SILLY NUMBERS full loads versus 1/2 loads saves me enough to
Haxisfan RE
******"for the sake of allowing a washing machine to be even more efficient, it should be filled to max capacity (without overloading it of course). "
This is only true here is one wants to chase absurdly small numbers!
Just look how small the numbers really are. The old 1976 FL Westinghouse FL washer here in rebuild only uses a max of 30 gallons back in 1976; the lowest of any washer in that era; 114 Liters.
Even today is cost for a full load is rather small. It only takes 0.22 to 0.24 Kwhr for a full 42 minute cycle. The water costs about a penny a gallon. A full load costs 30 cents in water, the electricity is about 3 cents for a wash load.
Washing with the water set level set lower can reduce the outlay to only 20 cents. The soap used here varies with the amount of clothes washed, I use less soap with a smaller load.
Washing a half load of clothes with the 1976 machine costs 23 cents versus about 33 cents with a full load; ie one has wasted 33 - 23= 10 cents.
If I wash 2.5 loads a week with the 1/2 loads; that is 130 loads a year @ 0.23=29.90
If I wash 1.25 loads a week with the full loads; that is 65 loads a year @ 0.33=21.45
I save 8.45 dollars a year by washing full loads versus 1/2 loads; in a mechine from cicra 1976.
*****I have wasted thus 8.45 dollars per year; ie 2.3 cents a day in waste.
The water is so soft here that a jug of All He I buy on sale lasts about a year. I have only used 3 jugs of soap since Katrina in 2005; the total outlay of about less than 20 to 30 bucks max.
Here with the long experience of using the 1976 FL westy for 3 decades ; I really have never found that the machine has to be filled full to wash well. A 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 load washes just as well too as a full load. I have used FL washers since the 1950's and never heard about this issue before coming to this website.
Thus the comment of:
" for the sake of allowing a washing machine to be even more efficient, it should be filled to max capacity (without overloading it of course)."
saves me 8.45 dollars worth cost in water and electricity per year; assuming my time is worth zero and I want to buy more clothes to fill, the washer in all cases.
Here the 2.3 cents per day loss in cost by just washing what is required is not an issue.
It is more efficient to worry about what my time is worth; versus worrying about saving 2.3 cents in 24 hours; ie 96 millacents per hour. Federal minimum wage is 725 cents per hour, this is 725/0.096 about 7500 times more per hour than the washers waste in doing 1/2 loads. Thus a person earning minimum wage does not worry about such silly small numbers.
The typical person here does not worry about costs in the parts per million level they worry about the costs that matter. Gee do I worry about the 2.3 cents per day washer cost with 1/2 loads; or my cellphone bill of 100 times higher with data plans and extra stuff? The food cost rises are such that last weeks grocery store vist already wiped out that 8.45 dollars per year savings in one store vist due to the massive price increases. With crafty shopping in a few stores one can save many times more than the 8.45 savings.
For the newer LG FL washer; its water usage is less and electrical too. The waste with a 1/2 load versus a full load thus has a giant cost for me of maybe a 1 cent per a day thus worrying about the waste is absurd.
ie I can wash full loads to save money; and in one year I have saved 3.65 dollars; I can buy a big Mac at McDonalds, or a gallon of gasoline; or a beer in bar.
****In the scheme of ones daily costs of existance here; the waste of washing 1/2 versus full loads is not measurable.
I might as well say Germans can payoff Greece's debt by skipping one beer a year.
Thus here whether I wash 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, or full loads I cannot even measure the added cost or savings.
SINCE the cost is not measurable and load size does not change how well stuff is cleaned; here the worry about 1/2 versus full loads is TOTALLY absurd.
It is right up there as worry with UFO's and worrys if an ant on a freight train makes it burn more diesel oil.
In theory it does.
the ant weights 3mg.
The train burns 1 gallon of diesel in 435 miles .
If the train travels to the Sun it has burned 214000 gallons per ton of freight in 93 million miles.
the ant weights 3.3 billionths of a 2000 lb ton.
the ant thus burns 0.000707 gallons of diesel = 0.0027 liters,
ie 2.7 ml. the ant worries about this big amount of diesel; it is 900 times his weight; it might take 2 dozen trip for him to carry this added diesel to the fuel car.
Thus most folks here do not worry about silly numbers; one's TIME is what is used.
Ie it really does not matter in costs at all if I wash with varied machine loadings.
If I saved 1 penny a day; I could by a new car in 1000 + YEARs!
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