Economy 7 & Washing machines

My Beko washing machine, which is far from being top of the range, has a time delay feature. As I don't have Economy 7 I have never used it.

Many machines have an inbuilt delay timer so they can work on E7. Have you checked your manual?

My machine has a 3/6/9/12 hour delay. Switch the machine on, press the delay button once for 3 hours, twice for 6 hours etc. The machine then sits there using minimal electricity until the delay times out.

I have seen the same problem trying to buy a (Bosch) Tumble drier.

Get a plug in timer. OR I get up at 0600. I can turn the machine on and catch the last hour of economy seven. ie the bit of the program when it's heating. Also immersion heater and car during Winter period/sunless days.

You need to be careful with economy seven, they charge more for daytime electricity. So if you don't use it much it can cost you more overall.

AO has 160 machines that have the feature 'delay timer' which I suspect is what you need.

Haven't checked every one to see if AO has categorised them correctly.

Owain

See if your machine has a "delayed start" feature, many do.

As for the E7 if you don't use a significant amount of electricity at the night rate then it'll be costing you. The standing charge and day rate for E7 tariffs are rather higher than a cheap ordinary tariff. "Significant amount" means about 40% of your total daily consumption.

Simple: by a washing machine with an inbuilt delayed start - a large selection have them.

ISE W288eco

It appears to be the only one left - in 2012. I don't know if it is even available now.

But if you are going Eco7, let's do the maths:

My Miele takes 52l of water to do a 90C wash, spread over 5 fills (4 rinses) if you select all the extra rinse options).

So that's an assumed 10l for the hot bit, heating water from an assumed

Energy to do that is 3.6MJ which is about 1kWh

Handwaving: Gas is about 4p per kWh excluding the boiler efficiency and E7 is about 8p/kWh (Feel free to rerun with your tariff's figures).

So you are saving about 4p by taking a hot fill vs just using E7, on a

Worse - you will doing this overnight when the boiler is cold. And most of the time you will be doing a 40-60C wash maybe, so 2p saving.

My conclusion: Your hot fill will probably cost you *more* just heating up the boiler primary circuit and heat exchanger (by a penny or two) than E7.

Still think it's worth it? :)

Are you just presuming the electronic switch won't work with a timer, or have you tried it?

My washer and dishwasher are both electronic, and work fine with an external timer.

Chris

Warning: ISE went t*ts up about a year ago(?) and left owners in trouble as there were many proprietary item, including the main PCB. It'll be somewhere on here:

That's a worst case scenario. Now you've pointed out the problem, the OP could schedule his washing machine to come on just after the central heating starts up.

There are at least 3 available. Hotpoint, Statesman (rebadged Vestel) and a company making white goods in the north of england.

People with stored hot water or a local combi have no problems with firing up boilers. Most people who want clean clothes without soap residue run the machine twice once to wash, once to rinse.Hot and cold fill machines do not IME need a mould removal cycle. Hot washed clothes do not seem to need bug removal processes. With regard to electonic timers I don't have the experience to comment but I prefer mechanical units where available. It is of interest to see that very few electronic time switches are sold, compared to mechanical plug in timers.

onomy seven. ie the bit of the program when it's heating.

The other problem is sometimes the people below you don't like being woken up by your washing machine at 5 or 6 am in the morning. I don't do it becau se I have a 93 year-old who bedroom is partly below my kitchen, so while I have E7 I don;t use it for the washing machine.

The problem is the washing machine is incompatible with a timer as you suggest.

Quite often these days you have to press a button to start and that only works if the machine has power.

And save 3p...

I was just suggesting it was a pointless exercise...

Twice? And folks are fussing about 3p saved on E7 vs gas...

Here's what I do: Get a decent machine (Miele).

Run it once per wash. Enable the extra rinse option because the kids are sensitive to detergent.

Put the towels through on 90C once a week to once a fortnight (depending whether I've put other things in with them.

It works - no wibbling around with timers, no doing the wash twice, no fussing about the tiny number of machines that still have hot fill.

And no mould. Just sayin...

Well, it's an understandable POV but I have actually had more mechanical units fail (twice) than electronic controllers (never) in my entire life. Zanussi, 1970s, synchro-motor coil kept blowing - and the cam unit was a bastard to change as there were about 50 wires on it!

It probably won't as is, but if the programme is started and then the power pulled immediately, it *might* on the basis the machine will probably carry on from a power failure, if it's been sensibly designed.

But as everyone says - if that's a required feature and you're buying a machine, buy a machine with the feature!

I think the OP has wandered off and died...

Mine both have electronic controls; I don't think they will work with an external timer, but they both have built-in delay timers.