An Interesting Test with a New Meter

[Unimatic1140]

Hi Mark, wow 24 gallons for 5lbs of towels that is a shocking amount of water used, considering I can wash nearly 10lbs of towels in 28 gallons in the Unimatic.

Yes my big bath sheet towels are 100% cotton although they are a few years old so they aren't as fluffy as they were when they were new and certainly don't produce as much lint as when they were new.


I checked your math and you're right on, but it seems like more water should have been removed. It is shockingly bad actually as the 525rpm Kenmore came in just over 70%. Does your Siemens (Bosch) spin at 1200rpm for long or does it slowly ramp up and then only spin at high speed for a minute or two?

 

[Marky_Mark]

It was indeed a lot of water for such a small load. But I did select the "water plus" option (or whatever Siemens calls it) which could explain it. I could try a load of towels without that option. If I washed double the amount of towels, it would be interesting to see by how much the water usage would change.

My towels are 100% cotton and are a few years old. Fieldcrest from Target.

It did spin at full speed for a few minutes but probably not nearly as long as it would have done on the cotton cycle or eco cycle (I used the "mix" cycle). I'll have to test that. I have the exact same towels in the US and I'll have to try this test when I'm back there. I think I weighed these towels a couple of years ago after being spun in one of my TLs (I can't remember which, possibly the SQ at 710 RPM) and I think the RMC was over 100%.

It would be very interesting if anyone else could weigh a towel when dry and also after spinning and let us know the weights.

 

[lakewebsterkid]

Wow! Very shocked by mild difference in energy consumptions w/ and w/o steam. Water level with steam is lower.

 

[maytag85]

I really do wonder if you’ll get that many suds from things that were washed in a front loader (HE in general), then re-washing them in a Frigidaire Unimatic

 

[Marky_Mark]

Update!

I like the tests and measurements that Robert has done with his LG and his snazzy new Samsung (congrats, by the way!). And I've done a few more of my own.

Following on from my post above, I've tried washing a full load of towels on several cycles. The towels weighed a fraction under 5 kg or 11 lb. I had to cram the towels into the drum but once they were wet, they sank down a lot and there was plenty of space to tumble.

Cottons 60 ℃ (140 ℉) with no options selected:
Wash used 24 litres / 6⅓ US gallons
Three rinses
Total water usage: 100 litres / 26½ gal
3 hours 37 min
1.78 kWh

Eco 40-60 (this is the machine's most efficient cycle and is used for the energy rating):
Wash used 22 litres / 6 gal
Three rinses. The first two used less water, probably due to very short, slow spin after the wash and first rinse. Final rinse used 26.5 litres / 7 gal
Total water usage: 74 litres / 19½ gal
3 hours 40 min
0.86 kWh

Cottons 90 ℃ (194 ℉) with Water Plus selected:
Wash used 23 litres / 6 gal and did a cool down before draining, adding a further 14 litres / 3.7 gal for a total of 37 litres / 10 gal in the tub
Four rinses, each consuming 28.5 litres / 7½ gal
Total water usage: 150 litres / 40 gal
3 hours 17 min
2.57 kWh

This machine has a 1,200-RPM spin and top speed was held for 5 min on the cottons cycle. But the Eco cycle speeded up for the last 2 minutes, seemingly faster than 1,200 RPM.

After the Eco cycle, the towels weighed 8.4 kg (18 lb 8 oz).
So the towels retained 8.4-5 = 3.4 kg or 3.4 litres of water (7 lb 8 oz)
Remaining moisture content: 3.4/5 x 100 = 68%

 

[Marky_Mark]

You can hear the water heating, as it comes up close to boiling!

View attachment Wash Heating.MOV

 

[Marky_Mark]

Cooldown level:

 

[Unimatic1140]

Hi Mark, now isn't that interesting! Two things stand out to me, the large amount of water consumption and after extraction there was 68% of water retention. That seems odd considering a 525rpm belt-drive Kenmore left 71% of water retention.

A few quick questions for clarity:

How big is the drum in your Siemens?
How many towels did you put in there to reach 11lbs?
For reference how many of those towels could fit in your Unimatic for a full load that still turns over (that's if your in Palm Springs to check that of course, although looking at your images makes me think your doing the test in Madrid)?

 

[maytag85]

Hi Mark, now isn't that interesting! Two things stand out to me, the large amount of water consumption and after extraction there was 68% of water retention. That seems odd considering a 525rpm belt-drive Kenmore removed left 71% of water retention.

A few quick questions for clarity:

How big is the drum in your Siemens?
How many towels did you put in there to reach 11lbs?
For reference how many of those towels could fit in your Unimatic for a full load that still turns over (that's if your in Palm Springs to check that of course, although looking at your images makes me think your doing the test in Madrid)?

I think it has to do with wide and shallow tubs vs tubs that are deeper and narrower. The g-forces are multiplied quite a bit in tubs that are wider and shallow vs the deeper and narrower tubs on some machines,

The engineers who were tasked when designing the machines of the past wanted to extract as much water out while not using lots and lots of power to do, as a result tubs were shallow but wide forcing more water out.

When I used my grandmother’s Whirlpool VMW back in 2019, the clothes felt like they were spun out in my Maytag, took about 40 minutes to dry which is about the same amount of time my Maytag dryer takes to dry an average load.

 

[combo52]

Diameter of the wash basket has very little effect on extraction, Its all about RPMs

John L.

 

[Marky_Mark]

Hi Robert. Yes, that's right -- I'm here in Chueca, Madrid and this is the machine I showed further up in this thread, in reply #30.

How big is the drum in your Siemens?
It's 65 litres / 2.3 cubic feet. Diameter is 49 cm / 19⅓" and depth 34 cm / 13⅓". The machine is rated for 9 kg / 20 lb, although you'd never get that amount of fluffy towels into it.

How many towels did you put in there to reach 11lbs?
See photo below. All weights were accurately done using a kitchen scale.
4 Target Fieldcrest 30x62" bath sheets
3 bathmats supplied by the landlord (about the size of hand towels but a bit thicker)
5 Fieldcrest hand towels
2 of the hand towels provided by the landlord
1 microfibre kitchen towel
3 pairs of socks
1 cloth

For reference how many of those towels could fit in your Unimatic...?
Sadly I don't yet have a Unimatic and I narrowly missed out on one recently, as it was sold before I returned to the US
At a guess, and since I don't like to cram a TL the way I would with an FL, I'd say this load would probably be too big for my Maytag A806 but would likely fit in my other US machines with room to spare (KM DD, SQ, KM BD, Neptune FL).

My figures correspond almost exactly with the instruction manual's figures given for cycle time, water consumption and energy consumption on the Eco cycle and also those given for the Cotton cycle with a full 9 kg load. My load was 5 kg, but it was still a full load, as the drum was stuffed full when the towels were loaded dry. And I would expect towels to absorb more water.

The spin performance stated in the manual for cottons is 53% residual moisture. For synthetics they state 30% and for wool 26%. So, for a towel load, I'm not surprised I measured 68%. It would be interesting to test spinning these particular towels in a Unimatic! I'll also have to measure the spinning performance of my US machines. I wonder if my towels are constructed quite differently to yours and don't release water nearly as easily.

It's really interesting to see how this machine does compared to your LG and Samsung. I don't have access to a modern US FL (unless my Neptune FL counts as modern!).

It seems like the main difference is the amount of water used for rinsing.
Firstly, I think only the eco cycle is rated in Europe and the other cycles are free to consume whatever they like.
Secondly, the eco cycle is not just rated for consumption in Europe, it also has to achieve a minimum wash performance and a minimum rinse performance as well as spin performance. So manufacturers can't just reduce rinses and/or water consumption in order to achieve a certain efficiency rating on the label, as the machine will score poorly for performance. Whereas in the US, I think it's just consumption that is measured with no reference to performance (though I'm not sure). It does seem to me that current machines in the US default to poor rinse performance (purely based on my observations, not on any evidence or testing).

It's been a welcome distraction doing these tests over the last couple of days while I've been getting over my jet lag, having arrived from Palm Springs a few days ago!

Mark

 

[Unimatic1140]

Very interesting Mark, thank you! My bath sheets are 100% cotton 35"x70" and 4 make up a full load with good turnover in the Unimatic. Your towels are slightly smaller at 30"x62" so I'd guess you could wash those 4 large towels plus 3 or 4 of the smaller towels directly above them in your attached folded towel picture to make a Unimatic sized load. These towels average 37-38% water retention in the Unimatic and even less in the GE AW6 machines which spin for 9 minutes at 1140rpm vs 4 minutes in the Unimatic.

That is also very interesting what you say about European standards "I think only the eco cycle is rated in Europe and the other cycles are free to consume whatever they like." I kind of doubt it's the same way in the US but I don't know for sure.

I've been pleasantly surprised with the water usage in the Samsung. I just ran a 10lb load of colors on the AI Cycle with a warm wash (no extra hot water cool down before drain needed) and it still used over 20 gallons of water (thankfully). Although I'll report on more on this later but towels coming out of this Samsung remind me how they feel out of the LG in that they are stiffer and less soft (after drying) when washing in a modern front loader than from any other machine in my basement.