GE Washer/Dryer Clearance

[NotAbostonPlumber]

We just bought a house with a small laundry room. It looked big enough at first glance, but after measuring and looking for washer/dryer combos, I'm a little concerned. If I position the units based on the current electrical outlet, water hookups and drain pipe, I will barely be able to open the doors fully to load and unload. It will also only give us about 2ft to stand in front while doing this. If I position side by side or stacked straight ahead as you walk in the door, that problem goes away, but now I need to relocation things and block a window.

GE has a 32" depth, but the installation instructions claim a 0" clearance between units and from the rear (assuming you use right angle fittings). This is for a closet or alcove, but I'm wondering if I can get away with this and suffer with the tight squeeze in front for now until we want to tackle reconfiguring the room. There are just too many other projects at the moment.

I contacted GE and the rep told me I needed a lot of other clearance. I pointed out the manual and he basically said, oh, yeah, you can probably do that. Not the strong vote of confidence I was looking for. Anyone fit these in tight spaces? I'd rather not get a small unit (we got kids) or top load.

Page 19 for reference:
https://products.geappliances.com/M...patcher?RequestType=PDF&Name=49-3000217-2.pdf

 

[Fitter30]

To enable 0” clearance on the back of the washer, you must use 90° elbow hoses. Otherwise you may require some additional clearance to avoid rubbing of the hoses against the back wall.
Think you would need some room for the hoses and power. Need to really look ay the drier.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[NotAbostonPlumber]

Yeah. I'm hoping when they say 0" clearance, the 32" in depth covers some overhang from the top of the machine and that the cord and water hoses can bury in there. I know they offer side venting, so I assume that would be required for 0" on the rear as well.

 

[Jadnashua]

If you can run the dryer vent straight out the wall behind the unit, you could get to zero clearance behind it. It also somewhat depends on whether it is gas or electric.

One thing people neglect when trying to put a W-D into a small space is that unless you've got a condensing dryer, it will be trying to exhaust a LOT of air, so you need some path for air to get into that small room, so you don't really want to close the door, if it has one, unless it has a lot of louver space to all air flow. If it's a gas dryer, it needs combustion air, too, and you could be changing the fuel/air mix if there were a door to the room.

If the units are stackable, that will lessen the floor space assuming you have the vertical height. Some of those are REALLY heavy, so you'll need enough room for some really strong people to help stack them, too!

 

[Tuttles Revenge]

one of theses recessed dryer vent boxes helps save on space too