Riddle me this - washing machine programs.

daveyjp

4 hours to wash clothes which are in general rarely filthy is ridiculous.  Even 2 is madness.

WIAWSNB

Ach, you forget the days of the washboard. My calluses my calluses! 

Albermarle

daveyjp said:

4 hours to wash clothes which are in general rarely filthy is ridiculous.  Even 2 is madness.

I almost always use the 'Mixed wash' programme on ours. It takes 59 minutes and I fill it more than recommended and never an issue.
Same with the dishwasher. ( eco programme is >3 hours) . Always on 30 min quick wash, even when full- no issues.

Albermarle

QrizB said:

Further to the previous replies, there should be a table in the user instructions for your washing machine that will tell you how much water and electricity a typical cycle will use, for every type of wash the machine offers.

If you refer to that table you'll be able to work out what the Eco cycle saves you vs. the normal one.

I looked in mine and not very specific. However according to Chat GTP.

A typical 40 degrees cotton wash will use 1.4 KWH of electricity and an eco cycle around 1 KwH. A saving of about 10p + less water used.

However just switching to a 30 degree wash would save even more.

If like me you usually use a quicker programme than 'cottons' anyway, there is no direct eco equivalent programme ( not on my machine anyway) .

WIAWSNB

Albermarle said:

daveyjp said:

4 hours to wash clothes which are in general rarely filthy is ridiculous.  Even 2 is madness.

I almost always use the 'Mixed wash' programme on ours. It takes 59 minutes and I fill it more than recommended and never an issue.
Same with the dishwasher. ( eco programme is >3 hours) . Always on 30 min quick wash, even when full- no issues.

I used 'mixed' up until now, as you say just over an hour long.
It swallowed a gallon of conditioner each time - no exaggeration - but the clothes came out smelling of of nowt.
At least 'eco' makes stuff smell good.

Albermarle

WIAWSNB said:

Albermarle said:

daveyjp said:

4 hours to wash clothes which are in general rarely filthy is ridiculous.  Even 2 is madness.

I almost always use the 'Mixed wash' programme on ours. It takes 59 minutes and I fill it more than recommended and never an issue.
Same with the dishwasher. ( eco programme is >3 hours) . Always on 30 min quick wash, even when full- no issues.

I used 'mixed' up until now, as you say just over an hour long.
It swallowed a gallon of conditioner each time - no exaggeration - but the clothes came out smelling of of nowt.
At least 'eco' makes stuff smell good.

Unfortunately using conditioner is not very eco......

QrizB

WIAWSNB said:
It swallowed a gallon of conditioner each time - no exaggeration

Has your machine got some sort of automatic conditioner dosing system?

Mine just has a drawer you can add it to, if you're so inclined. (We normally don't bother.)

Edit to add: here is the energy use table fom my Beko manual.

You'll see that the ECO 40-60 cycle is not the lowest electricity use, but is the lowest water use. With water corrently being around £4 per cubic metre (once you allow for supply and disposal) the ~50 litres that the ECO cycle uses vs. the Cottons cycle is a 20p saving, which more than makes up for the extra ~0.25kWh used for a 7kg load.

Quick / SuperQuick is definitey that, but still uses more water and doesn't do as goos a job of getting things clean.

twopenny

I use the quick wash as my clothes don't get grubby, even gardening clothes are fine.

Just sometimes light coloured fleeces do and I soak them in a bowl overnight and straight in the machine in the morning which does the trick. And avoids expensive hot wash.
White cotton bedding will yellow over time on a quick wash but those too, occasional overnight soak before washing.

They used to make a great product called Biotex that would do this in a fraction of the time but it went the way of so many products that couldn't have added value, they just did the job with basic ingredients, and we get all sorts of expensive products now.

RedFraggle

Everything goes in a 20C 30 minute cycle. Always do an additional spun as it's amazing how much additional water comes out. 

Swipe

Mine takes 2hrs 15 on the cheapest program. I set it to come on for the last 2.5 hours of my cheap rate overnight window. I'm normally waking up just as it begins and in winter I always go for an extra spin too.