Wash habits: how full is your full load?

[passatdoc]

Full

I have a 3.5 cu ft (about 11 kgs) Frigidaire 2140. I bought a laundry center from Lowes, which features sorting bags, a rod for hanging shirts and trousers on hangers, and a shelf on top.

I use Bag #1 for sturdy cottons (t-shirts, jeans, etc.), #2 for towels, #3 for permanent press. Normally I wash #1 on warm, #2 on hot, otherwise they get the same wash treatment. Dry #1 on warm, #2 on Hot. And sometimes I'll combine #1 and #2 into a single load on warm wash/warm dry. #3 is washed on warm but with perm press cycle, dried warm on perm press.

That said, when one of the bags is full to the brim, it will fill the drum top to bottom, without overfilling. So I use the bags as a crude measuring system. If/when the 2140 dies and is replaced by a larger model (say, Electrolux or one of the new Frigidaires), I'd need to revise my system, since a full bag would no longer fill the drum!!

PS the bags are removable and washable.

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www.lowes.com

 

[iheartmaytag]

I sort/measure

I have those big plastic storage tubs that are 4.0 cu. ft. I just toss the clothes, towels, jeans etc as I am sorting. The Maytag (Duet clone) holds excatally the amount of one of these tubs and I have not experienced any problems with washing/rinsing or spinning.

I wash full loads of everything except delicates which half a load is proper for anyway. The fill is adaptive so it uses more water for larger loads, less for smaller loads.

I have no guilt in using this method, so if this is "American right to waste" so be it. What I have found with my Uber-large European (GERMAN MADE) machine is I used to wash a load of towels every night in my top loader. Now I wash about two loads of towels a week. This would appear to a wasteful American like myself that the larger machine is saving me time, energy, detergent, water, and money.

 

[ronhic]

Thanks folks....

...that's what I wanted to know all along.....that there are/were US made or designed front load machines that can be loaded in the same manner as a European one and get similar results.....

 

[3beltwesty]

Is CLEAN and noun or verb?

RE"

I have those big plastic storage tubs that are 4.0 cu. ft. I just toss the clothes, towels, jeans etc as I am sorting. "

I bought a mess of these large tub baskets when my dad was still alive when he was in his late 80's and had a house lady lady once a week to help out with household cleaning.

***I purposely marked the 4 tubs either Clean or Dirty and by white and dark/colored.

The ladies helpers would get the clothes all screwed up since they somehow assumed CLEAN meant: "to be cleaned."

****Thus to be even clearer I had to add a Happy face logo on the clean tubs and sad face frown on the dirty tubs!

It still was often a total disaster,

my dad and I would arrive home late and there would be a note to still dry the stuff; ie move them to the dryer.

They would take the sad faced dirty dark and sad faced dirty white and place to or 3 tubs worth of stuff in the 1976 westy FL.

They actually forced it in and forced the door shut. I would have to do 3 rewashings to rewash the mess; since the washer was overloaded and nothing really got washed well at all. ie the whole mess turned into a stinky mess.

The washer was so full that there was no extra space. Take what a perosn calls full then add 2 more loads. This is the opposite extreme, one sticks 3 to 4 washer loads of stuff in a machine and one has to rewash it all at midnight!

One time a note said the washer was freaking out, the washer has so crammed with items (three big tubs full) that the machine could not get into spin mode and the circuit breaker had tripped and the room smelled like burned belts.

The items in a washer are suppose to move somewhat, not like if one glued the items all together.

 

[ronhic]

One time a note said the washer was freaking out, the washer

...ever considered actually SHOWING the individuals how to use the machine or leaving some step by step instructions? I'd have thought that would have reduced, if not actually solved, the problems....

 

[iheartmaytag]

Is CLEAN and noun or verb?

Well 3belt, in the scenario you described, "Clean" must have been optional.

 

[mrb627]

Waste

I would like to see factual information that washing an 8 pound load of clothes is more wasteful in a big machine than a smaller one.

Malcolm

 

[3beltwesty]

total disaster; un-teachable

RE :

"...ever considered actually SHOWING the individuals how to use the machine or leaving some step by step instructions? I'd have thought that would have reduced, if not actually solved, the problems...."

We had instructions in large block text in english and explained to my dad's head lady who managed her work crew.

You are assuming the folks who do this type of work can read or follow directions after they screwed up over and over again, of the same folks arrive the next week.

Basically that is why I fired them after my dad passed away and changed the locks, ie no learning, placing 4 loads of wash in the washer, hiding items.

The head lady's crew she used varied each time too. I was not keen on these folks but my dad was paying for it. He would have to call the lady up to ask where they put stuff; they would rake off stuff on counters and place it in a box; then stick the box in another part of the house . If I wanted to be kind I would say her workers had mental defects, or were missing links. In reality they caused me more work. They were so stupid that they placed clean bath towels in under the bathroom sink were it is damp, where one never thought to look.

I had one of those knife/fork/spoon plastic kitchen drawer deals on my dads bathroom's counter, so his razor, cream, toothpaste and brush was "off limits" from being placed in the kitchen or garage.

This crew was so bad I placed locks on the bedroom I slept in and several other rooms so stuff was not messed with. I had a declining dad in his late 80's I helped take care of, and these helpers often caused be more work. One could wash the bed sheets and place a giant note to not wash them and this crew was hell bent on cramming those sheets in washer.

These odd folks placed 18" & 24" fluorescent bulbs in dishwasher, toothbrushes and small garden spades in the dishwasher, edison bulbs in the dishwasher. They took battery hydrometers that were in the garage workbench and placed them in the dishwasher, like they are turkey basters?

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re

 

[3beltwesty]

waste versus load level

RE"

I would like to see factual information that washing an 8 pound load of clothes is more wasteful in a big machine than a smaller one."

Malcolm

Maybe that would be a start of a new thread's topic?

The simple old 1976 FL westy and the westy we had before it were marketed as water saving machines.

The actual KWhour's I measured on the westy was 0.22 Kwhour with one of my normal loads. If juice costs 15 cents then one wash load costs 3.3 cents.

Here the water is absurdly super soft. A large jug of liquid All that is for 84 loads usually lasts at least a year, thus the soaps cost in mys scheme of things is nil. Walmart had some at the fire sale table; thus a 13 buck jug cost me only 5 last week.

With my old machine, one has a direct control of the water level via a knob. I have a different water pressure switch wired in, the water can be set from just touching the drum to the glass window 1/2 covered.

With soft water here I about never use hot water. Sometimes warm is used.

The new LG is better in extraction of water than the old westy; since its spin speed is higher. One has less water to remove.

To really figure costs one has to also consider if a dryer is used; or a close line. what type of dryer electric or gas too.

 

[3beltwesty]

Here I am going to wire in one of my many watthour meters in series with my 240 vol dryer so I can see how much KWhr is used. With a newer FL washer the stuff extracts better, thus the dryer is used less in actual time.

The baffoonery with the slick sales chaps is they want you to buy a matched washer and dryer. About every person told me that my old 1976 westy dryer would be too small for my new LG FL washer. The real fact is that the old dryer could really handle TWO LG FL washers, since the extract is better and the new washers take way longer than the old 1976 washer. With the old 1976 machine, if one was to wash a mountain of bluejeans, each full load is done in 42 minutes and the dryer is filled and run and wash load #2 started. With the new LG the cycles I use for the same dirty bluejeans are typically about 75 minutes. If the timer says 1Hr 13minutes when one starts, it is a hokey gray estimate. It might be really done in 1hr 5 minutes to 1 hr in 30 minutes due fart around factor of the softwares sensing

 

[passatdoc]

@3beltwesty

I agree with your math.

Whereabouts on the coast are you located? I did a work of Katrina relief work in "the Bay" (aka Bay St. Louis) in 2008, after having done a week of similar work in NOLA in 2007. We enjoyed our stay in the Bay much better, people were really grateful for our presence and thanked us left and right for coming. On the 2008 trip, we flew into Gulfport so as to reduce driving time (vs from NOLA). I painted the inside of the Waveland animal shelter pretty much by myself.

 

[jerrod6]

6K machine.  Here is a load of cotton reds and greens I did today.  After loading it was full to the top with no more room to put anything in.  The contents compact after getting wet.

[this post was last edited: 2/10/2011-21:05]

 

[haxisfan]

I find this thread really interesting but it's far too long to read it all in one go... I gathered you guys have never seen a real clothes overload :-D

Below a link to my extreme overload I did some time ago... I can already hear your critism but before you say anything I swear and cross my heart that this load was impeccably clean after that 3 hour long cycle. It was so huge that I had to split it into two to fit into my 6kg tumble dryer. In the video you'll see the best parts, where everything looked almost normal, but sometimes small items would push towards the rubber boot or thrust against the porthole door almost as if they wanted to pop it open. The rinse cycle looked waterless although I know water was there by the amount of time the solenoid valve was left open: but at the end of the day... or should I say... at the end of the cycle all the garments in the load were well rinsed.

My loads are seldomly this big.

 

[3beltwesty]

Overloaded?

Haxisfan;

Re Nice video.

To state that this was an extreme overload can be defined in hard cold Engineering terms two ways:

(1)POOR WASHING: One could state that a machine is overloaded and thus the clothes were not washed as well as a lessor load. ie the machine is so full that even with water the articles never move with respect to another and or the clean and rinse is poor. ie one has a diaper with poop still in it and it stays in one place, and it makes the entire other articles nearby a toxic mess. Your video shows that the articles mixed and moved around, there was "free airspace when the stuff was being washed " and tumbling and random mixing occurred. A true overload from a bad wash standpoint means the wash was poor and one has to rewash everything.

(2)LIFE OF MACHINE IS RUINED: Once could state that an overload is so high that one effects the normal life of the ball bearings and motor. Ie the motor windings are cooking, the ball bearings have such a high load that one is degrading a normal washers life of 1000 to 5000 washes. Most bearings in washers die due to corrosion, the water seal fails and the bearing corrodes dud to exposure of water and soaps.

Since your stuff came out what you state as acceptable as clean, only item (2) is a possible "overload". The ladies my dad once had to help cleaning would consider you machine underloaded and add gobs of more items. Thus when I arrived home the machine had stuff fermenting and the wash load had to be rewashed in separate loads.

PassatDoc; I am in Harrison County, the middle of the three lower tier coastal counties. The biggest cities are Gulfport, Biloxi, D'Iberville, Long Beach, Pass Christian. The western county is Hancock with Bay St Louis, Waveland, Stennis Space Center, Kiln etc. The population has dropped in most cities due to Katrina's mess and sky high insurance costs. Thanks for helping out with rebuilding. It is still going on for many folks. It is really hard for an outsider to understand sometimes.

 

[haxisfan]

3beltswesty... I agree with most of the points you made as for poor washing (epecially in relation to the 'poop' factor) and the threat to the life of the machine, etc, although as I stressed earlier, this isn't a regular occurrence. The items were randomly mixing and shifting position and... as a matter of fact, at different points during the entire cycle, the load being washed didn't even look as if it was the same one. Besides, none of the items in the load were particulary dirty... moral: the same results could have been obtained with a quick wash on half load for lightly soiled clothes.

I was considering your concept of overloading a washing machine which would have surely entailed (or even suggested) topping up the machine with some more clothes once the water and gravity had done their trick (I know some1 who used to do that too)... however this was as overloaded as overloaded can be in respect to dry clothes being thrusted forcibly inside the drum to the point of surpassing the max capacity of the appliance considered. Even the tumble dryer resulted overloaded with the second lot of clothes from the same load (as you can see towards the end of the clip) and as a result they matured some wrinkles that only time and effort managed to annihilate.

Perhaps another aspect you failed/forgot to mention is the potential damage that could incur to clothes (as they might not be pulled completely into the drum during the high sequence spin cycle for lack of space). In fact, in one of the other occasions in which I overloaded the washer in a similar fashion as above, I had one of my favorite garments develop a nasty scuff mark and a tear: that certainly taught me a lesson. Bye now.

 

[passatdoc]

@3beltwesty

Thanks for the kind words. We stayed in quonset huts placed on concrete slabs on the ruins of Christ Episcopal Church in Bay St. Louis. Lutheran-Episcopal Services in Mississippi ran three camps on the coast: ours, a second one at a destroyed church site in Long Beach, and a third in Ocean Springs (at a Lutheran church which was not washed away). Our group wanted to return but the camps were closed last fall. Not sure if it was lack of money, lack of jobs to do, or lack of volunteers.

As we came from California, we had to fly to Gulfport and rent minivans from there. We had to bring our own bedding (sleeping bag, sheets, pillow, towels, etc.) which meant most folks packed two duffels, one with bedding and one for clothes. The camps had hot showers but no laundry facilities, so we had to bring a week's worth of heavy work clothes too. Some groups who came to the camp were within driving distance, but many groups flew in. When the airlines began charging for checked baggage, I knew that was going to hurt the camps in MS because it would cost $50 each way to check two bags, hence raising the cost of the trip by $100, on top of airfare, for each participant. We actually discussed the possibility of raising funds to buy them laundry machines so that people could come with just one bag (to save charges---at first, they only charged for the second bag) and wash clothes at camp as they went along.

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www.futuresforfamilies.org

 

[cfz2882]

my work clothes get really dirty,so i am mostly interested in the best wash
performance and therefore usually run my f/l 24"splendide or maytag neptune
with the drums about 1/2 full or slightly above for best tumbling action.
BTW the 24"splendide combomatic-bought brand new,damaged in a shipping
accident and fixed up,is usually found in campers,boats,and RVs in the US.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

My washing habits

I always sort according to color lights, whites, and darks. When I go to the laundromat, they all go into separate washers and dryers. I want things done the proper way, not lazily stuffed in. That is my biggest pet peeves when it comes to laundry.

 

[bewitched]

My Aeg Lavamat Clara is usually fully stuffed but it manages to get very good results. This is a load of whites and the cycle is the longer available with prewash at 80 degrees celsius. The detergent used is the Miele ultrawhite powder.

 

[ryner1988]

Apparently this thread has been revived, so...

I'll chime in.

I own a standard TL. For me, a full load is one that is loaded loosely to the top row of holes in the washer tub, but not packed in. I do load to capacity, but if I feel like I'll struggle to get any more in, that means it's time to stop.

This is also why I stopped the practice of starting the machine to fill first before adding clothes. This is a life-long habit that was really hard to break, but I found it was a bit deceptive in regards to how much could actually fit because the clothes get wet and packed down. A loose pile of dry clothes is a much more accurate representation of how much the washer can handle. I now put detergent in first, then add clothes, and start washer last.