Having recently installed Solar heating and having an excess of hot water, I am researching adapting my Zanussi ZWF 1631 W (cold fill) washing machine to dual (hot & cold fill). I need to pick up two voltage references -
1) Washing temperature setting
2) Tank water temperature
The references will be used to supply the + & - values for Comparator inputs to control Hot (to be added) or Cold water fill valves, which will fill the machine with water at the correct washing temperature and avoid using the built-in water heater. It would speed the process, if I can acquire a wiring digram and schematic for the machine -
Not quite the same, but my cold-fill dishwasher has been on a diet of hot-only feed for about 18 months without issue. I also have a solar system and more hot water than I know what to do with at this time of year.
A washing machine's contents would care more about excessivly hot water though...!
I believe the various programmes offered by washing machines take into account the 'soaking' period over which they heat the cold water and so your clothes may not be as white as you wish.
Fill temperature is 35C max for modern detergents, or you damage the detergent before it gets to do any work on the dirt. For hotter washes, the temperature must then be increased slowly, and it's usually done in steps up to 45C to ensure a reasonable wash period at several temperatures, as required by the detergent. That's difficult to do without using the internal heater, which is one reason why no modern machines have a hot fill inlet anymore. Once it's gone above 45C and some components of the detergent have been destroyed, you can go directly up to 50C, 60C, or 90C without any more steps. However, washing at such temperatures shouldn't normally be required at all, only for the occasional exception.
If you have a free supply of water at 60C, you could use this directly, but it will result in some types of dirt becoming "fixed" in the fabric such that it can't be washed out.
If you wash above 45C, the temperature of the wash should be brought down slowly by mixing in cold water at the end of the wash cycle. Some fabrics will have creases locked in if you just run cold water onto the when they were hot.
It's pretty impossible to get the required profiled temperature control required by modern detergents and fabrics unless the machine takes full control of the heating and cooling cycle, which partly is why they can't make effective use of hot inlets anymore (the other reason being the tiny amount of hot used means most of it is wasted cooling in the pipework afterwards, and little ever gets into the machine in the first place).
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