Washing at 30

ozskin

10 degrees will make a big difference. Govt figures for eg say dropping your home heating thermostat by 1 degree can lead to 6-10% cost reductions. Samsung now make a silver nano washing machine which claims similar performance for the 30 deg wash to a much higher temp in ordinary machine. cant comment on their quality yet as they are too new. The silver nano technology kills bugs and keeps clothes fresher lomger they say.

sooz

i saw the title, and thought it was something to do with teaching men to do their own washing, once they left home...................:D

Debt_Free_Chick

I do most of my washing at 30°. It depends on how dirty the clothes are, but most of ours are only worn once and chucked in the wash. They not really dirty and only need a freshen up.

If they are dirty, I put them through a 30° wash with no powder in, to loosen the dirt and then put them in again, with powder.

You should save money on electricity. The power needed to generate the machine is minimal compared with the power needed to heat water by 10°. It's the heating of the water that consumes the most electricity, not the motion of the washing.

Avoriaz

Vikingfan wrote:

How can a machine wash at 30 be any more money saving than at 40 when they both run for the same time?

I think it probably makes quite a big difference. A large proportion of the electrical energy consumption of a washing machine is used for heating the water. A 40C wash requires an extra 10C of heating over a 30C wash.

In summer, if the incoming cold water is already at 20C, a 40C wash uses twice the heating energy as a 30C wash.

What we really should be doing is finding a way to recycle the heat energy of the water after it has been through the washing machine. The same applies to baths, showers and dishwashing etc. Every household wastes lots of heat energy down the drain. :eek:

Avoriaz

Bertville wrote:

The only saving is if the machine is using cold water & heating it to the correct temp to wash. Mine takes in hot water so there is no saving.

I doubt if that is true. Firstly, the hot water has to be heated somehow. If the machine takes in cold water it uses electricity to heat it. If it takes in hot water, that water has been heated elsewhere, probably by gas in most households. Even if heating the water by gas is cheaper than by electricity, most or all of the saving may be negated by the heat wasted in the pipe running from your hot tank or water heater to the washing machine. It might even be more expensive to supply hot water to the machine.

Secondly, many machines with hot and cold supplies only take in hot water for washes above 50C or 60C. A 40C wash will probably only take in cold water as, if it took in hot water, this hot water might be well over 40C already and therefore the wash would be too hot and might shrink or damage items requiring a max 40C wash. I don’t think manufacturers design machines to monitor the temp of incoming water and mix hot and cold to avoid this problem. I might be wrong as my machine is over 20 years old (thank you Philips).

My advice is, unless you do lots of high temperature washes, only run a cold water supply to your washing machine. It is cheaper and easier to install one pipe rather than two.

Mr_Warren_2

I am sure you can wash as well at 30 than at 40. There are no specific age for keeping your clothes clean

bunking_off

Avoriaz beat me to it...every washing machine I've ever had only took in hot water for hotter washes - for 40 degree washes they've used cold water & heated themselves.

wezalmemunygon

bunking_off wrote:

Avoriaz beat me to it...every washing machine I've ever had only took in hot water for hotter washes - for 40 degree washes they've used cold water & heated themselves.

My hot&cold fill machine doesn't actually take in any hot water on a 40 degree wash (and I can be sure of this because the combi would kick in - and it doesn't).

Also, think about how long it takes for hot water to come out of a hot tap after you turn it on - even if a washing machine was taking in "hot" water, most - if not all - of it would actually be cold.

Presumably this is why hot&cold fill machines are virtually non-existant these days.

sarah_elton

Question - I did all my washing on 30 till a few weeks ago, when I saw an ep of 'How Clean is Your House?' and they told a woman that because she'd been washing her smalls on 30, it's not enough to kill all bacteria. Eurgh! Is this true? I've been using 40 ever since.

tawnyowls

Yes, it's true, but 40 won't kill them either - in fact, as it's only 3 degs above normal body temp, it'll probably be a lot more comfortable for the bugs than a chilly 30 deg. To kill bacteria, the water has to be a minimum of 60 (and even that won't kill some types). If you look on the Old Style board (where this comes up fairly regularly), you'll see that most people wash towels, undies and bedding at 60 for precisely this reason.

Don't get too hung up on it - the actual mechanical removal of bacteria by the water and the detergent will get rid of the vast majority, and you'll bump off a lot more by drying the clothes in the open air (or in a hot TD). If you're really bothered, you could put some vinegar or disinfectant into the water.