Washing Machines

[elziko]

After moving into our new house we need a washing machine. There seems to be two taps where the washing machine goes and they both seem to have cold water coming from them. One at what seems to be mains pressure and one that seems to be at a very low pressure.

It looks like we don't have a hot feed so I think we need a colf fill only machine but none of the web sites that sell washing machines seem to mention anything about that. So I assume they're either all usually hot & cold fill or just cold fill but which is it?

In particular we're looking at this:

[Phil L]

kitchen and the one with less pressure should be connected to the hot water system - have you traced the pipes back? - either way, if you buy one that has only cold fill, just use the cold pipe, if it has both, use both, they all have heaters inside them anyway.

[The Medway Handyman]

Do the taps not have plastic levers in red or blue? Chances are the higher pressure is cold and the lower hot.

Almost all washing machines these days are cold fill only.

[Jim]

If it was me I'd go for a Miele, they cost a lot but are the best by far, just do a search on previous posts to see how often they are recommended, plus they are cold fill only (at least ours is)

HTH

Jim

[Guy King]

The message from "The Medway Handyman" contains these words:

Apparently it's to save energy. No, really.

[john2]

Are you sure the low pressure one is cold. It may take a couple of minues for hot water to come through if the pipe has a long run.

[elziko]

Well, I got my girlfriend to stand by the combi to see if it fired up (that should happen pretty quickly even if the hot water takes a while to travel down the pipes, shouldn't it?) and waited a minute or so and nothing happened.

[Lobster]

Certainly not a normal set-up then. My guess is that the pipework has been modified at some time in ths past, and what was once the hot feed to the washing machine has been incorrectly routed. Can you trace them back at all?

Is there a cold tank in the house somewhere, predating the combi installation? Could the low pressure feed emanate from that, whereas the other one comes direct from the incoming main?

David

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

"Jim" typed

Wot e sed, every word...

[Helen Deborah Vecht]

Guy King typed

It does (at least in my place), cos you have to run a lot of hot water to clear the cold from the pipes and the nice hot water then cools down before the machine refills.

[Guy King]

The message from Helen Deborah Vecht contains these words:

Yebbut those of us with other arrangements don't get to make a choice any more.

[elziko]

Well I now know that the machine we have chosen is cold feed only so theres no problem.

But what you say above may be true... the slow flowing tap seems to be SO slow that maybe it is an old header tank. When I first opened the tap the water that came out was very dirty. I'll have a look in the loft at some point.

Thanks

[Stuart Noble]

Do you have an Aga as well?

[Piers James]

Machines are almost all cold fill only, so don't worry. A good place to buy is

- they normally list hot/cold fill etc, and the discounts are good, so you might consider a better brand as is oft recommended on this NG - Miele or Bosch.

[Andrew Gabriel]

They hardly used any hot anyway. The initial fill has to be no more than around 30C for modern washing detergents to work, and increase slowly to the final wash temperature. It's barely worth bothering to run in any hot, as in most cases, more heat will be wasted in the pipework afterwards than gets into the machine. If you are only heating to 35C or 40C in the machine which is all modern washing powders need to work, then you aren't using much energy anyway. If you are still routinely washing at 60C, then your wasting energy anyway.

[The Natural Philosopher]

IN our case, yes.