Options
Is my washing machine using enough water ?
Virgil Tracy
Posts: 26,806 Forum Member
✭✭✭
I recently bought a Bosch machine , I noticed that it didn't seem to use much water , now I know that they're more and more 'eco-friendly' etc. But anyway I did a cycle without clothes to see how high the water was in the drum , and it wasn't very high at all , when at rest the water looked like it was about 2 inches above the bottom of the drum .
now as I understand it the water is in a tub right ? so I drained it and then poured and counted litres of water into it to get it to about the same height and it was about 7 - 9 litres I'd say (which is less than 2 gallons right ?) is that enough water ?
so - am I worrying about nothing ? or ... ?
now as I understand it the water is in a tub right ? so I drained it and then poured and counted litres of water into it to get it to about the same height and it was about 7 - 9 litres I'd say (which is less than 2 gallons right ?) is that enough water ?
so - am I worrying about nothing ? or ... ?
0
Comments
worrying about nothing
thanks .
in that link it gives amounts of water for each 1kg of laundry , so - does the machine know how much laundry is loaded into it ? I mean does it weigh it or something and adjust the amount of water accordingly ?
My Panasonic weighs the load then adjusts the water as appropriate.
You're worrying about nothing, 'modern' machines use hardly any water - if you want more for any reason (such as you're washing a load of towels, which absorb water) there's an 'Aqua+' button on a Bosch to give you more water.
Basically they use less water, and less electricity than older machines - so MUCH more Eco friendly. You can make it even more Eco friendly by using the Eco settings, but at the expense of MUCH longer wash times.
Didn't the delivery guys explain all this to you?, we always do.
One important point is that this means you should use far less detergent. I know people who use a whole cupfull, and there just isn't enough water to dissolve that much so you end up with lots of residue on clothes.
I use about a quarter of a cup, less for a smaller load, and my clothes come out perfectly.
The low water use is also why they are all cold fill only now. It is far more economical to use cold water than to take hot water from your tank. I've had lots of people argue about that but its true.
Partially correct
They take so little water now that they would only get cold water from the pipes, and certainly so if you have a Combi boiler as most do now.
So it's not a question of 'economical', simply that it would be completely pointless to take cold water from the hot pipe.
That makes it more economical to only have cold fill as you are still drawing hot water but it just doesn't reach the washing machine.
Companies sell all those additives because people are gullible enough to buy them. I never use any of them and my washing comes out perfectly clean.
And if you take your clothes out before the spin, with the rinse hold feature if your machine has one, you will see your clothes are very much soaked.
It depends how dirty your clothes are I guess, regularly have to soak to get milk powder and chocolate and coffee out of my husbands uniform, just washing it doesn't get the stains or the yogurt smell out of them. Also intimate sanitary products need more washing and soaking than my machine can give them. Big fan of biotex pre-soak here, it makes a huge difference to my washing.
I knew they used less water now but I was surprised at how little .
the aqua plus button doesn't seem to add much water , its mainly an extra rinse as far as I can tell .
.
As far as I know it adds extra water to the wash cycle, and also allows you to turn water 'off' for spin only, instead of rinse and spin.