Energy star water factor question

[ronhic]

eeeewwwwwww

.....and to think I have just had our carpets steam cleaned yesterday. I should have just lit a joss stick and been done with it.

 

[toggleswitch2]

To me the best secnt is a load of freshly washed and bleached whites that have been rinsed to HELL, then dried in a dryer whose vent is redirected back into the room.

OMG it is to me the smell of heaven when without chemcicals and articfical perfumes!

And the Gadget has now gottem me used to clothes off the line. Reluctantly, I must admit they do smell wonderful.

 

[mark_wpduet]

U know u can use distilled white vinegar to clean your carpets in most any steam cleaner. No rinsing/No residue. The vinegar smell goes away when the carpets dry. Sorry I know this is not a carpet cleaning forum but I read the post above and wanted to comment. I have a steam cleaner and just did mine the other day.

 

[ronhic]

Carpets

Mark,

Thanks for that....but you should have seen them!

They are very pale/buff colour and we have a dog with a medical 'issue'....so we really do need steam and good suction to get it out....

But, what you suggest is in line with what I have been told in the past about white vinegar being able to remove pet urine smells too...I have used that successfully at 1/2 strength

 

[j2400]

"The parallel is a freined of mine who uses incense in his home rather than enmptyng the cat-box, scrubbing the toilet, dusting (which is definitely needed from the incense)vacuuming and moping."

Incense certainly won't help the dust issue. For that, you need to change to really low wattage light bulbs.

I wonder how far the trend for using less and less water will go. Eventually, I have this vision--a washer that uses 2 teaspoons of water, but has cycle times of a month.

 

[mark_wpduet]

I'm definitely OCD. I couldn't handle the dirt.

 

[dnastrau]

Epic (Duet) water level at 1 1/2 turn increase

Here is the normal cycle water level in our Maytag Epic 9700 after I increased the water level by one and one-half turns. I outlined this in a separate recent thread.

The new level is 5 1/2" deep at the rear of the drum and the paddle is completely covered. The water comes up just before the tub boot. When doing an actual large load the water ends up covering part of the boot coming up almost to the point where you would have water spill if you opened the door.

The Delicate cycle raises the level even more where the water comes part way up the beveled part of the door glass where you would have a real mess were you to open the door.

I am happy with the results. I believe clothes need an ample amount of water to be washed and rinsed effectively.

Andrew S.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Wow......How long did it take you to get it to the point you wanted it. Looks pretty decent to me.

 

[newwave1]

Thats a good water level Andrew! Not to high not to low Would love to see a pic of said machine in action with a load

Darren

 

[mark_wpduet]

Yeah. Thats the level I tried to achieve in my Duet. I could never find that happy medium. Do you think this additional water could damage the machine or shorten the life of it in any way?

 

[newwave1]

Hmm with modern machines excessive weight could make the suspension not so good. But amounts like in andrews pic ain't really life threatening to it. Now if you were filling it to the top of the window...lol.

Darren

 

[dyson2drums]

Darren, preciously in this thread you posted a pic of your bosch and wrote it'd be better if manufacturers could see our points on this website!

They should also have facilities like build your own washer and choose what you want and they'll make it and deliver directly to your according to your spec.... i'd like that- specially with LG. LoL

 

[launderess]

For The Final Time

It is not manufacturers who are to blame for the current "wet wipe" washing machines, theytake their marching orders from various rules and laws. If a government mandates a washing machine built in X year, use less water than one produced in Y, their hands are tied.

In the United States, at least things may get worse. California is already making some very loud noises about requiring such machines sold in there, much more water stingy.

Sure you can innovate and such, but R&D costs money, and with washing machines rapidly becoming a "throw away" appliance, it is not too clear if consumers would pay increased costs. What is saving American appliance makers is the return of front loaders (some would say forced), to the market, thus giving them room to add on features that really do not do much, but drive up costs by making what should be a simple machine difficult.

 

[dnastrau]

Adjustment - trial and error

Hi Mark:

I tried an adjustment of 2 full turns of the screw first and it seemed too high - especially on the delicate cycle. That was the amount that the person used on the separate web page that I linked to in my original water adjustment thread. I backed it off to 1 full turn from original position and that was not enough. 1 and 1/2 turns turned out to be perfect in my opinion. I doubt that it will damage anything as it does not appear to be excessive. As far as the suspension is concerned, I have noticed no difference in noise or vibration during wash cycles.

Hi Darren:

I'll try to post some pictures of an actual full wash load in the next few days.

Andrew S.

 

[ronhic]

We're lucky here....

...if in parts of the USA there is actual legislation in place that regulates how much water an appliance can use.

We have no such legislation - yet

We do, however have both an energy label and a water usage label (if needed) which must be affixed to every major appliance. The implication is that a water or power hungry appliance will cost you more to run, is worse for the environment and, with the droughts we have had, is socially irresponsible to own/use. Not to mention the rebates that are available for water efficient appliances from some councils.

Now, having said that, manufacturers such as Miele score quite highly on both fronts with 4-5 stars (out of 6) for energy and water. However, with a Miele, you can alter the wash and rinse water level without having to resort to pulling the machines apart...just programme it in. The owners manual tells you how on the machines we get here. On others, the use of the 'additional rinse' automatically increases the water used and decreases the overall efficiency rating. In the case of my Electrolux/Zanussi/Westinghouse I push the button and get an additional 2 rinses. Asko use a standard 3 rinses, but the super rinse button increases this to 7 on Australian machines.

So, for our market and probably Europe and Asia (though I am happy to be corrected) there is no reason why we can't have a standard suite of programmes like we do (and that a machine is rated on) but also have the options of us telling the machine what to do and how to do it.

 

[mark_wpduet]

I agree. They can build these super energy efficient machines as long as they give the customer the "option" to push a button to add more water. The appliance companies can still use the current energy star rating.

Dnastrau

As u can see on my pic above, mine isn't using as much water as yours, though is using more than originally. When I made the adjustments. I may be crazy but I don't think I got anywhere close to a turn and a half. Before I adjusted back down, at one point, on the normal cycle, the machine was almost half (scary) full of water and STILL filling. It never did stop before I wimped out and pushed the pause/cancel button. I adjust back down a SMALL amount from there and the results are what u see in the pic above. I can't believe that such a small turn back downward went from half full to a little over three inches deep. If I turn on the soak cycle, I have the EXACT amount u have in your picture, delicate is even more. I wonder if with that much more water you need to up the amount of detergent you use since it wont be as concentrated. What do u think?

 

[launderess]

IIRC; some early "HE" washers sold in the US did have ways to add more water. Also, IIRC the rules simply stated water/energy usage for the "normal" or default cycle, leaving room for the consumer to make changes. Well Feds, got wise to themselves and put a stop to that as well.

It all goes back to the mandates on water saving toilets. Feds and local governments got wise to persons trying to snooker those huge old American Standard's into new construction, and devised ways to put a stop to that as well.

If one must choose between wet-wipe laundry and a poor flushing toilet, will take a high water use toilet every time. *LOL*

L.

 

[ronhic]

on the subject of toilets....

New builds in most parts of Australia have dual flush toilets with either 9/4.5litres or 6/3litres being the norm (thats 2.25/1.1 or 1.5/.75 US Gallons per flush)....but then our toilets flush differently to yours from what I understand....

I have not heard of any issues with them in new builds at all and many councils will replace older single flush cisterns with 9/4.5litre ones free of charge as well as older high flow shower heads. This doesn't mean that the new shower heads feel like you have 12 mice p*@sing on you, they have less holes and smaller ones at that in conjuction with a flow restrictor....they work well and you still get the 'feel' of a high flow shower...but at a maximum of 2.25gallons per minute.

So between new cisterns, low use shower heads and pearlator taps, we seem to do ok

 

[ronhic]

and it's an...

...Australian invention....

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/aus...view_article&Section_id=1040&article_id=10044

 

[suburbanmd]

For The First Time From Me...

People say the manufacturers aren't at fault for making crippled machines (water-wise and internal heater-wise) for the US market, because the government made them do it. But in the US we have something called "lobbying", where you pay someone to influence legislation. I believe appliance manufacturers could successfully lobby for more reasonable washer standards, if they wanted to. But that would be for the consumer's benefit, not their own, so they don't invest the money and time to do it.

 

[dnastrau]

Raised water level and more detergent

Hi Mark:

Yes, we do use a bit more detergent than we did earlier as a result of the water level increase - just to make sure there is enough. Since we have hard water here, oversudsing is not normally a problem anyhow.

On your Duet I would try increasing the level adjustment by 1/8 or 1/4 turn at a time until you get the desired results - if you are still interested in trying that. The switch does seem to have a threshhold where it adds way too much water. Mine seemed to hit that at 2 full turns. When I tried using it at that setting the machine would actually drain some of the water as it must have sensed that there was too much for the normal cycle. 1 and 1/2 turns of adjustment from stock (5 and 1/2" water level at the back of the empty drum) has been great so far.

Andrew S.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Dnastrua

Thanks. If I get bored late I may do some more adjusting. I'm surprised that mine when it filled to such a high level, didn't drain on its own, I didn't let it get to that point I guess. But it was literally half way up the door and still filling when I paused/canceled. When I did hit pause/cancel, the machine drained all the water, but once the water was gone, it KEPT running as if it were still draining, it got locked up so I had to unplug it. Will post pictures if I get it right.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Andrew

Question. With your water level in that picture is pretty high. If you use delicate or soak, does in not trip an overfill fault? I was reading another person in another forum adjust back down, that the water level she had was great for normal/heavy duty/whitest whites cycles, but that delicate and ultra hand wash uses more water so it tripped an overfill fault. I'm guessing you don't have that problem since you didn't mention it. I wonder what the point is where the overfull fault is tripped?

 

[mark_wpduet]

Well I got bored and made another very very small adjustment at about 1/8 of an inch. I now have just over 4 inches in the back of the drum, just over 2 inches in the front. Not quite as high as Andrew's but almost. I think I'm going to leave it at that.

 

[alr2903]

Was this issue ever a discussion during the american made w/d combo units . I always wondered did they spray only, with water accumulating in a sump for recirculation. Or did they have a small pool of water similar to above pictures. Combo owners please weigh in... alr2903

 

[appnut]

Arthur, the w/d combo you are referring to was made by Whirlpool and predominately for the Kenmore brand. There was a small pool of water at teh bottom of the tub in addition to the recirculating spray, which was quite powerful and strong--so washing was not simply accomplished by spray only. You couple this with quite a large drum and fabrics had quite a bit of room to open p and flex while tumbling

 

[dnastrau]

No Epic (Duet) overfill fault so far

Hi Mark:

On delicate I have not seen an overfill fault with the increased level - we are actually doing a delicate load this evening so I will pay close attention to it. I will take a picture as well.

When I had the adjustment screw turned 2 full turns the machine did drain some water prematurely from the normal cycle, but there was no error code displayed. It does not do this at the current setting of 1 and 1/2 turns.

Andrew S.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Anderew

I just did some laundry. After the very last adjustment I made, it was almost as much as the water level in your pic above but just a tad under that. Anyway, I did some laundry on heavy duty and whitest whites cycle. The water was touching the bottom of the glass! If I were to have opened the door, water would have ran out! I also noticed the clothes were sort of rolling in the water as opposed to lifting and dropping. Not sure why the water level looked ok (like your pic) without anything in the washer but a large load was TOO high for me. I adjusted back down slightly. It amazes me that on my adjustments are so very small, like less than 1/8 of an inch this last time and it was too much for my liking. Now I have it back down to the level I had in my pic above. Can't wait to see pics

 

[DADoES]

Water level on these machines is more complex than just being controlled by the pressure switch. There's probably also a flow meter involved.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Yeah. What I don't understand is why when I made that adjustment, I started the machine on a normal cycle with no clothes to see what the water level was and it was not quite the level in Andrews pic and when I did an actual (decent sized) load the water level was Way up there almost exactly like Newwave's pic above. An ever so small adjustment I made. I went ahead and did three loads of laundry like that and the clothes seemed to be clean but watching the wash action made me wonder if more water was better.