Something to share with you

System

So to cheer you up Judi I have imortalised you with in my postings  ;D

Cos I have never been immortalized before i feel a speech coming on. ;D

Emmacw, once you have found the longer settings, the way to turn the heater off and the discovery of napisan you are almost there!!!! If you do get muckier clothes than i do, dont forget you can soak your clothes overnight in the cold water to loosen any food stains.

Good luck.

shanni

I'm a fan of cold washes but probably do washing more frequently...little and often. It is strange at first but my clothes seem clean enough It must be difficult for those of you with little ones but for the average adult who wears a lot of dark clothing, it works a treat.

I find liquid detergent better though, I have had a time where the powder didn't dissolve and gunked all around the rim of the machine, so I dissolve it in hot water first. When I've used up the powder stuff I will only buy liquid (bought the powder as is was on offer)!

System

Shanni, I havent had a problem with undisolved washing powder, however, like i said before i add my powder to the drum before i add my clothes. I use Tesco Value washing powder, nothing fancy and only use half the recommended amount. However, i am going to try some washing liquid this week to check out the results.

Robert5988

Whilst trying to cut down on my electricity bill, and having to put the heating on in my house so we are all comfortable i decided to switch off the heater in my washer when i did my washing.

I am amazed it has made such a difference to my weekly electricity costs (around £4 a week).

I now put my washing on a much longer wash, but using no heat. The results are astonishing.

Judi,
Interesting point about cold washes but savings of £4 a week seems optimistic for most people.

£4 buys me 62kWh of electricity. Looking at the consumption figures for my washing machine the hottest(90C) and longest wash cycle uses 1.9kWh which includes the consumption of the motor and pump.

So I could have 4 complete loads a day – 28 per week - on this long hot cycle and my total electricity bill would be less than £4 a week. Using a more normal 40C wash and I could have 28 loads a week for about £1 worth of electricity in total.

Robert

rushnowt

well i'm dead impressed with this, i'd already dropped my temp down to 30 for some washes but will do it more now and sod that expensive powder for a lark, i'm stocking up on nappisan now . great tip ;D

System

Judi,
Interesting point about cold washes but savings of £4 a week seems optimistic for most people.

£4 buys me 62kWh of electricity. Looking at the consumption figures for my washing machine the hottest(90C) and longest wash cycle uses 1.9kWh which includes the consumption of the motor and pump.


Robert

Robert, I am with Scottish Power online. Every monday i enter my meter readings which gives me the total cost of my gas and electricity usage. My electricity bill used to come to around £14 a week, since i have been using cold water washes my actual costs come down to £10-£11 a week. I have changed nothing else. The first week i put down to a fluke, but the costs have been consistently lower than they have been.

I do not underestimate or over estimate the amount of washing i do, and the amount of children i have. If you live on your own or theres just the two of you, you wont make the significant savings that i have but all i am saying is that its worth trying.

Robert5988

Robert, I am with Scottish Power online. Every monday i enter my meter readings which gives me the total cost of my gas and electricity usage. My electricity bill used to come to around £14 a week, since i have been using cold water washes my actual costs come down to £10-£11 a week. I have changed nothing else. The first week i put down to a fluke, but the costs have been consistently lower than they have been.

I do not underestimate or over estimate the amount of washing i do, and the amount of children i have. If you live on your own or theres just the two of you, you wont make the significant savings that i have but all i am saying is that its worth trying.

Julie,
I did say a saving of £4 a week was optimistic for most people; I wasn’t casting doubt on your figures.

I have just done some research on-line and some obscure body has calculated that the average power consumption of a full washing cycle is 1.05kWh of which approx 50% is used by the pump and motors. That is in-line with my machine which uses between 0.4kWh to 1.9kWh.

So even without having “much longer washes” as you advocate(hence more motor use) the average saving is 0.5kWh per wash if you wash with cold water. - say 3.5 pence per wash.

All I am saying is that ‘Mr Average’ has to do a lot of washes to save £1 per week let alone £4.

Robert