It sounds kind of sarcastic, yet that was actually the personal thought also. Really sounds like its comparable to the amount of work with modern machines anyways. Couple minutes of hand cranking, and otherwise, approximately the same. Owned a modern washing machine for years, and not sure if I've ever used almost any of the settings or features other than, "load clothing on default, push start".
Probably sell well in a lot of developed world markets for people who just want to limit their electricity use, live away from the grid, have less reliance on complicated electronics, or minimize money use in an expensive society.
You should use the bedding setting for large quilts and blankets, and the towels setting for towels, it really does work better. Experiment with the other settings so you can see the difference in wash time, water levels, spin speed and then you know which one to choose based on what you want for that load.
Oh and separate your laundry. Don't throw towels, blankets, and clothes in all at the same time.
Why separate laundry? I've tried it in the past, but don't do it anymore. Same result. The stains that can be cleaned get cleaned. The stains that would persist, persist. The only difference is the temperature setting.
As for separating colors - in my life I've had a piece of clothing stain other clothes 2 or 3 times. Once I put some white shirts and they came out pink because of another red shirt. Funny thing is, the pink was very uniform, so it looked as if the shirts were originally pink.
If my washing machine breaks, I'll get a second hand one. If I get a brand new washing machine, it will have to have a manual mode where I can set the desired program manually. For example, what is "towel setting"? If I can't see and modify the setting (e.g., A temperature for B minutes at C RPM, then D temp for E min for F RPM, etc.), I wouldn't use it.
Colors don't bleed much these days. Some might, e.g. on handmade clothing such as tyedye but most commercial colors don't.
If you wash items of different weights, fabrics, etc. together the load can get unbalanced more easily. Such as as single heavy towel or jacket in with a bunch of light synthetic items.
The "towels" setting uses warmer water and faster spin speed but an overall shorter cycle (at least on my washer) compared to the "normal" cycle. This probably presumes that towels usually are made of cotton and aren't very dirty.
I agree that a fully manual mode would be nice. My washer (LG) doesn't have that but by knowing what the various cycles and optional settings (e.g. soil level, extra rinse) do you can get pretty close to what you want.
> Colors don't bleed much these days. Some might, e.g. on handmade clothing such as tyedye but most commercial colors don't.
Sadly, with fast fashion, we've regressed to the point places like Shein/Fashion Nova sell pool attire vs swim suit that is not meant to get wet due to the dyes not holding when wet.
I wish the open source washing machine projects actually took off. From what I remember they were created mostly to help poorer nations, which is a good goal. I've had to hand wash in the past and it was awful. So slow, boring and annoying. And you either have to wring by hand, which ruined several underpants I had, or you have to let the clothes dry naturally, which I didn't try. The hand washing videos say to lay the clothes on a towel, but I didn't have a whole free room to lay down all the clothes, so I wrung them.
I was always confused doing laundry in the US. Warm cycle or cold cycle?
I have 30C, 40C and 60C depending on what I'm washing. I probably have more programs, but never use them.
For pillows and stuff I adjust spinning, from 1200 to 400 RPM.
And I use special short, low rpm handwash program for wool.
(Side loaded ofcourse, that way the dryer can be on top)
I'd love to, but doubt it would work. US washers meant for home use run on 120V and that's what the electrical outlet will be delivering. I would assume Euro are 220V or maybe higher? Also the 50/60Hz difference might matter.
Top loaders don’t have seals that can fail (and smell), and they also wrong clothes when they spin at the end. The clothes experience about 200g, the extra 1g isn’t a big difference.
It depends. My clothing doesn't (typically) need to tumble for long whereas towels might and bedding needs to go for much longer. In general it's probably better for fabric to be washed for less time if possible. It wears out.
Also if you pay close attention you'll notice that things don't come fully clean (old machines didn't either) just "clean enough". Throw some well used dog bedding in with your shirts and this fact might become more readily noticable. So it makes sense to wash like-use with like-use for that reason alone.
Less time != less wear. Some of the longest programs just let the laundry sit with occasional agitation, similar to how the machine in this article works, in the name of energy saving.
True. However, my fantastically modern machine from this marvelous version of the future we're living in doesn't offer any programs that soak for a noticable length of time. My bedding gets set to a cycle that constantly agitates the drum for the better part of 2 hours which my shirts definitely won't benefit from being subjected to.
Yeah, I didn’t even get into how poorly it seems to actually wash the clothes. Been thinking lately that it would be cool to get a washboard that fits nicely in its tub that I can use to scrub the clothes by hands and then remove for the rinse cycles.
A big difference is that this can't properly centrifuge your clothes, while a normal washing machine can. This also needs manually filling and emptying, while a normal washing machine handles all that, including multiple rinse cycles.
Check the user manual. The default program is usually not the most energy and water efficient one but rather the mandatory one for certifying the machine.
Same thing for dishwashers, the “eco” program is often not the best especially if you have an “auto” one.
As it's the one for certifying the machine, it usually is the most energy and water efficient one. For washing machines the downside is that it takes 3 hours (or longer, if the machine was built before the EU capped it to 3h), for dishwashers the downside is that it stops being efficient once you realize that you have to run it a second time to actually get clean dishes.
For my new Bosch Benchmark dishwasher, "normal" actually uses 2.4 gallons and 1.25 kwh a load, is most efficient, and is quietest. There is no "eco" mode. "Auto" mode uses about twice the gallons no matter what's inside and slightly more kwh.
Maybe it’s a European thing. The eco program is the one mandated by law and the one they use for the energy rating.
But for machines that have a table showing power and water use, it’s never the most efficient one (in all the ones I checked). There is always a better program, it’s usually called “auto”.
Maybe it’s different in North America, idk what the rules are there.
I've heard this before (and I don't have any reason to doubt your research) but I'm struggling to figure out why it would be the case.
Regulation 1016/2010 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2010/1016/oj/eng) is the thing that establishes the various requirements for home dishwashers. It's pretty straightforward (most of the content establishing how efficiency is calculated). It basically just requires the default program to be "suitable to clean normally soiled tableware and that it is the most efficient programme in terms of its combined energy and water consumption for that type of tableware".
I could imagine some issues with how these numbers are calculated that reward "less efficient" devices or something like that, but it's pretty hard to figure out what that could be. Bit of a mystery!
Seems like the companies think we're too dumb in North America. My machines didn't come with any sort of tables. Someone else was saying their washing machine has actual temperature settings and RPM settings. None of the ones I've seen here tell us that, not even in the manual.
I try to explain this to people, but they are so convinced by the 'eco' branding/rethoric that even when you demonstrate they still disbelieve, or more acuratly do not want to believe.
Yes, check the power and water usage table in the manual: all the ones I’ve checked (in Europe), the eco program is not eco when compared to others (especially auto if it’s there)
Eco is just the standard program they have to ship and must use for the energy efficiency rating.
My understanding is that the standard program doesn’t allow for the optimizations that other programs do. It’s something like “must wash at 60C for 2h and perform a rinse cycle for 30 minutes” or something to that effect, so that everyone runs the same program and can compare ratings.
Whereas with other programs they can adjust the settings and times to make it wash better AND use less water/energy.
Because everyone would cheat and include a program that sprays cold water for a few seconds, using minimal energy but not actually getting your dishes clean.
Probably sell well in a lot of developed world markets for people who just want to limit their electricity use, live away from the grid, have less reliance on complicated electronics, or minimize money use in an expensive society.