Economy 7 & Washing machines

To offset your water bill? ;)

This is her domain, and she can't be told. To be fair, the previous washing machine lasted nearly 20 years, but at a cost of around £200 a year in unnecessary washes.

The water is only part of the cost. We pay around .3p a litre for water, so for 60 litres that's 18p. Washing capsule is 30p. Say 3KWh for electrickery is 30-40p. It's obviously cheaper to wear the machine out faster with full loads, but ....

Makes me feel glad that housechores are mostly my domain - ideal really. I do a lot and I'm best placed to choose the appliance that makes my life easier :)

It's liveliest when two people are doing at the same time, especially without prior agreement. A friend of mine complained that whenever she walks out of the kitchen, her husband walks in, puts lids on any open pots, & turns the gas down slightly under them. I said "it's engineer's disease --- he sees heat loss & can't help it".

At 1pm?

Just try changing the settings on an electronic timer!

I suspect that the solution to the start problem is to start the machine cycle, then remove the power. Works for our dishwasher.

Well on my one there is an external switch button, which I've never tested, but presumably preserves the settings and simply starts the machine when the mains comes on. Trouble is on mine its on a menu which I cannot read, but it does seem odd they had not thought of operation from elsewhere. Brian

Bullshit.

I'm working on it in the midst of calculating how many pence I can save per wash.

I've just moved house so I'm balancing learning how to use gas instead of coal, understand the water meter, find the right light switch and getting reception on the TV.

The E7 on my previous property worked from 0430-1130 GMT - very convenient for the electric shower, washing machine and cooking. Here I'm back to around 0030-0730 (haven't quite caught the switch over times yet). The good shower is gas so no saving there and most of the cooker/range is also gas so that'll be no saving either. The vendor left his washing machine behind and now I've had a closer look there is indeed a delay which works up to 5hrs - so we'll load up and initiate at 9pm. The old machine didn't - no power no can press start button. Never thought to try the start then power off option.

But I suspect my best answer will be to switch to a cheaper tariff, though at the old property about one third of usage was E7. I'm waiting for the current supplier to tell me who they are.

Wow, that was fortunate!

We had an E7 tariff for a year from 01:00 to 08:00 (clock time) year-round, but since then it's been 00:30--07:30 in winter,

The timer for E7 is clockwork. When we had the big winter freeze in

It was however only a couple of years ago that I got to learn what the times were - mainly prompted by a loud clicking sound and realising that there was a little symbol flashing or not on the meter - which had been replaced after the blackouts so why they didn't adjust the clock I don't know.

They switched over to installing meters with electronic timers synchronised to Radio 4 about 1990.

Um, my machine is nominally 8kg; I do about 5.5kg/wash, it uses ~50l of water and, at present incoming water temperature (Northants, so not too cold yet), around 1.2kWh. Your figures should be lower.

considerably earlier than that,

I wonder what will happen when the last valve the the BBC have fails, all those things synchronised to R4 198khz will wander off on their own.

Well something has gone wrong with the one in my new property which is electronic and reports 23 mins fast.

The BBC doesn't own the transmiiters any more - sold off years ago/.

Hum, the time switch associated with our electronic E7 meter (certified in 1996) is clockwork with a broken spring or at least it stops when the power goes off. 1996 seems a bit late for the installation of that supply, the planning permissions are early