When you live in an apartment or a condo unit without a washer/dryer, laundry day is about as exciting as picking lint off an old sweater.

Get up early. Run down the hall to start the wash. Get a phone call and miss your turn at the dryer. Wind up taking three hours to do two loads of wash. Not exactly a good time.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Check out a combination washer-dryer that fits in a space the size of

Besides taking 40 percent less space than a single washer or dryer, the Equator EZ 1000 Clothes Processor also saves work because it goes automatically from the wash to dry cycle

 

“It does take slightly longer than a regular washer and dryer – 20 minutes for the permanent press wash cycle and 40 minutes to dry,” Ron Combs, Equator’s vice president of marketing, says. “But the beauty is you don’t have to be there to put the clothes in the dryer.”

Europeans have been using similar washer-dryer combinations for a decade, but the product has just recently become available in the United States. It needs only a 110-volt outlet, can be hooked up to a single kitchen faucet and can be vented out an open window. The front-loading appliance has three wash cycles – regular, permanent press and delicate. The dryer has two heat settings.

Suggested retail price is $795. It’s available locally at Incredible Universe in Hollywood and Miami.