Washing machines - quick washes vs longer ones.

JustAnotherSaver

Not sure why this came up on my YT feed today but I gave it a watch all the same. Was quite surprised with the content.

Obviously there's various costs with washing machine use. 3 that come to mind is your initial electricity & water (we're not actually on a water meter) & then there's any maintenance/repair/replacement. Point being, it's not 'just' about electricity use but that'll be one you can't get away from each time.

And I thought 1) since people like to poo-poo what others put out there and 2) It's not something I know about ... I'm curious as to other peoples view on this from an energy & just overall cost saving viewpoint.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFawUa2Ssjk

Was particularly surprised when he said a wash that takes 2 hours extra can use less electricity than one that takes only 30mins.

rhcp

I have an economy wash cycle on my machine and that takes a lot longer than a regular wash.  I also reduce spin speed in the summer as the sun can do a good job drying the clothes.

jrawle

I noticed this when I bought a new machine 18 months ago. I can only think the longer washes allow the clothes to sit and soak for longer without moving the drum. They may also be less fussy about maintaining the temperature throughout the wash.

My thoughts are that this is a bit like the Volkswagen emissions scandal. The long, low energy washes mean the appliance gets a better energy rating. However, they always have a "fast forward" button to makes the wash quicker. I'm sure the majority of people use this (I always do). After all, who wants to wait 3 or 4 or more hours for a wash? It's possible they don't intend most people to use the long washes most of the time under real use conditions; it's just to obtain a better rating.

[Deleted User]

You can quickly wash a few clothes without using a lot of energy, in fact, a quick wash can save up to 60% of energy compared to a regular cotton cycle.  But saying that if you did a 90C for 30 mins it might use more energy than 30C for 2hours. I do think that long washes do your clothes more harm than good,  after all if you hand wash clothes you wouldnt stand there for 2 hours washing the same item would you.

Section62

jrawle said:

After all, who wants to wait 3 or 4 or more hours for a wash? It's possible they don't intend most people to use the long washes most of the time under real use conditions; it's just to obtain a better rating.

Why wait for the wash to finish?  The whole idea of an automatic washing machine is to start it running and leave it to do the job.  If the need to wait is so the machine can be emptied then the trick is to plan ahead so the wash finishes at a convenient time.  Ideally making use of cheap off-peak electricity.

If planning ahead or waiting is not an option, then the alternative is to pay proportionately more to do a less efficient quick wash.

The comparison made to VW is unfair. That was an intentional design decision to give good results in the specific conditions the official tests were conducted under.  Modern washing machines are equipped with a range of programmes to suit different people's needs.  The choice of programme is the equivalent to making a decision whether to drive as economically as possible, or thrashing the engine in low gears to get better acceleration and more fun.  It's a user choice, not an engineering manipulation of the testing regime.

Section62

Deleted_User said:

I do think that long washes do your clothes more harm than good,  after all if you hand wash clothes you wouldnt stand there for 2 hours washing the same item would you.

Long 'eco' programmes use time to let 'soaking' do more of the cleaning work at lower temperatures.  Short programmes use more intensive agitation (and higher temperatures for the equivalent result) to make up for there being less soaking time.

Agitation and high temperatures damage fabrics.  It follows that doing less of either results in less harm to the clothes.

Astria

Yes, washing is basically some kind of soap, hot water, agitation and soaking.

If you decrease one you have to increase the others.

So you can wash clothes quickly yourself with hot water and good soap, but you may need to scrub to get stains out.

Or you can let them soak in cooler water with better soap, for example.

Petriix

It's pretty simple. The heating element uses far more energy than the entire rest of the cycle combined - even spinning a full load at 1400rpm only uses around 500W vs 2.4kW for the heating element.

The 'eco' setting on my washing machine doesn't heat the water at all so it avoids the biggest drain of energy. It could slosh the washing around for a week without using as much energy as simply heating the water to 40 degrees.

However, there are two important caveats:
1) the washing doesn't really come clean without a bit of heat, often retaining a stale smell.
2) the most expensive part of the wash cycle is still likely to be whatever cleaning products you put in the drawer.

So you have to optimise how full the machine is and how regularly you wash things with how hot you set the cycle to and how much detergent you use. I'm often getting in trouble for overloading the machine and not putting enough liquid in. Apparently the clothes still smell dirty. 

facade

Petriix said:

Apparently the clothes still smell dirty. 

Probably because they are teeming with bacteria.

You need a 60 degree wash to kill bacteria.

Because people have gone eco, and wash at 30, their clothes are full of bacteria & mould spores.

So you can buy expensive disinfectants to add to the rinse because you didn't simply use hot enough water in the first place.

I have half a bottle of the dettol one. I washed The Dog's blanket with it in the conditioner drawer once, and nothing, not even food, would induce The Dog to lie on it. So I've been using it to wash the path outside my house and keep the dogs from stopping, I'm certainly not letting anything washed in it touch my skin.

StocktonFlyer

My Dishwasher has a 3 hour eco mode and a 60 minute quick mode. The eco mode uses less water and electricity even though it is operating for 3 times as long. I imagine a washing machine may have similar programs.

JustAnotherSaver

jrawle said:

After all, who wants to wait 3 or 4 or more hours for a wash?

Wow, how long is your 'full' wash? Ours is about 2:30hrs total. 4 hours? Wow.

Still, as I work Saturday's, we program ours to come on about 4:30am-5:00am Sunday morning so that by the time we're up the first wash is done & ready for the drier / washing line depending on weather conditions.

And if there's a few going on then the drier doesn't get used off the first wash as there may be some things that aren't drier-friendly, so we'll combine the 2 washes & put the drier on once it's full rather than 2 separate times.

Deleted_User said:

You can quickly wash a few clothes without using a lot of energy, in fact, a quick wash can save up to 60% of energy compared to a regular cotton cycle.  But saying that if you did a 90C for 30 mins

1) Unless I missed the point of the video completely, he wasn't on about a few clothes, he was on about a full load?

And 90c? Wow, what you washing? We only really use 30/40.

As I read onwards with the thread, all this talk of eco washes taking like 10 years to finish. I need to check what my 'eco' length is as setting it to just standard cottons for a full load is about 2:20hrs IIRC.