Is it really necessary to sanitize towels every wash?

[lakewebsterkid]

Towels

Our towels are washed in hot water every time. I use my towel for a week. It is always dried on a rack between uses. My brother plays hockey and always discards the towel after it sits in his hockey bag for obvious reasons. For a while I used about 1/4 C of bleach in each load, but now I am using 1C of ammonia with great success. Our towels have never smelled and are soft, fluffy, and absorbent. Mom had an issue with C. diff last year, and I ended up running her towels and sheets through a sanitize cycle in both the washer and dryer. No issues.

 

[mrsalvo]

Interesting discussion, esp. for everything we've been through in the last year or so. My elderly Dad was in TB treatments for many, many weeks last year for bladder cancer (he beat the cancer). For all those weeks we were in isolation, at Dr's orders. Dr. told me to be very careful in his bathroom, bedroom, and handling soiled laundry, but never instructed by him or his office as to "how" to be careful!!!! Our washer is T/L Speed Queen, no internal water heater, our hot water heater heats to 120-125 degrees. To make a long story short, because of the huge water usage of the washer, I threw all our towels and whites together (towards the end of treatments) in hot water using some chlorine bleach, then phasing that out in favor of a built-in bleach alternative (by that time he had developed a chemical reaction to the chlorine bleach). I dried everything on the clothesline outside in the sun and wind. We were fine, and though the towels and everything were stiff as cardboard, there is no doubt in my mind they were clean and sanitized. Had I not had the clothesline, I'd probably feel different though.

Today, I use my towels 3 or 4 times and wash cloths used 2 or 3 times or less. Kitchen towels I change often. I wash everything the same way I always have, and hang out.

Barry

 

[mark_wpduet]

This is why

when I wash colors and some underwear is color (not white), I use ammonia and detergent and the hottest water possible... But with whites, I don't have to use sanitize because I only buy WHITE towels/ wash clothes/hand towels and I bleach them...Some people refuse to use chlorine bleach but I could not live without it. Such a little bit goes a LONG way.....Never a sour smell or anything.

I know that smell you're talking about - drying your hands on a towel and it has mildewed. Growing up at my grandma's- she had no AC, and in the summer her hand towels would get that way..They weren't like that out of the wash....but it took no time for them to get that smell in the summer months and it was gross. It wasn't her laundry habits - they were good. It was just the ultra high summer humidity combined with NO AC. Thinking back on it, I'm not sure how the hell I grew up without AC... Without it now, I'd die!