One long or 2 shorter washes?

[henene4]

There has been this question in my head for a few months by now, and it has been rather inconclusive to me what is the better option.

Now, this all started one day when I had to get a fairly used set of beddings done rather fast. Our Bauknecht (Whirlpool) washer however has this little bug that its Cottons 60°C cycle on highest soil with short selected produces an overall 2h+ cycle, due to the PCB cutting off heating beyond ~40°C and therefor timing out the main wash up to the 0:01 time display, and then starting over with rinsing, adding several minutes. (Short wash cycles on this one are not guided to ensure propper heating.)

This means I had to improv around and found that the Easy Care 60°C with highest soil seting only takes about 1:45-ish with 3 rinses.
The shorted cycle time remained at somewhat round about the 1:20 mark.
Now, bare in mind, these beddings were used for about 2 weeks, on and off as a guest bed.
1:20 seemed to short for me, but 1:45 seemed over kill as well.
I ended up spending the 1:45.

This however led me to dig into some service manuals to find out which cycle combinations work which way and what options exactly do.
So, this washer has 3 basic time altering options affecting the main wash.

The general main wash consists of initial sensing (time altered), filling and soaking, heating to 35-40°C for an enzyme stage (here is one time recalculating point), heating to selected temp and staying there, then draining (with another time recalculating at the end of draining). This is true through most cycles.

The soil level selection alters the timing of both enzyme and main @temp wash stage.
The "Prewash" cycle simply adds a fixed 20 minute prewash, which is only carried out at medium speed tumbling, up to 30°C, ends without a spin.
The "Short" wash option cuts out the enzyme stage, moves the recalculation of wash time to the point of first reaching target temp and fixes the wash time @temp to a reduced amount of time depending on soil level. Thus, if heating fails, this main wash just times out.

Now, this gives me a lot of different wash intenseties.
But I wondered: If I had to choose between a long 2h cycle with a mainwash including an enzyme stage and a long high temp wash or a wash basicly split in half, with a water exchange in the middle, and therefor 2 shorter wash baths, saving a slight bit of time, would it be worth th extra 5-10l of water and bit of extra energy?

What do you think?

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Depending on how dirty the fabrics are:

The 2 wash option may be a better way. With this you would have cleaner wash water and possibly better final result.
WK78

 

[appnut]

I find that one long wash with the heating in my Whirlpool front loader yields far superior results to a warm presoak for 1/2 an hour and then a hot wash in the old lady shredmore. 

 

[launderess]

For generations going back years

It has been shown, known, researched, documented, reported, proven, etc.... that for most whites and or badly soiled clothing two washes even if short give better results than one long wash.

For this reason commercial laundries most always run "flush" cycles or a pre-wash or soak before the main wash or series of same. Until recently at least European front loaders the default "Normal" cycle came with a pre-wash.

Rationale for use of a short wash or soak before the main is based upon several factors.

The ability of soap or detergents to suspend soils is finite. Thus washing in "dirty" water can lead to dull, dingy and grey whites or colors because dirt eventually will resettle during long cycles.

Washing or soaking in cool, lukewarm or even warm water first removes certain stains and soils such as perspiration and protein before they are set by a hot water wash. More so today with modern enzyme laundry products that function best within certain temperature ranges.

Before the advent of modern domestic washing machines whites and colorfast laundry was routinely presoaked or at least washed before the main event. This continued even when early semi-automatic washers such as wringers or spinners came along.

For those familiar with using conventional (wringer) washers you know the drill, lightly soiled things went first then came progressively dirtier items. The idea was you started with cleaner items because they would leave less much for the successive loads. Even adding more soap or detergent again cannot compensate for really mucky water.

In past and perhaps still now commercial laundries achieve a higher standard result because they use several changes of water. Depending upon what is being washed a normal cycle can have two, three or more washes followed by an equal or more rinses. Yet overall total cycle times aren't very long. It is a very luxurious way of doing the washing with all those changes of water, but the results often speak for themselves.

Have noticed my whites are much brighter if I pre-soak or pre-wash the load before main wash in any machine, this includes the Miele or OKO/AEG Lavamat.

The way round pre-soaking or washing is to group laundry together by soil levels. That is lightly stained or soiled things washed by themselves with heavy/dirty items in another load. For instance I no longer wash the socks I wear round house indoors with "whites" routinely. Either do them by hand/other methods, or resort to a pre-wash if they are included in main load.

This all may be more important since phosphates have been largely removed from laundry products. As we all know not one single chemical or substance invented since does the work of phosphates alone when it comes to soil suspension and anti-redeposit.

If you are noticing your whites (especially tighty-whites, t-shirts and other undergarments) are taking on a tattle-tale grey hue despite good laundering practices, you might want to consider soil redeposit as the culprit. [this post was last edited: 2/17/2016-22:13]

 

[esty]

How much detergent do you put into the prewash, and then to the main wash in a standard top loader?
Thank you!

 

[liamy1]

Dose

Don't know if this would apply stateside, but the general advice is 1/3 of a total dose for prewash.

So a 1/3 of the amount recommended for your load size, water hardness and soil level.

Then the full dose as above conditions for your main.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[liamy1]

Just thinking..

All the American detergents I use are dosed on lines on the cap/scoop.

Over here in UK it's always done on ml measurements, so I think you'd have to measure out what your respective line on your dose is, then third it.

 

[launderess]

Never bother with the "offical" measurements

Using lines or whatever from American laundry detergents. For powders dose by teaspoons or using my various Miele measuring cups. Liquids are doses using the Ariel Excel gel combination cap/dosing device.

American detergents never used to rely upon caps or whatever, but gave dosage in instructions in Imperial measure going from one quarter (or less) to one cup or more.

Even where detergents of old such as Fresh Start stated to use "two cap full" they also stated that came to 1/4 cup of product.

 

[vacerator]

double duty, washing

extra wear and tear? A second rinse makes my towels softer.