washing machine hot/cold setup

lagi

I have been given a washing machine and pipes, one for hot and one for cold. I have hot and cold connections. In the booklet it says it can be connected this way or both can be connected to the cold with a y-piece.

Its no problem to connect it either way but would it make it more efficient by just connnecting to the cold???

Ebe_Scrooge

Some good advice on this website - the nub of it is that a cold fill should be OK :

http://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/wordpress/washing-machine-is-a-hot-and-cold-fill-but-i-only-have-a-cold-water-supply/

Most modern washing machines are designed to use only a cold water fill - and most modern detergents are designed to work at low temperatures, so a cold fill is usually best. The basic argument is that the machine uses a relatively small amount of water, so a hot fill would waste a lot in the time it takes to get from the boiler to the machine. But have a read through that white-goods website, lots of really good explanations about it all there.

mrtobs

If you do just use the cold connection though, might be wise to cap off the hot water pipe feeder - we just had ours turned off at the little red tap thing (as you might gather, I'm not very technically minded!!) and it accidentally got knocked & started leaking. Didn't cause too much damage as we realised fairly quickly, but now that its capped off, we know that it won't happen again!

macman

But if you heat your hot water by gas, surely a hot fill is more economic (and faster), because you are heating the water by gas not electricity?
Yes, modern washing machines run at lower temperatures, but some heating of water is still required, especially in the winter when the mains supply is colder.

Ebe_Scrooge

macman wrote: »

But if you heat your hot water by gas, surely a hot fill is more economic (and faster), because you are heating the water by gas not electricity?
Yes, modern washing machines run at lower temperatures, but some heating of water is still required, especially in the winter when the mains supply is colder.

Yes, this is quite true. It would be really complicated to work out the exact measurements, but from what I understand the basic gist of it is :

Yes, gas is cheaper than electricity to heat water.
Most washing machines have a fairly long pipe run from the tank / combi boiler to the machine.
A hot fill would draw hot water from the source. But by the time the hot water got through the pipework to the machine, the machine would be almost full ( of cold water that was sitting in the pipes ) anyway. So the upshot is that the machine has still filled with cold ( or at best tepid ) water, and you've now got hot water sitting in the pipework going to waste.

I think there may be a point to having a hot fill if the pipe run from the source to the machine is very short, but in most typical situations a cold fill works out more economical.

I'm no expert, but this is what I've read in various articles and it seems logical :-)

ormus

afaik, you can only buy cold fill machines now. they are more efficient at heating the actual water required.

lagi

Dug out my y-piece and going cold. thanks for all the advice. I have a hot one too so will make sure even though its turned off to cap to be extra safe, nice tip.

rosekitten

cold fill here too much cheaper

Jomo

I recently bought one that had the option of both hot and cold so it isn't true that they are all cold fill.

I would recommend the cold fill though.

david39

And another point on the inefficiency of using a hot-fill connection, even with a short run of pipework back to the boiler, is that you are heating the water in the boiler to a hot temperature and then cooling it back down again with cold water in the machine to create the 30 or 40 degrees that most people use for washing these days.

ormus

Jomo wrote: »

I recently bought one that had the option of both hot and cold so it isn't true that they are all cold fill.

I would recommend the cold fill though.

when we bought one a few yrs ago, (for an auntie), none of the retailers had a hot/cold fill machine.