Has anyone had issues with cleaning urine soaked laundry with the high-efficiency (HE) washing machines?

I have a 35 yr old Maytag. Made by Maytag not the company that bought them out. Top loader and no bells and whistles. Thanks to all the responses, I will not be getting a front loader when my Maytag dies. My Mom always left the lid up on her top loader. It helped it to air out.

Towels...yes I found out a while back that soap is the culprit when it comes to smells. Too much soap and not rinsing completely. So, I put in less soap and less towels per load. When I first found the problem, I soaked and ran them thru a vinegar cycle. I also found my detergent wasn't as good as I thought. Arm and hammer. You could feel the baking soda on the towel. I switch back to original Tide and have had no further problems. I don't like additives, like softeners and oxy. If you use softeners, even dryer sheets, I would stop. They tend to keep towels from absorbing water. I dry my towels on low and they come out pretty soft.

In 2019 we purchased a Samsung top loader and it has a deep fill button. We paid extra for it because of the deep fill cycle. Its almost as good as having the old fashion good washers. Which helps when you have heavily soiled and recommended for any bedding such as sheets, blankets, and towels. We also use Peroxide instead of bleach for things that need disinfected. Pray this helps!

Yes, if you have to soak soiled clothes, you do not WANT a frontloader. Get a top loader. Front loaders aren’t capable of soaking. And honestly I would recommend one without all the bells & whistles. My mother has had to replace (And repair) her washer several times over the last 15 years while the plain front loader we purchased 17 years ago works just fine and has not had to be repaired once! Only downside is that I can’t soak anything. But those fancy washers with all the fancy features tend to be crap.

Save yourself grief and buy a good used top loading washer.

I recently had to replace the dryer at the cabin. I called a local appliance store and told them what I needed. When I told them the location, a place with frequent power outages, and very hard water, they said to avoid any machines with sensors. Brown outs fry the boards and hard water coats the sensors.

I was able to buy a basic timed dry, 3 temp machine from them.

My washing machine is 16 years old and has needed one repair. I had a leak in the pump. Turned out a Bobbie pin got into it. I use the soak cycle for my grandson’s diapers.

HE washers are made to use very little water. I am regretting my choice to get the HE front loaders that my daughter insist would "change my life". Yep--I have to bend over a LOT more to transfer the wash. I can't soak things if I want to and frequently have to run a load twice--hence ruining the whole concept of 'saving water'.

I think when we move I will add the W/D to the sale and get an top loader. I miss being able to soak my towels in bleach water and I definitely feel a film on them. Also, if you don't keep the washer dry--meaning OPEN to dry out, it gets funky in a day or two. I don't like the look of the washer door being open all the time.

I know my SIL has the same W/D I do and her laundry room stinks of old urine as mother still does a few loads of laundry a week and they cannot get the smell of 'sick urine' out of her clothes, and by default, out of the W/D. Mother uses too little detergent and doesn't do a separate rinse with vinegar or something to control the smell. I think by this point, she simply cannot get the smell out. It's really the only 'chore' she has anymore, so YB just lets her do it--and then runs multiple cycles with pet smell detergent. The whole family uses this W/D system and so their 4 adult daughters ALSO smell faintly of urine.

I have just gone to doing very small loads on the longest possible setting.

This is my 3rd set of W/D in 40 years. I MISS my old Whirpool top loader. Real basic, but wow, it did a great job on the 20 loads a week I had when the 5 kids were home.

Probably you will have to soak the urine soaked stuff in a separate basin for a day or so, and try to see if you can hang them out in the sun. I did washable diapers and that's how I did it. They were always snowy white and no smell.

I don't have experience with urine soaked clothing but I do know that I hate my front load washing machine. After a couple of months I noticed that all of my towels smelled after just one day of use. After much research I discovered that because the front load uses so little water that the rinse cycle never gets all the soap and old water rinsed out of the clothes, consequently all the old bacteria and soap scum was still attached to the towels. My only solution is to run my towel load (2 bath towels, 1 hand towel, 2 wash cloths) using very, very little detergent and with a setting of Extra Water, Extra Rinse, Extra hot water and Extra long cycle so all my savings (ecological and otherwise) has just been negated. It takes about a two hour cycle to run towel load. In your situation if I needed to do this on a daily basis I'd go freaking mad.