Old Washing Machines Are Less Efficient and Consume More Energy

[gregingotham]

frigidaire jet spray rinse

I've noticed with my 1-18 that the tub can be full of suds on the wash, and after the first spin spray rinse the water in the rinse is clear. No need for a second, third or however many rinses some of these machines use and the cycles is done in 30 minutes or less. I'd say that's pretty efficient and also produces clean clothes. Something I can't say for many high efficiency machines. They may look clean, but over time you'll notice a dingy, discolored looked. My two cents.

 

[philr]

About the 1-18, they seem to work better than most vintage top-loaders with lower water levels. They still use more water than in a front loader or today's HE top-loaders but they seem quite efficient for 1970s machines. And the loooooong spray rinses are also using some water but clothes need to be rinsed and it's certainly no worse than any overflow rinse!

 

And for the entertainment factor, I have a lot more fun when I'm using one of these machines than when I'm cleaning the swimming pool (which I hate and rarely do!), and cleaning the pool with the filter on "drain" uses a lot more water than a washer! The pool's filter also uses a lot more energy than the washer does!

 

Here's the entertainment machine!

;-)

 

[pierreandreply4]

me i grew up with vintage washer in my family an inglis superb washer year from my birth so would estimate 1972 since it was a dial skirt model and it was a very good washer not a waste of energy and was very efficiant ps the washer is not viewed in this pic but look at the dryer it was the matching dryer to the washer that you can see a glimps on the right

 

[tomturbomatic]

If the Miele W1986 can't balance or has too much froth when it tries to spin after the wash, the time remaining changes from 38 to 45 and the machine adds an extra rinse easy peasy. It goes into a high speed spin after the wash, no matter the temperature and after each rinse on the cottons cycle to give excellent extraction without which you cannot have the most efficient rinsing.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

FL every 7 years vs. TL once every 20

At the risk of playing Freud, I wonder if some members of aw.org (and I include myself)are less pissed off because actual machine performance and MORE pissed off because the costs incurred and resources consumed as a result of the TL's the shorter life span are not 'counted' as consumed by the FL's when in fact, they are consumed.

This reminds me of an argument I had with my sister a number of years ago: If gas, oil, etc. to drive to my parents' house for the weekend is $50 round trip AND I give up a $200 freelance job I could've taken that weekend, the cost of my trip is $250, not $50. She insisted the $250 figure was 'mine' and was a result of how I 'looked at' the situation. To be fair, I did hear her make a comment recently to suggest that now understands that the $250 cost was never 'mine' nor did I ever do any of the 'looking' she stated I had.

Jim

 

[jetcone]

Interesting article and comments here

Interesting the German's on the whole load the machine to 75% capacity not 100%. There is some waste there.

Also the authors overlook the energy of production for 1980' machines versus todays machines. It could be wildly different then again it might not. But if you are still using a 1980 machine today there has to be some accountability for the production energy saved over those 30 years versus the production energy used to create the odd 4 machines you might have purchased every 7 years. Purchased due to early failure of later technology machines which is a real factor. These new machines are not as durable. That is something that should be looked at. 

We know from Car magazines driving a car into the dust is the cheapest way to drive a car, trading in every 5 years is not.

I believe water consumption has improved; and in the new machines I have; stain removal has improved because today's He machines work more like your dishwasher than your mom's washer did. 

But when it comes to removing oily soils and rinsing - hold your horses!! New machines can fail drastically in that department. And I'm not so sure its the users fault here , you really have to get your head inside the egineering of the new machines to get the maximum benefit of the way they wash; and as we ALL know too well  the majority of laundry-meisters out there don't even know the brand of machine sitting in there basements right now!

 

 

 

[dartman]

I like old stuff but couldn't afford the water bill

I bought a HE top loader becuase I like top loaders, it's made by whirlpool, and our water rates here are stupid high so anything I can do to drop the bill helps my bottom line. My old Whirlpool Direct drive super capacity washer was real easy to fix and did a fine job on the clothes though it was extremely noisy and used a TON of water per load.
I probably would still be using and fixing it if it wasn't for the 300 buck combined sewer/water bills we were getting every three months.
New machine is very quiet, clothes come out very clean, and it's huge capacity compared to the old one so can do more clothes per load which also helps.
Doubt it will last as long as my old tank but I did have to replace the pump 2 times, the coupler once, and the agitator dogs, and it needed a new door switch I bypassed when I finally sold it off.
All the parts were cheap though and it was pretty easy to service, just a hassle having to pull it apart to deal with it in a small space.
Our old house the water bill was just over 30 bucks for two months use so if I was there the old dog would still be in service till unfixable. At least a semi pro apliance guy bought it from me cheap to rebuild and sell again so I'm sure it lives on cheaply and happily some where else not concerened by water usage.

 

[qualin]

Math...

Doing some math...

Water where I live is $1.7175 per 1 m3 (1000 Litres) of water.
My 2004 GE TL used 180L of water per load, my Huebsch uses 83L of water per load.
Thereby the cost of water per load is $0.309 and $0.143 respectively.

A box of Tide 60-load 2.3 kg laundry detergent is $11.39. Assuming I only need to use half the amount of soap as the old HE, the cost of soap per load is $0.189 and $0.095 respectively.

I won't count Fabric softener since I rarely use it. Nor will I count the cost of heating water because who knows what it actually costs anyway.

Let's assume that I do 50 loads of laundry in a year. Almost once per week, not counting Christmas and New Years.. The cost of doing that laundry is $24.90 per year with the GE and $11.90 with the Huebsch.

Thereby, we can say that for every 50 loads of laundry, I save $13 in water and supplies.

Over the span of 20 years worth of use, it really doesn't add up to a lot, does it? The savings over that time works out to about $260.

So, realistically, even if machines have become more efficent, how much have we really saved? Am I missing something here?

 

[arbilab]

Save a cheeseburger lunch for two with onion-ring upgrade, per year. In a (typical) machine that becomes landfill in 5 years instead of 15 or well more using 'actual' water. Who do these eco-knotzies think they're fooling?

There's a point at which squeezing the lime harder into your iced tea just makes your knuckles sore and doesn't make the tea taste any different.

 

[jetcone]

Let get this STR8

Your GE TL : 

"My 2004 GE TL used 180L of water per load, my Huebsch uses 83L of water per load. "

 

So your GE uses 47 gallons per wash and its an HE machine? And the Huebsch (I'm guessing is identical to my SQ FL uses 22 gallons per wash??

 

MY SQ on wash + 2 rinses uses 4 gallons each fill for a total use of 12 gallons per wash.

 

Something is out of whack and I can't see it.

 

 

 

 

[jetcone]

Let get this STR8

Your GE TL : 

"My 2004 GE TL used 180L of water per load, my Huebsch uses 83L of water per load. "

 

So your GE uses 47 gallons per wash and its an HE machine? And the Huebsch (I'm guessing is identical to my SQ FL uses 22 gallons per wash??

 

MY SQ on wash + 2 rinses uses 4 gallons each fill for a total use of 12 gallons per wash.

 

Something is out of whack and I can't see it.

 

 

 

 

[electron1100]

Water Costs

Where I live in this country we pay the highest water charges in the country, basically because South West Water are an inefficient money grabbing company who,s only interest is profit at any cost..................any way enough of that.

When I installed my water guzzling Hoover 1100 (110 litres for a full cottons wash)

I was suprised after a few months that my water bill was reduced by £5.00 a month.

Even if had gone up I would consider it money well spent.

The only thing I could think is that I was doing less washing overall, the amount of items that came out of Aqaultis with marks etc on them I would just put them back in the wash bin and they would get done again

I remember on a UK TV program about saving stately homes, the presenter walked into the owners kitchen, pointed at his very old Hotpoint machine and stated "That is old and inefficient you should have a modern one" to which he replied "that is over 30 years old, it washes beautifully and is going no where" -)))

I seem to remember that it was Germany that decided we were going to run out of water in the 90s and washing machine water levels plummeted whilst cases of skin complaints and crap cleaning rocketed.

Good old Germany

Right my brain is empty now

Gary

 

[DADoES]

 
Water cost calculations above are missing sewer costs, or is that included directly in the wate rate?  City here, sewer is a separate line-item on the bill, and it's higher than the water.

 

[wayupnorth]

Around here it is one bill that is broke down for water and sewer charges and a total you got to pay. But I am on a well and septic so I don't get those bills, thankfully.

 

[rapunzel]

Old washing machines clean and rinse better, are better looking, better made, more durable and aren't gimmicky. I would never throw out something that is in perfect working order. That is being wasteful and environmentally unsustainable. Throwing out perfectly okay appliances is also disrespectful to the wonderful people who designed and developed these fantastic, durable, aesthetically valuable and functional items with so much fastidious and loving dedication. How can they even dare to compare their disposable, mass produced, plasticky rubbish to the good stuff? Heathens!

Just look at the Frigidaire 1-18 vid it is laundry poetry in motion. There is not one modern machine that can create that level of synesthesia and euphoria in the laundry room, it is poetry in laundry.

Sorry, not trying to ruffle feathers or anything, but my brain made me write this, I feel so emotional right now and, yes, I have given myself a tick too.

 

[rapunzel]

Since we don't have a kiss emoticon this is meant to symbolize a kiss to the person who gave me the second tick and there is lots more where that came from.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Things that make you go "Hmmmmm..."

You can't help but wonder what's really going on. IIRC, laundry is not a significant portion of the average person's total water consumption (direct and indirect combined).

According to the websites below, the "average" urinal uses 150,000 litres/33,000 gallons of water per year. Assuming that figure is accurate, how many households would have to switch from TL's to FL's in order to save that much water in one year? What would the total cost be? Where would the break-even point be? How does that compare to the costs of switching ONE urinal?

Am I missing something or does something here not add up?

http://watersolution.com/benefits.php

http://waterlesscartridges.com/

 

[washer111]

I'd have to agree with Warmsecondrinse; there are far more wasteful activities we *ought* to be targeting before chasing clothes washing. As the saying goes, its like plugging a little pinhole leak in a dyke where there is a gaping hole further along! 

 

(This also circles back to the thread on the EU and vacuum cleaners; Again, we still have industry using copious amounts of water, electricity and gas - but we're targeting microscopic percentages of this total use in the home world. We can go further and say, its all well and good to have manufacturing plants powered by solar and wind, but if we can avoid having to MANUFACTURE stuff in the first place, we can save more. Since when were "durable goods" not something that lasted 15, 20, 25 or more years?)

 

Thanks Rapunzel for your thoughts above. I gave you a checkmark. 

I do not believe in chucking stuff because its still good, and is just "old fashioned." Of course, thats initially it was possible to produce long-lived appliances. I know people who buy new DINING sets, "Oh, that tables lasted 10 years. I got my money's worth, so I'm getting a new one." Its why I've got several computers, doing something within their niche. I mean, sure, they don't have the latest and greatest Windoze, but they still work great for what I need - which is reading forums and LEARNING (about anything, really). 

 

[rapunzel]

That's okay washer111, I won't take my kiss back, it is yours to keep and cherish.

 

[frigilux]

I would never begrudge anyone their vintage appliances, regardless of energy/water usage. That is a matter of personal preference. Were it not for everyone who lovingly collects and restores vintage machines we appliance enthusiasts wouldn't have AW's library of wonderful photos/videos of machines from the past.

For some, though, like me, it makes more sense to own new appliances. And like the vintage collectors here, it's fun to acquire different appliances---in my case, often well before the end of the natural lifespan of its predecessor. My solution to that dilemma is to give the used appliances to people who need them. It keeps them out of the scrap heap and makes the recipients very happy. In turn, I get a nice, shiny, new, feature-laden appliance and do my part to feed the beast that is the U.S. economy. Everyone wins.