead.

The GE profile also has settings for more thorough drying, but I didn’t explore this feature because that’s likely unnecessary and would consume more energy and possibly shrink your cotton clothes.

Additional benefits

The GE profile has two additional advantages, one obvious and one perhaps unexpected! Firstly, it frees up space as you can reuse the space that was previously occupied by the dryer. But the second benefit is a much bigger deal. If you have a 240-volt circuit that runs to your laundry room, that circuit is no longer designated for your dryer.

Well…what can a 240V circuit be reused for? Maybe charge an electric car! And without having to come up with a solution to switch between the two applications.

International cooperation

GE appliances are manufactured in the United States. However, the company was sold to Haier a few years ago. If the GE Profile washer/dryer proves reliable, it could be a model for future China-US cooperation. You own some of us, we own some of you, and we’re committed to local production!

There’s also a similar new model from Samsung if you want to support the South Korean property.

Two recommendations

I recommend leaving the door open after loading to allow it to dry properly, although the time required is minimal due to the heating cycle. Also clean the lint filter after each load and leave it open to allow it to dry properly. This will prevent mold, mildew, etc.

summary

All-in-one washers/dryers are a new thing here in the US. Since there is a heat pump for the drying cycle, it only needs to run on 120V. My experience is that the GE Profile washer/dryer works very well and is energy efficient by perhaps a factor of 3 or 4 to boot! It saves labor and also energy. What don’t we like?

Written by Matt Fulkerson