The previous owner of my flat has incorrectly plumbed the cold-water (cw) inlet for a washing machine to the hot water (hw) pipe. This water is hot (about 20 to 30 degrees) and comes from the appartments shared boiler. I have no control over the temperature.
My washing machine only has a cold water feed.
Somebody told me that using hot water in a cold water only washing machine will damage my washing machine. Is this correct? And how will it damage it?
Do I need to get a hot-water pipe to prevent damage to that inlet pipe?
Or is it more likely that the hot water might damage delicate fabrics in the washing machine?
Not ever having owned a cold feed only washing machine I am not familiar with the connections on the back . Does it only have one connection on the back of the machine to take cold water or does it have two .?
I suppose if you are feeding the machine water at 20-30 degrees then it will heat the water to the programme temperature ( if it is above that temp...for example a 40 degree wash) but it still will not be able to infill cold water as it ,presumably,requires cold water at some stage of the wash .
What it does if the water is hotter than it requires then I do not know .I would expect it to stop working until it cools down .
Can you tell us how it operates in practice .
I'm not sure what you mean by a "hot water pipe".. Washing machine pipes are the same .hot or cold as far as I am aware ..the only difference being that one fitting is coloured RED for HOT and BLUE for COLD . It's not a new pipe you need .What you need is the machine to be plumbed in to the cold water supply and not,as at present,the hot water supply .
You say the previous owner did the work ...It seems odd that some one would make such a mistake . So who fitted your washing machine?..Or has it not been connected yet ?
Are you sure that your cold water supply does NOT have a fitting on it to feed a washing machine same as the hot water supply does ..
If you can't do this yourself then I would get a plumber in or someone who can do the fitting .
I have a Miele washing machine, cold feed only (for those not familiar with them, yes that does mean only one fill pipe on the back).
Miele say in their literature that in practice even machines with hot and cold fill, effectively cold fill as they don't know how long to draw on the hot supply until it runs hot (if ever) so they effectively cold fill. And in these days of lower temperature washes and water saving it becomes less likely that enough water would be drawn off the hot supply - or that it's even needed.
Are you sure about your hot supply being 20-30c ? That sounds a very poor hot supply, it would feel cool to the touch and far too cold to have a bath or shower in.
Yes some of them only take CW all the others rinse using CW.
My take on this subject is:
Originally most washing machines used to take both H&C. Usually they would take pure HW for the 60C and 95C washes and a mixture for the lower temp washes. The very best models (AEG etc) would sense the water temperature and try to use as much HW as possible.
Nowadays there is an increasing trend to CW only fill washing machines. I speculate the reasons for this are probably at least the following:
1) In much of Europe the water may well be heated by electricity so no saving or even increased losses result from using the DHW.
2) Manufacturers would generally like to make one universal model for the entire market.
3) In the UK more often than not the HW was low pressure and the CW at mains pressure. This makes the fill rates very different between H&C further reducing the benefit of hot fill at the cooler washes.
4) There is an overall trend to washing clothes at cooler temperatures.
5) The amount of HW drawn through as often as not was just about sufficient to draw off the cold water in the HW pipes.
6) The effect of 5 is aggravated by the increasing trend to lower water usage machines.
7) The increasing use of delay timers (often built in to the appliance) to make use of lower cost elec. at night.
8) The effective efficiency of a stored HW system using older technology closes the cost saving further.
The bottom line is that unless you do frequent 95C washes during the day with a good HW system. Then the savings are very limited or even none.
On Sat, 04 Nov 2006 10:20:41 +0000 someone who may be Ed Sirett wrote this:-
Only if the price of heating water in the machine and in the cylinder is the same.
One of the reasons why my washing machine fills from a gravity supply of cold water. More important is that it fills silently.
Depends on the layout of the hot water system. However, in a "traditional" setup with a cylinder in an airing cupboard upstairs this was sometimes the case.
Not always though. In one house in the family I look after with such a setup the feed for the washing machine comes down from the bathroom pipework above. Typically the amount of cold water drawn off before hot water comes through is the 2m or so in the drop from the bathroom to the machine.
Even if overnight electricity is available at a cheap rate that may still not be as cheap as gas heated water, provided that there is not a long run from the cylinder to washing machine.
I suppose you could have off peak water heating of a cylinder and washing during the day. Point taken.
_Your_ arrangement _is_ preferable. In practice, very typically, the washing machine is next to the sink in the kitchen where the supplies are often at different pressures.
Agreed. It's at least as bad with most combis. About the only way this would not be true is with the washing machine quite close to the HW cylinder as you outline below.
I have tried to show the reasons why I believe that cold only fill is not a huge drawback. Whilst any one point can be countered in specific circumstances the overall impact is that there is little or no saving to be had from dual fill washing machines for most people in most circumstances, _unless_ you have a good stored HW system with a short connection to the washing machine and do a lot of 60C or 95C washes.
On Mon, 06 Nov 2006 23:34:03 +0000 someone who may be Ed Sirett wrote this:-
This is easy to rectify, for someone who does DIY.
I think the real reason is the one you raised and I didn't comment on, manufacturer push (rather than customer pull). Hopefully those with solar water heating will increasingly ask why manufacturers are not coming up with hot and cold fill machines to make use of their solar heated water. Those with gas heated water could also ask the same question.
The same problems would occur namely that a modern washing machine would have in most cases just about drawn off the cold water in the HW supply pipe by the time it has finished filling.
It might be that there will a couple of models left with dual fill if the issue becomes important then those models will get a big boost in sales.
No, it's going the other way -- hot water feeds are being dropped. In addition to the point Ed makes about machines using low volumes of water, the initial fill temperature mustn't exceed about 30C, so there's a very tiny amount of hot needed. The machine must then gradually increase the temperature during the wash. Modern washing detergents won't work properly if the machine fills at the final wash temperature.
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