washing at 30 degrees

gromituk

lemontart wrote:

crikey never knew about the maintenance wash........will put it on over night to use economy 7 for it.

Don't fall for manufacturers' propaganda. You are more than likely simply wasting energy doing this. Miele don't want their washing machines to gain a reputation for smelling nasty, so they'll encourage their customers to do unnecessary "maintenance washes". if it doesn't smell, leave it alone.

Queen.Bess

conradmum wrote:

I nearly always wash at 40 degrees and yes, my washing machine started to smell bad! However, I found that by using washing soda as well as washing liquid when washing whites, and half a cup of vinegar instead of conditioner, the smell has gone away.

I've found that too! It also saves money by only using 1 tablet for each wash.

I've just moved to doing washes at 30 degrees and for all the washes I've done, including towels which I do on a quick wash, it works fine, so I shall stick with 30 degrees for the time being at least!

trying_to_be_green_2

I have a Blomberg washing machine which I have had for probably 8 or 9 years now. It has a cold wash setting, which is why I bought it. I do not have a boiler and so the feed to the machine is cold...............all of my washes are cold and my clothes are as clean as the next person's...........

Also, I only use ecover washing powder.

Am I being too anal? :eek:

gromituk

No, I think the people who insist on using huge amounts of powder and washing everything at 60 degrees in case they get killed by some marauding superbug are the anal ones!

trying_to_be_green_2

Thank you for the supportive reply - I do wonder if we are all totally misled by the utterly appalling and invidious advertising sh*t we are fed endlessly everyday.

It seems that each successive Government and each successive Government "official", sorry, politician, I mean, lap-dog or even employee...... has only one purpose, which is to further the development and success of yet more big business conglomerates at the expense of yet another (and another....) small business, not to mention to the detriment of people, oh, and, erm, never mind the destruction of the planet. I mean, Tesco is reputedly buying a playing field which was donated to our University by a local philanthropist many years ago - for???????? Guess what??????????? Oh......of course..............an extension to its' already rather large edge of city Superstore, which is only about a mile from the new "metro" type shop..............

What, cynical? Me? Who? ................................. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Contains_Mild_Peril

Aargh, don't get me started about Tesco! I have a giant Tesco Extra right outside my house where there used to be a grassy play area with goalposts and stuff. The cruel irony is that we objectors scared Sainsburys away when they applied to build on the site, and one of our main objections was that they were going to use most of the play area. Then along came Tesco (which already had a perfectly good normal-sized supermarket 5 minutes walk down the road) and took it all, with a shop so huge it contributed to the closures of several other shops in the town. We should have let Sainsburys win.
Sorry, that was a bit off topic.:o

trying_to_be_green_2

Been off the boil over the holiday - lost touch...?

Interesting that my post about using cold water to wash my clothes seems to have stopped the debate, full stop! And then that the follow-on re the dreaded Tesco vultures has stopped everything...........................Couldn't agree with you more, Contains Mild Peril, where will it all end?

Martin, I didn't know Tesco's funded the MoneySavingExpert Forums!!!!

Trying to be Green

squashy

gromituk wrote:

It doesn't really make sense, no, because if you add cold water to hot water you get warm water, which takes less energy to heat compared with starting off with cold water in the first place.

Don't agree- you are heating up water in your boiler from cold->red hot then cooling it back down to by mixing cold back into it, which brings it to "warm" point. How is that using less energy?

roswell

what heats faster a electric heating element or a gas boiler ... and there in lies the answer to everything.

and with regards to the maintenance wash read the following http://www.washerhelp.co.uk/usage_2.html

Dustykitten

Thanks for bringing my thread back to life - I was about to do it myself as I have been getting data by measuring it myself. First though the post above is very interesting and includes another link:

http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/fire_safety/recalls/all_prod_list.asp

which lists appliances recalled due to fire risk - I set my machine to come on overnight as we have economy 7 but will take their advise and set it so it comes on later in the night.

To the results:

30 degrees - 0.47 kw/h
40 degrees - 0.82
60 degress - 1.22

All same conditions - cold fill, short wash, spin 900

I will try to do the maths later for the cost of a wash and compare it with daytime/nighttime rate but if anyone else wants to do that for me feel free.