Wad-Free laundry bed sheet tangle preventer review

REVIEW – Have you ever gone to get clothes out of the dryer only to find the entire load wrapped up in your bed sheet?  What about the dryer?  You go to fold your laundry only to find that your sheets have inconveniently rolled everything into a ball and now, nothing is actually dry. Well, a frustrated person named Cyndi faced just such issues and decided to do something about it.  She designed Wad-Free, a device designed to keep bed sheets from wreaking havoc on your laundry.  Let’s take a look at how well it works.

What is it?

Wad-Free is a specially designed tool that holds the corners of your bedsheets while laundering. It is designed to keep your sheets from wrapping themselves around the other laundry items, improving washing efficiency, keeping the washer in balance, reducing drying time by up to 75%, and reducing wrinkles.

What’s in the box?

• A pair of Wad-Free sheet tangle preventers
• Instruction sheet

Hardware specs

• Dimensions: Just under 4-inches square
• Weight:
• Construction: Base – recycled polypropylene; straps – thermoplastic elastomer

Design and features

The Wad-Free device is a square piece of plastic with rounded corners.  In the photo above, you see the underside where four flexible straps are attached.

On the top side, we see the tops of the straps.  Each has a “button” that locks into a slot.

Here are the straps after I released them from the slots.

Here’s a closer look at the strap design.

And a view of how it fits into the slot.

The instructions are molded into the Wad-Free device.

The idea is that you attached all four corners of your sheet to Wad-Free – one corner attached to each strap.

It is pretty simple to do.  Just place a portion of the corner over the button, slip the button up through the hole, and then slide it into place, locking it in position.  In the end, you wind up with what looks like a bit sheet basket.

Each package contains two Wad-Free devices so you can wash your top sheet and fitted sheet at the same time.

They do provide the following warning, so you need to know what kind of sheets you have.

Performance

Wad-Free’s big claims are:

1. Reduced out of balance washer loads
2. Improved cleaning
3. Reduced drying time by up to 75%
4. Reduced wrinkles

I did two separate tests on Wad-Free. My washer is a top-load, massive-capacity washer.  My dryer is a front-load gas dryer with a humidity sensor.  What that means is that the time the dryer displays is mostly a suggestion. It senses the humidity in the dryer and adjusts the drying time accordingly.  If the load dries quickly, the dryer adjusts the time down.  If it is a heavy, wet load, it adjusts the time up.  It runs just long enough to dry the load without running longer than necessary.

Test #1

I washed and dried king-sized sheets, both the top sheet and fitted sheet, plus four king pillowcases.

When the load finished, this is what I found in the washer.

The sheets were pressed against the outside of the drum from the spin cycle. I put them in the dryer. The dryer showed its standard 1:15 (one hour + 15 minutes) drying time.  39 minutes later, the load was dry and reasonably wrinkle-free.

Next, I installed Wad-Free on both sheets and rewashed the load.

As you can see, the Wad-Free load was a little more, for lack of a better term, wadded.  Still, the sheets did felt clean and not soapy.  I put them in the dryer with Wad-Free still attached.  37 minutes later, they were dry.  Hardly a 75% decrease in drying time.  In fact, two minutes was within the realm of measurement error. Everything was reasonably wrinkle-free.

Test #2

For the next test, I once again washed the two sheets and four pillowcases and added one bath towel plus two bath sheets (larger towels). Twice during the spin cycle, the washed unbalanced and I had to redistribute the heavy towels to get the washer to complete its cycle.

When it finished, here’s what the load looked like.

Into the dryer, everything went.  About an hour in, the dryer indicated everything was dry.  When I pulled out the sheets and towels, they were not dry.  One small part of the sheet was resting against the humidity sensor, tricking the sensor into thinking the load was sry.  I cleaned the lint screen and restarted it.  40 minutes later, everything was dry for a total drying time of 1:40.  Again, everything was reasonably wrinkle-free. The sheets were somewhat wrapped around the towels but that didn’t affect the outcome.

I installed Wad-Free on the two sheets and tossed everything back in the washer.  The load finished without unbalancing. I tossed everything into the dryer.

After about an hour, I stopped it and cleaned the lint screen, so both runs were conducted with the same conditions. Everything felt damp as expected. 40 minutes later, the load was dry and reasonably wrinkle-free.

I then decided to try a different test.  Using different sheets, I did a load with the sheets as well as regular laundry – shirts, shorts, socks, underwear, golf towels, hats, and so on.  This time, I reversed the order and started with the Wad-Free load.  The washer never unbalanced and the washer finished as expected.  The laundry was untangled and not wadded at all. Interestingly, the three hats I tossed in found each other.

I dried everything and the dryer finished in 1:32. The laundry was mostly wrinkle-free as usual.

I took everything out of the dryer, removed the Wad-Free devices, and put everything back in the washer for a second run. Once again, the laundry was untangled and wad-free, even without the Wad-Free device.

Off to the dryer, everything went. 1:32 later – two minutes longer or 2%, everything was dry, essentially wrinkle-free, and not tangled. The sheets were not wrapped around anything and everything was nicely dry. Yet another dead heat between Wad-Free and non-Wad-Free loads.

Here’s a summary of the three tests and six loads:

So, in my testing, after six loads of laundry, there was little difference in laundry performance with or without Wad-Free.  I don’t have any way to test their claim of improved cleaning performance. What I could test was washer performance in terms of load balancing, drying time, and wrinkle prevention. In all tests, there was little to no difference.  We regularly have loads exactly like these that unbalance as well as loads exactly like these that don’t unbalance. I cannot attribute the balanced/unbalanced load to Wad-Free’s influence because, in my experience, I have seen the exact behavior where one load will unbalance and the next one won’t, all with similar contents, without Wad-Free.

What I like

• Clever design
• Easy to use

What I’d change

• Achieve an actual reduction in drying time
• Achieve an actual reduction in wrinkles

Final thoughts

I was pretty excited to test Wad-Free.  If we could reduce our laundry drying time, it would make laundry days go much faster.  Unfortunately, there was nearly zero difference in drying time with or without Wad-Free.  I want to be sure that I emphasize that our dryer measures the dampness in the load continuously and adjusts drying time accordingly. This means that the drying time results are not due to a fixed drying cycle time.

Out laundry style is to wash sheets by themselves or with towels.  We usually don’t wash sheets with socks, slacks, shirts, or underwear. In my tests, I couldn’t identify and practical difference when washing sheets and towels like we always do versus washing them while using Wad-Free.  In my additional testing, even including regular clothing items in the load didn’t change the results. If you wash a lot of smaller items with your sheets, your mileage may vary.

Perhaps there would be a difference with front-loading washing machine, but in our top-load Samsung washer and front-load Samsung dryer, I couldn’t identify any difference whether I used Wad-Free or not.

Price: $18.99 (for a pair)
Where to buy: Wad-Free; Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Wad-Free.