Putting a washing machine in an outhouse

ormus

its really down to you. you need to weigh up all the factors.
is the machine say 5 yrs old and worth nowt?
whats the chances of a freezing winter?
is it worth the insulation costs or installing a small heater?
how many nights in the year would you need it switched on?
etc etc......

sancho

The machine looks pretty new, it comes with the house, so i suppose it's not cost us anything technically.

We never really use the washing machine at night, is that the only time it wold present a problem?

If i put in a heater would i just need it on during a night i wanted to use the washing machine?

Psychobabble

If you do as I did and get a heater with a frost protection setting the thermostat will turn on and off automatically when the temperature in the room gets down to about 5 degrees, I just leave it switched on all the time and the thermostat only switches the heater on when its required.
The other consideration might be how much it costs to run but I havent noticed a big change in the electricity bill since using it, its only 500 watts, don't think it comes on that much unless its really cold and think its cheaper to run it than have frozen pipes or washing machine and the cost that would incur.

27col

Psychobabble has the right idea. A heater with a frost stat would be the way to go. Plus a bit of insulation as well, should work ok to prevent frost damage to either the plumbing or the machine itself.

ormus

sancho wrote: »

The machine looks pretty new, it comes with the house, so i suppose it's not cost us anything technically.

We never really use the washing machine at night, is that the only time it wold present a problem?

If i put in a heater would i just need it on during a night i wanted to use the washing machine?

im talking about the freezing cold nights (and days) in winter. and a machine left standing with water inside it.

actually using the machine has nothing to do with it.

an example.
my FIL has an extra outside loo. the room is not insulated. so in the winter he uses a small paraffin heater. he lights it whenever the temp gets down to zero.

TimeWarper_2

Hi Sancho, congratulations on your new house.

We have the same set up you are talking about - outhouses and flat roof. The area where the bin used to live was coverted into a loo years ago and we ripped that out and installed our washing machine there, put a shelf up and put the dryer on top.

The edge of the bathroom is above this area so we bought hot/cold feeds down from the bathroom and added pipe insulation for protection in winter and it's never froze in 3 years.

I have quoted Dander here because this was the exact set up we had - originally.

dander wrote: »

Even if you're not confident with DIYing electricity, it would be a pretty simple and inexpensive job for an electrician to run a spur out from the kitchen and put a socket in the outhouse.

Please, please, please do not do it.
Please get an electrician out and get a new circuit for the white goods.
Or use an extension lead to the main socket until you can get an electrician out.

Neither me or DH are electricians and we accepted the set up as being ok - till I was electrocuted.
It turns out that while having a spur was acceptable practise years ago, the power being used by the machine and the dryer exceeded something and caused some kind of meltdown - and on top of that the original socket the spur runs off is also drawing power.
It's too much juice being pulled through the wires, we were told we were very lucky not to have burned the house down - the electrician we had showed us where all the cables were starting to melt :eek:

sancho

Sounds like you were lucky!!

Think i'm going to get an electrician round to safety inspect the house, might ask him then about adding a socket outside.

Think i will just paint the walls and get a heater for in there, probably cheaper in the long run than buying plasterboard, insulation etc.

Might have a go at tiling the floor though, floor tiles seem pretty cheap, from what i remember the floor is just concrete, that will be ok to tile onto right?

Thanks again, getting excited about moving now.

TimeWarper_2

With electrics, always better safe than sorry I reckon.

We have a concrete floor out there as well and we're going to tile as soon as funds allow. We might have to level off the floor first as 50+ years of walking has caused it to dip in the middle of where the doors are. Handy for sweeping out with a bleach wash though
It didn't have doors, you could walk from the front garden to the back, but we added doors to make the whole area a sort of extension to the house.

I'll be gutted when it's finished properly and I have to use a mop instead of the childish glee of upending a bucket of suds on the floor.

twinklefish

I had a washing machine in an out building for 2 years. The machine freezing wasnt the problem, it was me freezing!! If you have to go outside to get to the machine, remember that you will have to do this is ALL weathers! It fine in the summer when you can nip out in your flip flops but it's a pain in the winter. So you pull on shoes and jacket to go out to fill the machine, then hour later back again to empty machine and start next load, then back again hour later to retrieve next load. Then how do you know if the cycle is finished? Well you can time it but they machine display is not always accurate. So you nip out to see if it's finished....6 mins to go....so in six mins you nip out....door not released....you get the picture. Believe me, it wears very thin! Think hard before you put your machine outside!!!!

sancho

I think that will hopefully be less annoying than having to wash everything up!!