Washing m/c and cold fill ... A++

[Gefreiter Krueger]

Ie. a blatant lie.

[charles]

but you are only heating the volume that you need and only to the required temperature.

[Gefreiter Krueger]

The gas heated water is only heated the amount your require, as long as you have a combi boiler, or have a well insulated tank. Even if it isn't, it warms the house.

As for "required temperature", the washing machine should mix the cold and hot to get the right temperature.

[charles]

what about the cooled water in the pipes between the boiler and the tank? I reckon these enough present in my house to fill the machine.

yes, but if you've heated "too hot" and have to add cold, then you've wasted energy.

[Gefreiter Krueger]

Are you one of those people who tries to save a penny here and there?

No. The hot water will be used for something else, it waits in the tank until it's used. And in winter any heat that escapes simply heats the house.

[bert]

But is gas more energy efficient?

[bert]

Lie - no. Misleading? - maybe.

[John Williamson]

Well, according to the guy that tested it in August, the last combi boiler I used was over 80% efficient, so even allowing for the losses, heating water with it isn't far off half the cost of using electricity in the machine.

The only problem with a lot of modern machines is that they use so little water that by the time the hot water from the combi heater or hot water tank has worked its way through the pipework, the machine's full, so the only water that gets into it is the cold standing water contained in the pipe.

[Gefreiter Krueger]

The whole point of the energy rating is to tell you how much it will cost to run.

[Gefreiter Krueger]

A decent has boiler is about 90%? Electricity is 100%.

[John Rumm]

That may or may not be true...

Even if the tanked water is "cheaper", it does depend on being able to get it to the machine effectively, and too much dead leg will prevent that.

If you want the WM to avoid dousing the dirty clothes with hot water (and thence setting all the protein stains), you would have to be prepared to pay extra for a machine with more elaborate water mixing and temperature sensing capabilities, and also be prepared to deal with the problems of ensuring there can be no backflow to the mains cold water from the non wholesome heated water etc.

All in all you can see why most makers have dropped the idea of hot feed from modern low water usage machines.

[Bob Eager]

And in any case, how much are we talking about? How many kWh does it take to heat the small amount of water in a WM? We are talking fractions of pence, probably.

Gerfreiter Krueger = stupid ...

[Gefreiter Krueger]

If you think that's stupid then why do you buy energy efficient machines?

[Adam Funk]

What constitutes "low usage"? I got a new fancy AEG washer-dryer last summer & was surprised to see in the manual that the washing programmes use 52 to 65 litres of water (I don't know how much of that is in the presumably cold rinses). How much did old, less efficient machines use?!?

[Adam Funk]

Economy 7 electricity is usually about half the daytime price.

It varies quite a bit with the wash temperature. I used a plug-through energy meter to record some data for mine, & got these averages:

cottons 30 = 0.67 kWh cottons 40 = 0.80 cottons 60 = 1.42

[Gefreiter Krueger]

I didn't know that still existed. I've got Eco 20/20 from EDF which is the best I've seen. It's a few pence cheaper in evenings and weekends. I assumed they'd got round the problem of uneven power requirements nowadays.

[bert]

Don't think so . It's to enable you to compare the energy efficiency with other machines and by implication the relative cost of running them.

[Gefreiter Krueger]

Which is incorrect if one is H/C fill.

[Adam Funk]

The energy companies don't seem to promote E7 much these days, but I think that the last time I checked all the main ones offered it.

[Gefreiter Krueger]

I probably thought it was a waste of money. Storage heaters are the most uncontrollable pieces of shit I've ever sen, and it's not worth it for other electric uses.