Does washing clothes take alot of electric/water

cashmonger

I often need to do hot washes at a moment's notice due to dust allergy.

I hate waste but sometimes I need to do a wash when it isn't a full load to kill the dust mite allergen.

I try to not do so frivolously but sometimes I will have to as something will have caused a contamination and I will need to wash things to make sure they are eliminated from the equation.

I wanted to know how aware I need to be if it uses loads I will try and minimise it. I try and minimize it anyway it is just a matter of how guilty I should feel when I need to do those extra loads

missbiggles1

Do you suffer from OCD?

poppellerant

Washing at 60c is enough to get rid of dust mites - I'd imagine that any higher would be just wasteful.

Ectophile

It depends entirely on your machine and what programme you select.

As an example, my Bosch machine typically takes 1.26kWh of electricity and 55 litres of water for a 60 degree wash (which is hot enough to kill dust mites). But if I select the "eco" option, that drops to 1.02kWh and 45 litres. These figures are from the instruction manual. Older machines may use much more electricity and water.

Edit: My machine is A rated for energy usage.

(1kWh = 1 unit of electricity on the meter)

Smiley_Dan

It does use a lot of water yes. All water that enters our home is treated to be ingested, but only something like 3% is actually ingested! The largest proportion is used for cleaning stuff.

55 litres!

cashmonger

Lol I appreciate the concern but from replies maybe you guys get the picture I wash every piece of clothing individually after one day of wear.

Yes I already do this I have a plastic beach type zip lock bag which I put them in which resides in another room.

I do wait for full loads I just mean sometimes I will get an attack from some dust source of unknown origin and I will have to quickly clean everything till I eliminate it. I only wear the same pair of clothes for maybe a month day and night but if they might become contaminated I would have to wash them immediately since I only have the one pair. That is all I meant.

Those are just code red situations where I need to pull out all the stops.

I have other clothes but they are not for wearing in the house due to give me a reaction though I can wear them when on the move outdoors and I spend 90% of my time in the house.

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

Would you feel comfortable with an airtight container that you designate as a 'contamination bin' and then do a laundry load when it contains a few items?

Ideally, you could store the items actually inside the washing machine since it has a waterproof/airtight door. How would you feel about that?

Would several contaminated items collected together, perhaps left for a few days, overwhelm you, or do you think you could work with that?

Do you feel you must wash affected items immediately? Perhaps we could come up with something else in that case. Maybe a 'wet bucket' type idea or something like that?

getmore4less

Ectophile wrote: »

It depends entirely on your machine and what programme you select.

As an example, my Bosch machine typically takes 1.26kWh of electricity and 55 litres of water for a 60 degree wash (which is hot enough to kill dust mites). But if I select the "eco" option, that drops to 1.02kWh and 45 litres. These figures are from the instruction manual. Older machines may use much more electricity and water.

Edit: My machine is A rated for energy usage.

(1kWh = 1 unit of electricity on the meter)

You have to be careful as eco washes can also run at lower temps as it is allowed in the EU regs.