Raised Base For Laundry Machines?

rhinoguy

Has anyone built a raised base for a washer/dryer pair? My customer would like them lifted eight to twelve inches, with drawers below. Also, what should I put under the machines to catch leaks, quiet machines?
The existing plumbing is plastic, so extensions, if needed, would be no trouble. And the electric outlet has about of foot of slack in the feed wire under the floor.

mdshunk

Such bases are already commercially available. Might want to swing in the appliance store to measure and look at a few.

Shamrock

We live in a flood zone here on the Banks so it's quite common for washers and dryers...water heaters also to be placed on an elevated base when these appliances are used on a ground level room. Most are simple built following common framing habits. Never had one with drawers so I'm not sure how well the voids between the framing for the drawers would hold up under the appliance loads...maybe a couple sheets of 3/4 ply would more than compensate. Great idea though...I'm surprised I'm never seen one done that way out here.

Luke

These bases are actually creating a few related issues. The plumbing and electrical supply boxes now have to be raised in order to still be accessible without moving the appliances as required by code. In addition, if the laundry is on the first floor or above, the washer has to sit on a drain pan which has to be taken into consideration if you are making custom platforms since the pan has to be drained into the sanitary piping and also a timed water source has to be installed to feed water into the trap on a periodic basis to prevent the trap from drying out and allowing sewer gases to excape into the laundry. With these new front loading appliances, most of my customers want to have a folding table built on top of the appliances. One of the hot trends in appliances is the combination washer/dryer. There is only one appliance, it washes the clothes then automatically drains and then turns into a dryer. I wish I had thought of that a few years ago, it's so damn obvious. Getting back to custom bases, the washer base in particular will have to be fortified if you will be integrating a drawer. A whole lot of weight and shaking going on there.....

mdshunk

Unless you have some special local amendment, that's not the code at all.

RTRCon

We have done a few of them, instead of drawers under it, weve used 2 30" wide by 24" deep by 12" tall Refrigerator uppers screwed side by side. Built a toe kick for under them and covered the top with 2 sheets plywood, and you can tile or plam the top to match the rest of the counters in the laundry room. The ones Ive done are new construction and the plumbing/wireing were set up for it.

Rich Turley

I've built a couple, but no drawers. That meant that I could cross-brace well as it has to support a lot of gyrating weight.

Rich

Mrmac204

these machines have been available for quite some time now- however I'd only seen them in larger yachts- they are quite expensive - probably not the case now though. sure seems like a good idea! saves space. only draw back I can think of is if you have lots of laundry to do, you'd have to wait till the first load is dry before you can wash the second load.

rhinoguy

I think I'm going the simple and inexpensive route here, at her suggestion! Make the base out of 2 X lumber, mount a pan with a drain, move the outlet to the top of the base pointing up, between the machines, away from the water connections. Paint to match the room and just use ready made drawers, but add wheels to them. Not the prettiest but should do the job. Bending is getting difficult for her. She can use her grabber for the stuff in the drawers.