Cold Wash Warm Rinse Cycle

[Chetlaham]

Wool Wash

I found a GE washer where warm/warm is used in a woolens cycle. I always assumed wool was washed and rinsed in cold water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DADoES]

 
Wool can be washed in warm water, and up to hot if mechanical agitation/friction is minimal to none (soaking).

 

[Chetlaham]

Learn something new everyday, saying thank you again!

 

[combo52]

Nothing should ever be washed in cold water

At least water colder than body temperature roughly 100°F.

Soils and body oils that get into clothing at body temperature, clean out much more effectively if you wash them at that temperature or hotter, simple physics

John L

 

[launderess]

"extremely sensitive to mechanical action when wet, so you should severely limit agitation to avoid felting. But it's not particularly heat sensitive and can be washed in warm water with no problem"

If one knows what one is doing wool can be laundered in hot or even near boiling water. Back in day before modern methods when soap and water was all people had high water temps dealt with woolens infested with vermin or perhaps having been in contact with someone suffering from infectious disease.

 

[Marky_Mark]

The washing machines I grew up with in the UK were not capable of washing at less than 40 ℃ (104 ℉). They would always heat the water to this temperature if it was not already at that temperature. So there was no way to wash wool any cooler than that. Also, all the machines I grew up with always filled with warm or hot water for the wash (never cold only). But the rinses were always cold. The wool wash used a high water level and minimal slow tumbling.

Other brands of machines were capable of washing in cold water but we never had one of those.

We had Philips, Hoover and Hotpoint FLs. I remember the Hoover used to spin wool at 1100 RPM.

 

[Chetlaham]

Mark, that reminds me of adverts and service manuals pertaining to vintage US top-load washers that could only fill with either hot or warm water for washing. No cold options. IIRC all rinses were warm to.

 

I think cold rinsing is largely due to energy regulations more than anything else. 

 

 

Personally I believe all washers should rinse with warm water by default except where cold is absolutely necessary such as delicate and wrinkle prone fabrics. As an example, the washer I am imagining only does cold rinsing when set to delicate or wrinkle free. Heavy & cottons is hot wash / warm rinse, casuals & colors is warm wash / warm rinse. Normal and regular provide a warm rinse. Press care gives a cold rinse but wash water can be either hot or warm as determined by the colors knob. Delicate on the fabric type knob overrides both the colors knob and permanent press knob defaulting to cold wash/cold rinse on all cycles. This washer does not have a woolens cycle. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gelaundry4ever]

chetlaham

I agree with you. This is especially true during winter months.

 

[launderess]

Warm water rinses began vanishing from American washing machines by 1970's thanks to our friend Mr. Energy Crisis. Push was one from government, consumer organizations and others to "turn down the dial" not just for washing but rinsing as well.

By 1970's detergents had largely wholly and firmly replaced soap for wash day, thus need for warm or even hot rinses was technically removed. Despite all those adverts for Ivory Snow and other soap products for dainties, nursery laundry and such products such as Woolite, Dreft and other detergents were fast replacing soap there as well.

Consumer Reports and other such groups claimed cold water was just as effective as warm for rinsing.

One argument in favor of warm water rinsing was it meant dryers had less work at start bringing "cold" wash up to proper temperature. CR and others stated while that may be true amount of energy used by dryers was still less than cost of heating water, so cold water rinses came out ahead...

Am not sure but believe also by 1970's or so due to energy crisis or other reasons moisture sensors were mandated for all tumble dryers sold in USA. Previously this had been largely an add on feature or something that may have been an upgrade (read increased overall price), but now became common place.

Our vintage WP "compact" dryer (in harvest gold no less) does not have moisture sensors. Since then all WP dryers even small compact units now do. [this post was last edited: 3/29/2025-10:19]

 

[Chetlaham]

Launderess, as much as I don't want to face reality, I have to agree with you. You are correct, many organizations advocated for cold rinsing while claiming no difference between the two. 

 

However I personally have to disagree and say this was in large part driven by destination science, shifting definitions, and unaccounted for variables with some good old fashioned fibbing. 

 

Warm water relaxes fibers letting water in pulling out much more detergent residue than cold water in the winter. I'm going to further by making a rather glib statement that warm water aids in extraction during spin. (I personally believe that the spin times of many successive top-loaders were not updated to account for the switch to cold rinsing)  I suspect Whirlpool has found a sweet spot in that ATC warm rinses are regulated to 75*C. Enough to sufficiently relax fibers, but no more energy used than required to do so. 

 

The cold ideology has also sadly spread to the wash. I notice in many vintage top loaders delicate and even knits recommends or is programmed for a warm wash. 

 

 

For example, Whirlpool's cycle logic laundry system had delicate listed in warm.   

 

 

 

 

My Speed Queen fabric care chart recommends warm for knits, delicate and even handwash:

 

 

 

 

Today however all you hear on the internet is how all these items should be washed and rinsed in cold water, including colored cottons.

 

 

I think all cold water has done is caused sludge to build up and ruin good washing machines. Vintage machines had it right washing in hot or warm and rinsing in warm water, not just because of soap detergent.    

 

 

 

 

(ducking and running) 

 

 

 

 

[lovestowash]

Chetlaham...

Sorry, no I don't. It just appears occasionally. Perhaps Robert does.

 

[Chetlaham]

No worries. I'll ask Robert when he has time to drop by. 

 

[maytag85]

Question for qsd-dan

Dan, will this twmporing valve work? Found this awhile back on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/TreMax-Therm...OafaoV3oEDYcjIzFo3Szyr1kn2-oNfFuoerA25EjKivbE

 

[DADoES]

 
I have this saved as part of a set of sales literature pages* of this and other 1960 models, not as a Pic-of-the-Day.  I don't have a reference who posted them.

It apparently has come up as a PotD, which is odd I don't have it as such being that I've saved the PotDs for *years*, checking every day if it's a new one I don't have.  Super Searchalator finds there was a discussion about it in Sept 2018 regards to a typographical error on the lower-right speed selection labeled as Slow Wash / Slow Wash ... which I think it says Slow Wash / Slow Spin.  The Cold Wash / Warm Rinse option is also mentioned.

*The saved literature images are larger than the auto-resize allowance so I cropped it to show only the console and a small bit of text to avoid shrinkage.

 

[Chetlaham]

Yes!

I can't thank you enough. I knew such a beast had to exist. I'm curious for the specific reasons however. I wonder if it was just marketing by offering more features or if the company had a specific scenario or garment in mind. Its just fascinating to me. 

 

[qsd-dan]

"Dan, will this tempering valve work? Found this awhile back on Amazon."

That looks like it'll work. The only spec I don't see is flow rating.

 

[qsd-dan]

Actually, that won't work, it's 1/2 NPT. You need 3/4"

 

[Chetlaham]

Ok, Wow! I must be in a dream

Slightly off topic but still relevant to what I have in mind.

 

So I overdosed a load of towels on Tide Professional. Perhaps on purpose...

Lots of suds. Machine went into spin and spun slowly, was definitely suds locked. After the first spin came to a stop, I rotated the knob back to the spray rinse sub-interval. When the timer is manually advanced into this sub time interval, it holds for about 90 seconds, roughly. Not always, more sometimes, a bit less other times, but this time around it held about 90 seconds. After it came out of the spray I let the machine run until it stopped to fill for the deep rinse. I then advanced the timer to the final spin position, and let the load spin for about 2 minutes 30 seconds to get more residual water out of the towels. By this time I noticed the machine was spinning at full speed, no suds lock.

 

I then set and advanced the timer back into the spray rinse sub interval. It held about 90 seconds again. So 3 minutes of cold valve open time total. I let the machine advance to rinse and then before it began to fill I moved the timer to the wash portion of regular and let the machine fill with warm water and then agitate. I wanted to relax the fabric as much as possible. 

 

My jaw dropped. After letting the machine agitate for about 4 minutes, the rinse water had zero suds, cloudiness or film. I have never seen the rinse water this clear before in my Speed Queen.

 

From suds lock to spring clear water. Even with two deep rinses as I normally do for a suds lock there still would have been visible froth in the rinse water.

 

It takes roughly 4 minutes 30 seconds (maybe 5 minutes) to fill the washer from empty to full with cold water and with a load of clothes.

 

In the two extended spray rinses the cold valve was open for about a total of 3 minutes. 

 

Had I done two deep rinses the cold valve would have been open for about 9 to 10 minutes.

 

So in other words, with literally 1/3 the water usage spray rinsing achieved better results than two conventional deep rinses. And this is all without circulation, without modified basket holes and without an angled fill flume.

 

Wow!

 

 

There is tremendous water savings to be discovered with a spray rinse system. 

 

It is my theory that with warm spray rinsing these results can be maximized further.  

 

 

[Chetlaham]

Full Size Image can be found and downloaded on Imgur for anyone skeptical:

 

 



 

 

I also want to add that on warm the machine takes 3 minutes 52 seconds to fill to full. So warm sprays totaling 2 minutes would still result in about 50% rinse water savings and about 25% water savings in total.

 

Assuming we can go to 1/3 the water, 232 seconds divided by three is 77.3. So 80 seconds. So in theory three 27 second warm spray rinses could rinse the load adequately.   

 

[qsd-dan]

This is my biggest grip with DD washers. Most do not spray rinse after the first spin, only the Ultra rinse models do this. A simple 1 minute spray rinse AFTER the tub is up to full speed negates a 2nd deep rinse that was required to get detergent out and uses less water achieving those results. Also, no need for a spray rinse after the final spin which rinses fabric softener out of the load.

My 1.5 minute spray rinse is heaven, especially with warm water.