How much water does your washer use?

[packardmanken]

I was researching a particular wringer and stumbled on this article. The writer for "Families.com" a frugal living website, claims that a standard washer uses 40 gallons of water to fill the tub? She is touting the economic virtues of a wringer (of which I agree), but I dont agree with here numbers. My Kenmore wringer will only hold approx 18 gallons and its BIG. What do you think?
This is an excerpt from the article, and the link to the complete article is attached.

"Wringer washers can save money on water, heating and electricity costs. A typical washing machine uses 40 gallons of water to fill the tub for one load. It also uses another 40 gallons to rinse the water. In comparison, a wringer washer can use that save 40 gallons of water to wash three loads. rinsing is the same. So three loads of wash would use a total of 80 gallons of water, as compared to 240 gallons of water for three washes in a typical washing machine."

 

Do these numbers add up to you?

http://www.families.com/blog/wringer-washers-save-money

 

[wayupnorth]

My 30 year old Maytag uses the 40 plus gallons per load on Extra Large, which I always use. My problem is not lack of water, its pumping it up to a septic leachfield that seems always drenched in this constant rain and cant dissipate like it should. I am working on a way to divert the washer into the woods beside the house. Laundry detergent doesnt have phosphtes anymore so it should be fine and not hurt anything.

 

[wayupnorth]

But I am still going to get my Grandmothers Maytag wringer going in my shed this summer, if it ever comes. She only did a wash then rinsed and might use that rinse water for the next wash. I supposed it saved a few gallons but certainly not 240 for 3 loads

 

[akronman]

well

That article is mostly wrong. Approx 20 gallons to fill the tub. It fills for wash, then again rinse, so 40 gallons per load. Some spray rinsing too, maybe call it near 45 per full load of clothes? That article easily doubles the actual water usage.

A wringer washer keeps the wash water for many loads of clothes, then you dump it and refill for rinse. Then you are supposed to dump that and refill for a second rinse since old wringer washers don't do any spraying. And if you "SAVE" by washing maybe 4 or 5 loads in the same wah water, adding more soap each load, then you really truly need 2 full complete rinses to get all that oversoaped, overdirtied water out of the clothes. Umm, that's lots of water. Also, no wringer will get anywhere near as much water out of the clothes as a typical automatic with spinning at 500 to 675 RPMS. So drying takes twice as long, using twice as much gas or electricity. Line dryng does save power, true. But in Ohio in winter, it's not an option. Line drying also leads to far more ironing than tumble drying. Ironing means electric power.

Various machines came in many sizes, this is a pure approximation for the popular top-loader automatics over a long era.

And ya know, reread that article, third paragraph especially. Not only are many facts and gallons quite wrong, there's also poor sentence structure and grammar that makes the sentences hard to follow.

There are way to conserve water and electricity with a wringer AND with an automatic. Search for SUDS models on this website, and dry with gas instead of electricity.

That article is just poorly researched and poorly written, but frankly, thanks for posting it. I doubt I'll check out ideas from that website again. Wringers were also known to break fingers and cause lots of accidents.

Having siad all that, I have a 1952 Speed Queen wringer. It's fun to use. 3 times a year as a hobby.

 

[frigilux]

Agreed: That article is full of inaccuracies, as is the one titled "The Frugal Washing Machine." My 2010 Frigidaire front-loader uses between 13-17 gallons of water per normal cycle depending on the size of the load. My 2013 Speed Queen top-loader uses around 40 gallons of water per regular cycle for a maximum-capacity load.

 

[turquoisedude]

This should horrify everyone: the 1956 GE washer/dryer combo uses about 51 gallons of water for a full cycle because of the condenser dryer.

In contrast, I believe the 1953 Westinghouse Laundromat uses under 20!

 

[e2l-arry]

It doesn't take twice as long to dry

clothes from a wringer vs. a spin dry. I have found that when I use the dryer for laundry from the wringer washer it's about 25% longer. Say a load would dry in 45 minutes from a 1,000 RPM spin in a front loader, to 1 hour for the same load run through a wringer. Therefore I've concluded that a spin dry removes 25% more water than the wringer. And I'm not using twice (100% more) electricity to dry but 25% more.I compensate for that by line drying 5 to 6 months of the year and still come out ahead.

 

[wringer]

I

use my wringers as daily drivers. I always spin each load in the auto to remove more water prior to drying. Saves time and electric. No wringer can remove as much water as spinning does.

Jim

 

[ozzie908]

When having used a wringer washer

I found it best to spin dry in a separate spin dryer they can go faster than the majority of automatics and save even more when tumble drying as we poor Brit's do not have the luxury of a gas dryer.

Austin

 

[kenmoreguy89]

II see that water removed from a wringer cannot be paragonable to the "average"600- 800 rpm of automatics.....
I suppose laundry out of wringer may be paragonable to a 400-350 rpm spin....
In any ways, perhaps the article does not say totally truthful or correct info and datas about the water use, but I do see that with a wringer you may use certainly less water, this because in a wringer washer like for a twin tub you can resue wash water for say 3-4 loads, or partial drain and refill with some more clean water and top up with a little more detergent, this operation is anyway due if water is excessively dirty from the previous washes...
You can fill it with hot water, wash your whites, and when water after awhile has cooled up you start colored and finally darks..
You will actually use the same water for wash 3loads, not to rinse though (either manually did in a tub or if you're lucky in another wringer washer, or twin tub wringer washer), but anyway is a good advantage versus non-suds return machines.
It must be said, that nowadays very few would wait one day to do all the laundry consequently, once Monday was the laundry or weekly wash day, starting early in the morning till you had all hanged up on the line, later in any given day you collected enough laundry ie week's laundry, and with the common advent of automatics and during the time after that, laundry has started to be done in any possible day or hour you have or want to do that, many moms, dads,wives, husbands or whoever the housekeeper is, of today works,, have no time to dedicate to these multiple loads, or anyway dedicate a whole day or half day for that matter, most people would never do that, usually once they've enough stuff for 1 load start the machine and divide the chore during the week in the most disparate hours they can... Very few still wait for more loads... Say 3 or 4 consequently.
So yes, the article is not total BS....but they talk of it like an easy feasible thing. That most people in urban areas would never do....

 

[abcomatic]

I use my wringer machines as daily drivers also. It is a bit more work with filling, wringing, and draining, but I get the satisfaction of seeing a job well done. Gary