Euro wash times vs. US wash times...

[ronhic]

The explanation I have been given about wash cycle times, water consumption and overall quality of the wash does come down to a few things..

Water consumption

Older front load machines used at least 50% more water than they do now. My old Australian built Hoover Electra was rated at 4kg and used 90ltrs or 22.5ltrs:kg....my 2 1/2 yr old Westinghouse (Zanussi-electrolux) is rated at 6.5kg and 72ltrs or 11.1ltrs:kg.....thats less than half the water and the Electa was considered efficient!

Detergents

Are more complex chemically than they used to be and with the lower water levels, lower phosphate content need longer to be effective on FULL loads...

Capacity and Load used

Machines now hold more - technically. Try weighing out the capacity of your machine and then getting it all in. Most of us only put enough in the drum for it to be 'comfortably full'. I was always told to put enough in so that it 'moves back and forth' as you try to put more in...then take 1 medium sized item out. It has never let me down. I can wash on the 40c Quick wash and get A1 results as my load is about 2/3rds rated capacity.

So try not putting quite as much in, use a good powder detergent and warm water and see how you go....and your machine should last longer too...spinning capacity weight every time does horrible things to bearings...

Oh, and my machines normal 40c = 117min...quick = 68...

 

[brisnat81]

Hi Jamie,

I have a W4888 Miele which I've used programmed in AU and Euro Modes.

In AU mode a Cottons 60degC takes 40mins on normal or approx 2:05 on Intensive.

In Euro Mode the same cycle takes about 1:10 on normal or 1:50 on Intensive.

This machine is hot and cold fill and and I've tried it as cold only as well as hot and cold and it performs pretty well either way. The issues I found with the AU Mode is that quite often it would complete it's last top up fill and then drain 2 or 3 minutes later. This left me wondering how wet things were getting for the majority of cycles. I've found that the extra 20 minutes makes a difference. I dont use a Euro Powder but Drive matic which is loaded to the eyeballs with Phosphates and other environmental nasties, but gosh it does a great job. Have you tried using a little oxygen bleach?

Before this one, I had a W2515 which was cold fill only, it still only took 40 minutes for a cottons 60 cycle, so the 2.4kw heater is going to be able to heat cold to hot in that time. My 1970's Miele takes 70 minutes for light soil or 2:10 for heavy soil. But it has a 3.2KW heater which it needs for the huge amounts of water it uses. (130L per cycle)

If you're using the extended option (Same as my Intensive) how long does that push the cycle out to?

Cheers,

Nathan

 

[brisnat81]

One other thing in relation to Ariel Powder, I spent a ludicrous amount of money on a large box about 3 years ago, and found that the rinsing was terrible. Even at 15 or 20mls per load and water plus turned on, it would still finish a cycle with thick creamy suds left behind. At that time we had a water hardness of about 3deg.

I gave it to Michaels mum and she finished the rest of the box off in her DD Whirlpool without issue.

 

[foraloysius]

Europe

Overhere in Europe wringers were also used for a very long time. The first automatic washer that was installed in a home in the Netherlands was a Bendix from the USA. In 1954 Constructa introduced the first European fully automatic frontloader on the market. V-Zug in Switzerland already had introduced an H-axis toploader in 1950, but that wasn't fully automatic, you had to manually adjust the programme settings. That was one of the few semi-automatics that we got here in Europe. No need of handling wet laundry though, it was all done in one drum including spinning.

Why Constructa and V-Zug chose for H-axis machines? I'm not sure about that. I don't think space was the reason, those early frontloaders were bolt down machines, not suitable for installing under a kitchen counter. Most of them had a soap dispenser on top so that made an under the counter installation impossible too. And these frontloaders were wider than modern European machines. Modern European frontloaders have a standard width of 60cm (23 something inches) while the older frontloaders were 68 cm or thereabout.

My wild guess is that because of the different way of heating water (most smaller houses and apartments had flow through water heaters, although in the UK that was different I think) it took longer to fill a washer than it did in the USA from a tank water heater. They designed a washer with a heating element. That wasn't a problem at all because 220V had become a standard by then and 380V was easy to get. Heating elements of 6000 Watts weren't unusual in early frontloaders. It made more sense though to heat a smaller amount of water in a frontloader than a full tub of water in a toploader.

Here's an ad for an early Constructa frontloader.

 

[johnny]

the Greek story

At Greece the first automatic washer was a Candy and it was called "Candy Robot".
Before that; many many people used twin-tub washers with agitator.
My grandmother told me that at the 60's a Toploader washer (she didnt remember brant) with agitator and spin cycle was being advertised. It didn't sold too much because it needed hot water!! At the 60's the only way to heat water was Electricity and fire! heating water all day was something expensive because the electricity was too expensive!! at the middle of 60's Izola (a Greek company) made the "Apollo" series of automatic washers with internal water heater and very very good price! Befoce Iozla the only automatics were Miele, Candy, Siemens , Indesit and they were expensive (5,6 salaries for a middle class citizen).
Now after 40 years american type washers comming to Greece ! the electricity is still expensive but Gaz came to our homes (and gaz heaters too). The 60% of consumers buys Hot field washers ; and with short times of wash! The new electrolux with variable wash time is top listed.
The most people want a cycle being completed in 50 min.
I bought a second hand Maytag Nepture and now I have a full load ready in 45 min!
P.S. Water at greece is VERY CHEAP! we pay 20€ per year!! (so we dont have any problem with High water level)

Now about the detergent; I use liquid only for darks.
Once I tried to wash whites at 95c (using my electrolux Timeline) with Ariel liquid and the result wasn't so good.

 

[favorit]

drum volume - capacity

I do agree with Rohnic about capacity. The load ratio for cottons is 1:10 - meaning each kg of load requires 10 cubic decimetres (also said "litres"). Commercial machines follow this standard, in household washers things are .. how to say ... "flexible"

Since Axxis and Dreamspace/Big (Duet euro versions) entered EU markets, other machines "grew up" their capacity (even other BSH and Whirlpool). The idea was to keep the standard dimensions 60x60x85 cm. For sure the 92 litre Duet drum can't fit in. So .....

... a 42 litre drum (4.5 kg) now is rated 5 kg or even 5.5
a 46/47 litre (5 kg) now is 6 kg
a 53/54 litre (5.5 kg) now is 6 kg or even 7 chez zannolux
a 60/63 litre (6 kg) now "can" hold 8 kg (zannies-aegs-whirlies)

This is quite evident : if you compare i.e. y2002 and y2007 Aeg or Zanussi brochures, now they are beyond Bobloading mode

Not to mention the Hoover Vortmax "9 kg" ....

Even Miele started kidding (perhaps only here in Italy till now ): i.e we've no more W3923 (6 kg) but W3943 (6.5 kg). I bet both machines have the same drum, otherwise these "bigger" 6.5kg mieles had come out earlier in Germany

http://www.mieleitalia.it/product_list.asp?L=1&idMen=163&cat=101011011

 

[askomiele]

Capacity right big laugh over here. If I look at what I can fit in my olympia and my miele... it's still al lot and sometimes more then 5 kg (both machines are rated 5). Even a thick duvet fits in my miele, because of the smaller door it doesn't fit in my olympia. Note that the problem is not really the washingmachine, but the dryers! Once a 111 liter drum was only big enough to dry 4.5-5kg, now the same load has to get dry in a drum of 100 liter at max. The 111 liter is big enough to dry an 8 kg load? Still not impressed. Mostly because of the wrinkling, longer drying times and no space for sheets to move freely I think that it would be a lot nice for machine companies to use the ratio 1:10 for washer and thinks its 1:20 for dryer (or is that too large, thought it once 1.5 times the washer ratio?)

 

[MrX]

Hot water in Europe

There's a bit of a myth going around on this board that European houses don't generally have central hot water heating. This is simply not true, the vast majority of European houses do have hot water systems which are broadly similar to US systems.

The main reason why washing machines do not take a hot fill anymore is because the fill levels are so low. The machine isn't drawing hot water for long enough to clear the 'lag' of cold water in the plumbing. It makes hot fill pretty pointless. So, it was simply done away with. As machines became more and more water efficient, the hot valves vanished.

Also, because the vast majority of washing in Europe is done at 30 to 40C, it makes more sense to simply heat the water in the drum. The machines have always had heaters anyway and it provides a much more accurate level of control over the water temperature than trying to mix hot and cold water.

There's also a risk with hot fills that you can get water that's much hotter than 60C, particularly in older homes where hot water systems may not be as controlled. This risks damage to clothes and law suits for washing machine manufactures.

As a result of all that, they simply stopped including a hot fill valve in their machines, it's not a case that there is no source of hot water in most homes. Even in the old days, when most machines did have 2 fill valves, if there was no hot water source available you just used a Y fitting to split the cold feed and connected it to both the hot and cold valves on the machine so that it would always fill cold.

While it is true that some older houses in Europe may have instantaneous local water heaters under sinks etc, it's certainly not the norm. The majority of homes do have central heating and normal hot water supplies.

 

[favorit]

mrx - eurHot water

It is not a myth. You're true regarding nowadays. But not about the situation in the 50ies and the 60ies. Surf in the http://www.waschmaschinen-forum.de/ --->bildes der tag -->archiv . Here you can find some old ads that show those heaters over the kitchen sinks (one AEG for sure, over a drop down lavamat)

My granny in the 50ies had a "Elbow Grease" washboard, water had to be pumped from the well with the same EG tech (turning the pump wheel), water heater was a tank in the wood fire range.....

 

[liberator1509]

Hot water for Europe, and why we have front-loaders...

Mrx, I'm afraid you are a bit off the mark with your reasoning about cold-fill only. There are a variety of reasons why EU machines are (now) cold-fill, and one is the tradition that in many parts of Europe, central hot-water systems were comparatively rare until recently. The central-heating phenomenon was a feature of the 1970s and 1980s in Ireland and the UK alone. Prior to that, if houses had a 'central' hot-water system, it was generally based around a solid-fuel range cooker, or back-boiler (an open fire that has a water boiler attached) - just think of the endless quantities of Victorian and Edwardian houses in Ireland and the UK that weren't equipped with heating until very late in the 20th century. If the house was on the 'town-gas', hot water might come from a geyser over the kitchen sink. Also remember that rural-electrification was still just reaching parts of Ireland as late as the 1960s, in spite of having dated from the Siemens-Schuckert work at Ardnacrusha in the 1920s and 30s. Others might like to comment on other parts of Europe, but I'd wager that you'll find similar evolution there too. Mainland EU washers are often located in laundry rooms with cold-supply only (like the commonly found wash-kitchen in Germany aprtments), so dual-fill washers were impractical.

Cost of living and wages have had a major impact on this too - in the 1960s a industrial 'professional' starting salary was in the region of £1000 per annum. Nowadays an equivalent role would attract 40 times that amount. If we whizz back say 45 years, you'll find an automatic washer (like an English Electric or Hotpoint) cost about £105 in the UK - that's 10% of an annual professional salary!!! In modern terms, that would mean the equivalent washer should cost £4000 (that'd be a commercial model then...). So it is fair to say that automatics were out of reach of most people in the 1960s, and as such the twin-tub at reigned supreme from the 60s through to the late 70s. Hyper inflation the 70s also has an impact, but as production increased, costs could be saved and gradually machines got cheaper (add in mechanised production and you save a lot) - and the quality dropped. If you compare the engineering complexity of a 1960s Hoover Keymatic, English Electric Liberator or Hotpoint 1500 to a modern machine you'll see that every aspect has been engineered down to minimize cost. The separate chassis gave way to cheaper monocoque design, plastic replaced metal, concrete replaced cast iron and clutch drives gave way to simply bad balance control.

Towards the end of twintub production, the machines were 'unrealistically' priced for the market - almost £400 for a Hotpoint - way more than a cheap automatic, and a reflection that volume fall-off and build costs were the down-fall. Ditto the Hotpoint TL - just too expensive to build and still make a profit and not enough people to buy them. The market expects to pay very little, so manufacturers have to make machines as cheaply as possible to remain competitive and produce washers that cost as little as £150. You'd be amazed at what lengths manufacturers will go to keep costs low, and profit margins high - so if dropping a water valve and a hose pipe saves say £1 per machine and you make a million a year, you're saving a lot! As the former UK marques are now owned by EU (Italian to be precise) firms, 'manufacturing rationalisation and harmonisation' would mean it only sensible to eliminate regional features that are not required in the general market - so the UK/Ireland hot valve has gone! In order to smooth the change, we're sold this is a great advance, saving us lots of wasted hot water and money, and promising better detergent performance - this is marketing propaganda to cover up a very obvious cost-cutting/rationalisation exercise. As someone else noted, the German manufacturers are now offering hot-fill as an eco-option (who'd have credited it) - I bet we'll be asked to pay more for this!!!

As to why we have front-loaders - hard to say...in Ireland and UK in the 60s we had every possible type of automatic - agitator (Hotpoint, Servis and Frigidaire), top-loading h-axis (Phillips etc), and front loading, as well as the unique hybrid Hoover Keymatic. I guess the fact that the US Bendix machine as one of the first to be manufactured in mainland Europe had an big influence on design. Washers are generally fitted in kitchens or bathrooms in Europe, with only very much larger houses have laundry rooms, so with the advent of the fitted kitchen (again in the late 70s), under-counter washers won the day...

 

[logixx]

"As someone else noted, the German manufacturers are now offering hot-fill as an eco-option (who'd have credited it) - I bet we'll be asked to pay more for this!!!"

That was me. The two models sold by Miele are the AllWater washer, which has been around for several years and the Softtronic W 1747 WPS EcoLine. Found the later one selling online for about 1100 Euros.

 

[toggleswitch2]

A hot fill?

This should be interesting after all the poo-pooing that the crowds over the pond have dished out over doing it that way.

 

[MrX]

Well, the major problem as I would see it for hot fill to work properly you need a thermostatic valve, similar to that on a shower. Otherwise, you do genuinely risk dumping in near boiling water on top of clothes. It's fine for a boil wash, but it's EXTREMELY difficult to get accurate temperature control otherwise.

The only other option is to start filling cold, then add hot water in bursts constantly monitoring the wash temp.

Thermostatic valves are expensive components, just look at the price of a good shower valve.

In my experience, most machines on the market in Ireland in the 1970/80s only took a hot fill if you set them to a cycle that was 60C or hotter.

For 40C washes they filled cold and heated.

 

[jetcone]

David

thanks for the link on the new Maytags, I had not looked closely at them, I am very curious now! I love that flat blower in the dryer!!!

Jon

 

[brisnat81]

Hi MrX,

The hot and cold fill Miele, measure the temp in the tub as it goes. It starts with a cold fill straight into the drum to fill the sump and activate the eco valve, then switches to the detergent tray and starts filling with hot. Once the thermistor in the tub registers that the right temp has been reached it switches back to cold and then keeps alternating until full. Because the Miele fills between the inner and out tubs, it seems to mix ok without any problems.

I dont see that there is any aditional cost, other than that of the valve, and associated plumbing as the thermistor is already there.

Using hot and cold fill, shaves off only 4 or so minutes from the wash cycle, so from a time perspective it makes very little difference, the benefit would be if you had cheap hotwater on tap rather than electrically heating.

The Hoover Keymatic from the 60's fills on the same principal. It has a mecury filled thermostat underneath and it fills through the sump. When you use the Heated Wash, Hot and Cold fill Keyplate, it starts filling with hot until the required temp is met and then switches to cold for the rest of the fill. It will then heat the water to adjust the final temp.

 

[johnny]

Using hot and cold fill, shaves off only 4 or so minutes fro

I had an old indesit and I it had hot water valve.
When my water heater had the correct temprature (60c) the 60c cottons cycle was completed in 60-70 minutes!
I dont think that the difference (hot fill or cold fill) is only 5 min.
My Indesit was using the hot valve only for 60c,70c,95c cycle
for 40c it was using a mix of cold water with less hot. after the filling the washer was using the heater to reach the correct temp.

 

[MrX]

Mercury filled thermostat ?! Wow, that sounds like something that would be an absolute NO WAY item these days.

 

[liberator1509]

Temperature controlled fill

Hi all - wow what a 'hot' topic (sorry couldn't resist...)

MRX - temperature controlled fill has been around for a long time, as others have noted here - for example Hotpoint introduced 'temperature sensed fill' in the New Generation series washers in the mid 1980s. This involved mixed fill on all programmes, with electronically monitored water temperature. Capillary/mercury/hydraulic thermostats disappeared in the early 70s, so unless you're dealing with a vintage machine, you'll be safe!

Johnny - I think the water heating time is not that big a time issue in front-loaders, certainly not with low water levels (though it certainly is with top loaders!), The long wash cycles in modern EU front loaders are a result over very low water levels - to achieve good dirt removal with low water, the mechanical component of the wash action needs to much longer.

Logixx - thanks for the info on the dual-fill Mieles - I wonder when that will filter through to other manufacturers? We're currently in a 'cold is the new hot' marketing campaign in the UK...thanks to P&G and their new Ariel Gel - it will be interesting to see if it catches on.

Jon - if you get to try the Maytag Bravos, I'd love to know what its like...I really want one of those - I hope May-pool bring out a 220v model for export!

D

 

[logixx]

No, it's true. On the current (German) All Water washer, connecting the appliance to hot water water (55°C/130°F) reduces the cycle time by max. nine minutes. The max. water temp allowed by Miele is 60°C.

Hot water is used for washes of 40°C and above. Warm rinses are used on all cycles of 50°C and above; Permanent Press allows warm rinses even on a 40°C cycle. The manual does not state a temperature for the warm rinse, only says it'll fill from both taps. Warm rinses can reduce overall water consumption by 10%. Wool and Silk cycles do not use the hot water fill.

Being called All Water, the machine may also be programmed to use well water, rainwater or softened water.

 

[favorit]

Johnny - hot fill and "washing time warranty"

Hi Johnny, about miele's hot fill Brisnat said it right.

In older machines it was difficult to have long washing times @ low temps. So many brands solved that with an ECO button to extend washing time.

Miele had another solution : the "washing time warranty"
Unless "short" option is selected, the machine runs a warm wash in the same time of a boilwash, as many other brands do too nowadays.

On my old timer controlled W480, this "warranty" works this way : when you choose 80°-95°C the timer skips some increments after heating. In the range cold--->70°C it stops at everyone

@ 40°C it takes 10 minutes less than the boilW ,@ 70°C it is a little longer than @ 95°C

When "short" is selected it works in the old way (every temp is routed into the timer in the same way), so heating time + 15 mins

In the Novotronics and Softronics the "warranty" makes a trade-off with the load sensor on the motor (smaller loads = shorter times)

Carlo