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Sorry to change the subjet slighlty but.....

I would reather have the best rinsing washer than worry about how much Co emmittences new cars emit co!!! We're looking for a new car and the emmitances of CO seem to be more of an issue!!!! Personally I would have my mind on CLEAN WELL RINSED clothes.... Maybe I'm in the minorigity..
Hope all is well with the Gang!!!
Pete
 
We always go too far....

No one wants to waste,but we have gone too far the other way when it comes to washers.They do not use enough water to properly wash or rinse.From my old FL to the new,I can tell significant difference in three ways.First,the clothes are simply not as clean-especially whites-nor do they smell as fresh.Two,there is more wear on clothes.Three,rinsing is not near as good.I bleach my whites about every three washes,and must run them through another rinse cycle to get rid of the smell-that tells me the soap is not properly flushed away either.My old FL,when filled without clothes,had about 3 1/2 inches of water in the tub.The new fills only to 1 1/2 inches.Just not enough water to get the job done.The "wet nap" approach to washing can not deep clean,and it takes a certain amount of rinse water to flush the soap from a given amount of clothes.
Tom
 
I agree Tom, and we have the same problem with the new dishwashers. Just doesn't make any sense!!
 
From what I can gather from here regarding American made front load machines, it would appear that the cycle times are not sufficiently long enough to cope with both the lower water levels and the large capacity of the machines.

Laundress has stated above that there are 4 variables that need to be in sync to achieve a good wash result.

European machines have no problems providing a consistantly good to excellent result (depending on brand) whilst using very little water and, in our market, no bleach (there is no provision for it in the drawer in any front loader sold here).

As an example, Miele machines sold here are generally at the top of the washing performance scores and mid to high mid range for rinsing yet a 6.5kg or (16 pound) normal cycle uses only 50 litres (12.5 US gallons) of water whilst still retaining one of the highest gentleness ratings for fabric care.

So what have we achieved and what has had to give to get there.

Wash performance - Excellent
Rinse performance - Good
Gentleness - Excellent

ahhh...the wash time. Standard wash cycle at full capacity (so no quick wash or time reducers) is 112 minutes at 30c.

Now before people start to say that it must cost a fortune to run a machine like that and you are better off being quick with the cycle and heavy with the chemicals and water...consider this.

An equiv. capacity standard Fisher and Paykel top loader rates as follows

Wash performance - Excellent
Rinse performance - Excellent
Gentleness - Poor

Wash time 47m....which is fast, but then the water usage was 157 litres (40 US Gallons) or more than 3 times what the Miele uses.

Now stick with me as here is the crunch. Estimated cost to run both machines through the same number of cycles over 10yrs is:

Miele $336
F&P $688

...and that is with cold water washing in the Fisher and Paykel.

Now it gets better. When you start looking at life expectancy of an appliance, Miele tends to come out on top. I would fully expect a Miele to last between 15-20yrs if it is looked after and a Fisher and Paykel to last about half that. So when you factor in replacing the Fisher and Paykel half way through the life of the Miele and it was half the price initially, suddenly the Miele looks not only better value for the environment with its lower usage of resources, but it is cheaper to run by half and lasts longer.

So over 20yrs, you could save upwards of $700 (in Australia) in utility costs at todays prices (and you are washing in warm water not cold) AND based on 7 loads a week over 20yrs, 728000 litres of water or 182000 US Gallons.

So if we change the way we do things, we can benefit as well as the environment. If the makers of appliances in the US increased the wash cycle of their front loaders, stuck a heater in them so they could at least maintain the wash temperature and re-educate the population about the use of (or excessive use of) additives such as LCB, then everyone would win (I have never quite understood the addiction to LCB that people in the US seem to have)

Clothes would be clean (as they should be - clean that is), there would be less chemicals used and less water washed down the drain.

Isn't that worth saving?
 
Washer Fan

Some things to keep in mind when selecting a Commerical Washer.
Most require to be bolted down. Some require as much as 8" of concrete. most have gravity drains and not pumps. Most have drain that are 3 to 4" min. I have 2 that require 8" most require 3 phase electric service. some require 440 or 580 In the event you need service Commerical rates will range in the 100.00 Hr/ range plus service call fees which start on a ave of 100.00. Not unusual to have a service ticket to run the area of 500 to 600.oo; have had them up to 3 or 4 . thousand. Shock waves from high speed extract will be felt through out the house. And can cause damage. Not meaning to discourage you just know what you are getting into. Be sure you read the specs very carefully.
 
I have never quite understood the addiction to LCB that peop

Hello, My name is Iheartmaytag, and I'm a Bleach-a-holic. I can't remember a time I wasn't addicted to bleach. It may have started in the days when I worked in a resturant and did many sinks full of dishes by hand. It could have been those many times I cleaned the restrooms and didn't want to leave any survivers in the germ and virus department. Perhaps it could have been heridatiry as my mother too is a Bleach-a-holic.

Mother always insisted on Bleach for her Whites. Mom is an obsessive like myself so all of our sheets were washed, hung to dry and ironed daily. (This was, of course, when she was a stay-at-home-Mom and had the time to devote to her addiction).

I have always associated the clean fresh smell of chlorine as sanatized and perfectly clean. We have linens that are 30 or more years old with no holes or signs of fabric breakdown; yet still as white as the day they came home. They have always been washed in a top-load machine, ususally hot water, and yes LCB.

Thank you for listening, I have no intentions of being cured--I'm a bleach-a-holic.

Oh-OH, not to mention chlorine is almost solely responsible for cheap, safe drinking water, as well as crystal clear swiming pools. Chlorine is not an addiction, chlorine is your friend.

*****
The proceeding message has been brought to you by the Chlorine lovers of America, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the webmaster.
 
After my long-winded

and tongue in cheek response above. Here is the skinny and sweet. Many Americans are germ-o-phobes. It comes from a Dr. Spock upbringing. Everything has to be sanatized, and steralized. Bleach is associated with the sanitary environmet we need to live in. Being obsessive, germ-o-phobes this leads to our addiction.

There are also studies that show we are making ourselves sick from being too clean, which causes our immune systems to not develope as well as causes our systems to go overboard when we are exposed to something. Speaking as an addict and Asthmatic, I can almost attest.
 
Handwash-only wool & US Toploaders

Just curious : can a modern brushless motor US toploader manage handwash-only woolens without shrinking them ?

FL do it, but it is no more the "old school" float wash (that shrunk wool), rather something like wetcleaning

Maybe only impeller machines (Oasis/Cabrio/Bravo) can do it ?
 
Clean wool in a TL to this . . .

I must confess, I don't own wool. Hence I have never tried to clean it. Most of my sweaters are acrylic or cotton yarn, those I use the gentle cycle and lay flat to dry.
 
sudsman: Just for clarification, I was not gripping about commercial front loaders. I have no space to own one. But personal front loaders are no comparison to commercial ones as the commercial ones must have way bigger tubs and therefore use more water.

When my Mom had a top loader, she used Wool-Lite and I never heard her complain about her wool sweaters and such.

And by a stroke of luck, I may have found a mid 70s Maytag 806 in white not far from where I live for $50. It appears to be in excellent condition. If it is, I will probably go ahead with the sale of the 2140 for $500. It has a main wash cycle, a drain, 1 minute spray rinse, full tub rinse, drain, and spin AFAIK. It probably uses about 40 gallons to do this if the tub is set to the highest setting.

HEY! There is a thought. Not all loads in a top loader are full. If it takes 20 gallons to fill the tub, then a mid-sized load would be about half that. So I'll say 11 gallons. Filled again for rinsing and the spray rinse would be another 12-13 gallons or so. ~25 gallons for a top loader is very acceptable.
 
2140

WasherFan, I've got to point out that you're seemingly judging front-loaders from your experience with one of the least expensive, most basic models sold in the U.S. I can't imagine going back to a top-loader after owning a Miele W4840 for a few months.
 
If you were creative, you could create your own 3 phase power supply. A hard-mount commercial front loading washing machine means BUSINESS when it comes to the extract part of the cycle.
 
Americans "Obsession" With Germs

Was born out of very good reasons.

Before science revealed the exact cause, transmission, and prevention, there were many, many diseases that ravaged the population. Also since this was before antibiotics, sulfa drugs, and other modern day "miracle" cures, a simple cut or scrape could turn into an infection that lead to death.

Polio
TB
Thyphoid Fever
Influenza (especially the great pandemic of 1916)

And so on.

The best defense was thought to be a good offense. Hence proper Amercian housewife saw it as her moral duty to protect her house and family from disease. This meant keeping all and sundry clean as possible.

When it came to laundry, Europeans favoured boiling their wash over "Eau de Javel" or other forms of chlorine bleach for a very simple reason. Most all linens bed, body, personal, household and so forth was just that, made from pure linen. Chlorine bleach will do serious damage to linen fibers, so it was avoided at all costs. The quality of European housewives, housekeepers and the rest of the wealthy went to great lengths to make sure their fine linen was not subjected to bleach.

OTHO cotton, which grew in the United States, and was abundant, replaced linen for most if not all purposes. More so after the southern states began to grow and produce the stuff en masse via slave labour. Cotton while also a cellouse fibre like linen, can withstand chlorine bleaching.

On both sides of the pond, boiling was done to laundry AFTER it had been soaked for several hours and or soaped. In short it was done to shift soils without all that beating and scrubbing. Boiling also killed vermin and germs, but we're not on that right now.

When washing machines came upon the scene, boiling started to die off as part of routine laundry in the USA. However Europeans still had all that linen, and favoured high temperatures for washing regardless. When Henkel invented Persil with oxygen bleach, it cemented high temperature washing in Europe until rather recently. The favoured method of bleaching in the wash for Europeans was with perborate bleaches. Sodium perborate will not begin to release oxygen until temps reach about 60C, and the action is greater the higher wash temperatures go. Hence all that boil washing.
 
Wool Shrinking/Felting

In order for wool to shrink one must have at least two factors:

Heat
Agitation

If one keeps wash water temperature to 80F or lower, one can toss and turn wool much as one likes, and it will not shrink. However it isn't wise nor required to launder wool longer than five minutes.

Wool can be washed in hot or even boiling water, long as it is not moved, it will not really shrink. Before the advent of modern disenfectants, wool blankets and the like that came into contact with "infected" persons was routinely boiled as part of the laundering process.

Felted wool is nothing more than wool that has been washed in hot or boiling water and moved about to cause shrinkage.

Wool also does not like sudden extreme changes in water temperature when laundering. This caused a problem when pure soaps were used for washing wool, as most would not work in cold water. Using warm water for the wash, then shifting to cold for the rinse could "shock" wool fibers and they would shrink. To avoid this it was often suggested to keep the wash and rinse waters the same or near the same temperature. However once SLS based "wool washes" came upon the scene (read Woolite), which worked in cold water, one could wash a wool sweater safely without "shrinking, stretching, or fading". (LOL)
 
frontloaders or toploaders?

thank god there only a choice i know some Fl'ers can be amazing but given some can have computer board failures, must use special detergent, and they all take very long to wash, is why i dont like them! but i would maybe buy one maybe the longer there out on the market the better the technology gets i like our old (99 2000ish) kenmore and its used if you think TL'ers dont clean well ours does one hell of a job and its pretty decent with timing i dont care that its not spun at 800 or 2000 rpms! i hang dry them and keep going there dry when there dry! and since i use common sense and care i dont have any clothes that are "shredded" or holy!!! and wool i do wool and dry clean fabrics in the washer! and NO SHRINKING i use the handwash/casual setting cold water and hang dry my parents adore me for it i save them 100 of dollars in dry cleaning!!!!! anywho to each there own in the end and with all my preference to TL'ers in this house i think a he TL'er or FL'er would be a better fit!

:P
 
~The best defense was thought to be a good offense. Hence proper Amercian housewife saw it as her moral duty to protect her house and family from disease. This meant keeping all and sundry clean as possible.

New York City made a conscious decison to provide "free" (UNMETERED) water to all of its residents and businesses to prevent the spread of disease with such a large populous living in such close proximty to each-other.

This has only recently (decades) changed. Water is still considered to relativley plentiful and inexpenive in this area.

Most lanlords provide cold and hot water without charge. Most also don't alow washers in rental apartments. For those that do, NYC rent regualtions IIRC allow a charge of $13.82+/- per apartment per month in rent-stabilized and rent-controlled units. Rough neighborhoods don't have laudry rooms (i.e. coin-operated) in the basement; it is a liablity and safety issue waiting to happen.
 
I need to clairfy after Laundress's definition. My mother's "linens" are mostly 100% cotton, and she bleaches the hell out of them. Only a very few cherished tableclothes and dinner napkins are actual linen. These are not bleached, but are washed in hot to very hot water.
 
Linen fabrics

Thanks Launderess,
your post about linen fabric in Europe is very interesting.

It points out :

- why our vintage FL had the cooldown before draining main wash water

- why they didn't spin after the main wash but only after the 2nd rinse

- why vintage FL were better built than today "el cheapo" FL. My mother still has several linen sheets she herited from her grans (so they are about 1915sh). They survive nearly a century of boilwashes but a couple of Candy washers had been destroyed by those heavy "monsters" when they were spun. Today only the mieles can manage such heavy sheets without any "disease"
 
Cotton pretty much killed off linen production and use in Europe, which was once the capital of the stuff.

Once "easy care" cotton became widely available and affordable, housewives and pretty much everyone else were more than happy to shutter all their linens in those huge cupboards and lock the doors. This is true even of some of the most beautiful monogrammed, and embroidered pieces. Today of course those cupboards and linen closets are opened only mainly to sell off the contents. Ebay, estate/chateau sales, flea markets and so forth up and down Europe are full of linen by the chest fulls.

Fine old linen, even some modern stuff does not do well in today's modern washing machines. Have seen beautiful linen sheets that have survived for decades if not centuries, turned to shreds in a matter of a year or less because of harsh laundering.

IheartMaytag:

What was it you needed to clear up that one left out, or maybe I shouldn't ask? *LOL*
 
IheartMaytag:

What was it you needed to clear up that one left out, or maybe I shouldn't ask? *LOL*

I was clarifying that I stated that my mother's linens were regularly washed in bleach, but in reality they are 100% cotton. Just for some reason we always refer to sheets and such as linens. I am guessing it has become generic, but your excellent definition made me realize the err of my ways.
I always enjoy your comments and insites.
 
Ohh!

Got it! *LOL*

Well actually "linens" as a generic term for everything bath, bed, table and body came about because at one time they were all made of mainly linen. Ok, for the wealthy there was silk, but for most of the Old World, with the exception of places like Egypt and India, where cotton has always grown, linen and to a lesser extent hemp and nettle were fabrics of choice.

Indeed one has to becareful searching on eBay in many European countries for "linen" or "lin" , "linge", Wasche, and so forth. Not only do these terms mean linens as in sheets, towels and such, but undergarments as well. Darn near got a very nasty shock when searching eBay.de (Germany), for "Wasche". *LOL*
 
As far as water consumption, I think manufacturers are doing kinda like the same thing they did with cell phones. In the beginning, they were bulky and heavy, then they became smaller and smaller (to the point where one almost needed a toothpick to operate them). Finally, they came up with innovative technologies (such as sliding mechanisms and now touch screens) to make then, again, easier to operate.

Washer manufacturers did the same thing: decrease water consumption from over 100 liters to as little as 35 liters. Finally, they realized they are going in the wrong direction and water consumption increased again - albeit slightly. I'm hoping US manufacturers (government?) will learn that lesson, too.

Over here, three rinses are basically the standard; many manufacturers offer Allergy cycles with five rinses; TOL Bosch/Siemens washers allow up to three extra rinses; Electrolux washers add quite a bit of extra water with the Sensitive option selected...

Here are two pics I took yesterday of our 2006 Electrolux washer. It's on Cottons 60°C with Extra Quick option, which eliminates one rinse but increases the rinse water level.

RINSE

5-8-2009-08-31-30--logixx.jpg
 

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