hot and cold fill washing m/c with combi?

Doglover88

as above really, just had a Worcester Bosch 28i Junior condensing combi boiler fitted and looking to buy a new integrated washing machine, do i need one with hot and cold fill or just cold fill? Theres pipework for hot and cold running to the kitchen already but i heard something about whats best to get?
Many thanks in advance
Glen

robowen

I personally would buy a washing machine with cold fill only. This means that the W/machine heats the water as it uses it...obviously !
It doesnt rely on anything else to work properly.
If the boiler breaks...you got no hot water and you can't wash your clothes.

Plus, the w/machine wont take the hot water away when you are in the shower.

rob

uncle_buck_3

Get a Hot & Cold fill machine.

Washing machines only take in Hot water on washes of 60 degrees & above.

If you wish you can convert any washing machine to a Cold fill only by getting a Y piece that connects to both the Hot & Cold intake of the machine but is only connected to the cold water pipe.

chinagirl

Surely it is cheaper to heat water by gas rather than let the washing machine heat it up electrically. I would go for hot and cold fill and use the economy buttonk on your machine so the boiler does the heating each time you need a hot wash.

Mr_Proctalgia

When a combi makes hot water there a lot of cold water goes to waste first. The hot water will never get to the WM before the WM is full and thus will be heating cold water electrically anyway. I had the same problem and tee'd the hot and cold fill pipes together and just use the cold now. The machine runs overnight on economy7.

uncle_buck_3

If your WM is beside a hot tap it’s a good idea to run the hot tap until the water starts to get hot….then switch on the WM!

grumbler

robowen wrote:

...If the boiler breaks...you got no hot water and you can't wash your clothes.

I think all washing machines have a temperature sensor and heat water to a chosen temperature anyway ...

Mr_Proctalgia wrote:

When a combi makes hot water there a lot of cold water goes to waste first. The hot water will never get to the WM before the WM is full ...

This depends on the distance between the WM and the boiler. 1 litre of water is equivalent to about 6m of 15mm tube. Usually WM takes much more than 1L to fill ...

The other obvious advantage of hot and cold WM - less limescale on its heating element.

MATH

robowen wrote:

It doesnt rely on anything else to work properly.
If the boiler breaks...you got no hot water and you can't wash your clothes.


rob

This is not correct. UK front loading washers all have an intergral water heater so even if your boiler was bust you would still be able to wash the machine would just heat the cold water up to the wash temp. It is the American machines that often do not have a water heater that rely solely on incoming hot water mixing with cold to create a warm wash. HTH

Katykat

I posted a very similar thread when I was about to buy a new washer. Robowen and Mr P advised on the cold fill options. I consequently bought a Bosch cold fill and I am delighted with it. It only uses a tiny amount of water, so theres not much to heat up, and although it seems good advice to run the hot tap BEFORE switching the washer on, you are in efffect wasting that water ( unless like good moneysavers, you use it to water the garden). As a matter of fact, many manufacturesrs are now making cold fill only washers, take a look at some. It used to be that these machines were a minority just for houses that had no running hot water, but nowadays they are made to reduce power consumption, so surely, thats what we should be doing. Incidentally, I gave my old hot/cold fill machine to my daughter and used the Y connector advised by Mr P, and it works fine on cold water only.

grumbler

Katykat wrote:

...washer... only uses a tiny amount of water, so theres not much to heat up...

How do you know this? Is 70L a 'tini amount'? Yes, I know that only part of this 70L is heated in fact, but I think even 15L is quite a big amount to heat if you wash more then once a week.

Doglover88

thanks people, a very varied response!! at least it shows we all dont sit on the fence!
Found 4 that all look pretty similar, have any of you had any good/bad experiences with any of these:
Indesit WD12X
Electrolux EW1000i
Whirlpool AWM045
Hotpoint BWM129
Baumatic BTWM4

All about the same price, £390ish fully integrated

cheers again
glen