new washing machine advice

[Dave Liquorice]

Do the annualised figures cover the same number of washes? Maybe they consider that the average user of the Exxcel brand will do less washes than the average user of the Logixx.

Or perhaps they assume, say, 500kg total wash load/year and divided that by the capacity of the machine to get the number of loads/year the multiply by the energy/water per load.

Or a combination... without knowing how they are deriving the annual figures they are useless. And they might not relate to your use of the machine anyway.

[Sam Plusnet]

Fair point, but she's a (retired) engineer, & with only two in their household I'm fairly confident she treats her machines quite well.

But it is far too small a data set to make any predictions.

[alan]

Don't ALL washing machines have to do this now?

[alan]

Will you be using the machine at a 60C wash? You will find that a cold water wash (15C) is just as good for the majority of items when used with a cold water detergent. You may also find that you will be using the "use more water for a rinse" option because the low water feature leaves to much detergent in the clothes at the end of the cycle.

The figures you are comparing may not actually be what you see when you operate the machine. The manufacturers may be playing standard industry tricks in much the same way that fuel consumption figures for cars come from testing methods that are unrelated to real world driving.

[Bob Eager]

I think this is lower than most!

[Bob Eager]

The greenies will still say that if it's turned on at the wall, it will be in 'standby' and cost £35 a year...

[Java Jive]

[Andrew Gabriel]

Most new-ish things in standby mode nowadays are well below 1W. Notable exceptions are set-top boxes (which often don't reduce consumption at all in standby), and standby savers, which themselves tend to consume more than the appliances you plugged in to them do in standby mode, thereby completely defeating their purpose.

[Dave Liquorice]

If it draws 40 W at 10p/kWHr it will cost £35/year. B-)

[Bob Eager]

I know that. You know that...

The other interesting thing is that calculations for (say) TVs, that I have seen, work it out on the basis that the TV is on standby 24/7.

1) A lot (not all) of people at least turn them off at night

2) The TV is ON for some part of that 24 hours anyway.

Add those two to the spurious power ratings on standby...

[Bob Eager]

:-)

OTOH, some of that time it will be actually running....

[Andrew Gabriel]

Cold water washing typically washes out 90% of them. However, they are not killed by even boiling water, so there's no point using a hot wash if your aim is to get rid of dust mites.

It takes about 10 minutes at 120C to kill them by heat (e.g. using a tumble drier for 10 minutes _after_ the clothes are dry).

Or you need to use a hospital sterilising washing machine which washes at higher than 100C under pressure.

[PeterC]

IME the buyer of a cheap machine often does far more than the buyer of an expensive one. Mine cost about 2.5 times my neighbour's but does about a fifth of the washes. I load mine correctly and she fills hers to the top almost every time.

Ah, a possibility. Hadn't thought of it being based on the same annual laundry, but it would make sense if so, but only if defined.

They certainly don't to mine: nearly 13 years and about 500 washes in all.

[PeterC]

The Humax Freesat PVR is ~24W running, ~22W in recording-only mode and

[DerbyBorn]

[PeterC]

[alan]

Washing detergent and hanging the items on a line to dry outside probably does for the rest.

I wonder how many people spend hours going through the specifications to find the machine with the lowest power and water usage but then don't really analyse the true cost of washing?

Depending on water hardness, they could use half the detergent recommended by the manufacturers, they could save 50%+ of the costs by changing to a non-branded detergent, there is no need for an extra scoop of a stain remover, there is no need for a fabric softener or a lime scale remover tablet. How many people cook the stains in by washing at too hot a temperature.