> Front-loading washers use 40-75% less water and 30-85% less energy than typical top-loaders.
It's not clear to me why front-loading washers are more efficient than top-loaders. Is there something inherent in the design? Or is it simply that top-loaders are "old"?
Front loading washers churn the washed material through a trough of water in the bottom 1/4 to 1/3 Top loaders churn them around in a bath of water. Designing a top loader to cycle water over churning clothes would probably demand more complexity and energy than tumbling in a horizontal drum.
Tl;Dr less water has to exist to pass clothes through it if it's a horizontal rotating cylinder of clothes. Plus the tumbling is mechanically beneficial to cleaning. Top loaders are being scraped and agitated, front loaders tumble.
OTOH top loaders can take larger loads. At a cost of more water.
I believe the spin cycle may also distribute better horizontally. Less likely to become a disc around the centre so more efficient centrifuging.
(Have had both btw. Currently a front loader from LG which plays a typically korean perky "I'm done here" tune at the end)
I presume they use less water because a front-loading washer can saturate all the clothes with a shallow pool of water in a sideways rotating drum whereas a top loader could not possibly soak all the clothes in a vertical drum unless it fills completely with water. I assume that less hot water means less water to heat, so less energy used. (Heating water uses much more energy than a motor, so the motor running longer in a front loader isn't a big factor in energy usage.)
But no matter how efficient they are, I hate front-loading washers. A top loader can wash a load in 20 minutes; front loaders takes hours. That means extra noise for many hours and inability to do multiple loads quickly. And usually front loaders have a much smaller capacity than top loaders. Furthermore, once a front loader starts, it locks the door to prevent water spillage, but this prevents you from throwing in extra items that you found or taking items out part way through. And front loaders cost more, are harder to repair, and end up smelling bad (probably because of the rubber gasket--needed to waterproof the door--that accumulates gunk).
What is the name of those "top loaders" that also have a horizontal drum with a locking escape hatch on the side? My mind went immediately to those when seeing the word.
That’s exactly and literally what top loaders are in Europe. The drum has a hatch and the machine tries to position it next to the outer hatch for unloading.
There is a section of the drum that opens and closes. You rotate the drum to align the opening of the outer shell on the top, also protected by a door.
> A top loader can wash a load in 20 minutes; front loaders takes hours.
This doesn't seem accurate. The regular permanent press cycle on my front loader completes in about 40 minutes. There's also a "quick wash" cycle that takes about 20 minutes.
The last top loader I used also took quite a bit more time than 20 minutes. This was a good 25 years ago, so maybe they were just slower then.
I agree, this doesn't match my experience at all. I recently replaced a top loader that took about 30-45 minutes a load with a front loader of similar capacity. The front loader does all loads in about 30 to 35 minutes.
European washing machines typically take 2 hours or more on a standard cycle. They take longer in order to meet energy and water-efficiency requirements.
But they do have 30-minute (or less) quick wash option too.
> Furthermore, once a front loader starts, it locks the door to prevent water spillage, but this prevents you from throwing in extra items that you found or taking items out part way through.
Even if you ignore the European top-loaders with a horizontal drum (which are basically just like US top-loaders except more efficient, smaller, and that don't destroy clothes with elastics) that's not been true for decades.
Front loaders only have a few periods where water goes above the level of the door opening, and at any other moment you can pause the washing and open the door.
They might cost more in the US, I guess, new front loaders in the EU are cheaper (200-300€ for the base models that work fine and don't have WiFi or whatever) than what I could find when I lived in Canada though (which were more around 500-600 CA$ iirc) but nothing is really comparable.
And... they don't smell bad?
Frankly the most important difference to me is this central axis in American top-loaders and which clothes wrap themselves and which always ends up destroying elastics. But I think it's necessary for mixing the clothes, sunbed unlike frint loaders gravity hinders mixing rather than helps it.
If you do not regularly clean the rubber gasket _and_ leave the door open to dry out the rubber completely, you end up with a smelly, slimy mixture of clothing lint-infused mildew.
> Frankly the most important difference to me is this central axis in American top-loaders and which clothes wrap themselves and which always ends up destroying elastics.
You can buy modern top loaders do not have an agitator that destroys clothes.
The smelly front loader thing seems to be intentional planned obsolescence. They all keep a reservoir of dirty water at the bottom of the washer below the pump, and that water keeps the inside of the machine moist and full of mildew. Ours has a little emergency / cleaning drain hose, but it's so short that it pours back into the machine unless you hold a container inside the door (it's a Samsung). I can easily imagine a little third-party gizmo that clamps on to that hose, detects when the machine is done running, and then opens a valve to drain the water into a bucket or a floor drain. It'd probably cost $50 and more than double the lifespan of the washing machine.
I wish the energy efficiency regulations would be updated to ban designs that leave standing dirty water inside appliances.
A front-loading machine can wash in 20 minutes, but you'll need to look outside European consumer appliances to find one. European efficiency goals mean the machine washes with the same water for longer. Without that requirement, you can use a lot more water and complete the wash faster.
To prevent mould growth around the gasket, leave the front door ajar after use.
Even in Europe, washing machines typically have a quick-wash setting that takes 30 mins or less. But the standard and economy wash modes take much longer because those are the ones that must be measured for the appliance's energy efficiency rating.
> A top loader can wash a load in 20 minutes; front loaders takes hours...
My front loader can complete a load in 15 minutes on its fastest setting, it can take hours, but only if you ask for it. There is no magic, the longer it takes, the better it cleans, no matter if it is a front or top loader. You choose the setting according to your needs. Also, with regular clothing, it makes very little noise except during the spin drying cycle. If it is behind a closed door, you can't hear it at all.
It is a rather recent model from Indesit, one of the most, if not the most popular budget brand in Europe. I paid 330€ for it, which is a typical entry-level price. Top loaders are almost non-existant here, so I can't say much about the price. The rest of the points are right.
Ours is similar. It also has a medium-speed cycle that runs in about an hour that does a better job than the fast cycle, but uses more water and electricity than the default (slower) cycles. That cycle is still probably more efficient than a top loader (though I rarely use it).
Some of your criticisms are valid (ie: can't add extra clothes after starting), but most of them are imagined or exaggerated (why would you want to take soapy part-washed clothes out after starting? Door seal can be wiped clean easily, etc).
The positives obviously outweigh the negatives for most buyers, considering front-loaders are almost universal now days in much of the world, even in non-EU countries which aren't bound by that market's energy-efficiency requirements.
> end up smelling bad (probably because of the rubber gasket--needed to waterproof the door--that accumulates gunk).
Do you never clean them or something? 2 tablespoons of bleach and run the auto-clean mode, wipe the gasket, and there zero issues. I do this like 4 times a year.
>Furthermore, once a front loader starts, it locks the door to prevent water spillage, but this prevents you from throwing in extra items that you found
Usually you have a few minutes before that happens, and there are designs (from Samsung I think) where you have a small door in the door to add more.
I like front loading washing machines because you can still put things on top of them, they waste less space.
How does that manifest itself? I'm asking because I'm pretty sure that no washing machine in my extended family (parents, siblings, etc.) has broken down because of this in the last 45 years. All but one have made it well over 12 years. Three had problems during their lifetime: One needed a new control board, two needed a new waste water pump.
(I know all this because I recently had to replace our 17-year-old washing machine and I wanted to know which brand to buy)
It should get noisy and rotate less freely then ultimately seize up. From there it depends on the drive type, in direct drives the motor burns, in belt drives the belt gets worn.
We have several times experienced having to change the electronic board. It cost more than buying a new washer. The electronics does many many options, almost none of which we care about. I would just like a button or dial, and just press go but there are no units like that on the market.
My father runs two front loaders for all inhabitants of one house with 10 flats. On the Miele front loader he had to change a bearing after 12 years, since then it runs perfectly fine. The other one is just running.
Keep in mind they are both running basically the whole day with only small breaks for years.
> "Front loaders also have more maintenance on average..."
Is this anecdotal or based on some real-world evidence/statistics? I can't recall having a single front-load washing machine break down in the past 20 years or so, or need any maintanance beyond cleaning out filters and replacing drain hoses. And I've used many in the various different households I've lived in. They all seem very reliable!
I wonder about real total savings. When I use a front-loader, I generally have to run the rinse cycle twice to get the detergent out. I also have to distribute the clothes into more and smaller loads.
I have through trial and error determined how much detergent is required to get clothes clean in a particular machine. A front-loader does require less detergent since it uses less water and has the clothes sit longer, but that does not resolve the problem of rinsing.
It is the rinse cycle, not the wash cycle, that needs to be run twice.
Indeed. Here in the EU we’re basically gaslit over this kind of eco stuff. To me, clothes just don’t come out as clean as they used to. I always use the extra rinse button on my front loader and a temperature of 60C to approach the kind of washes we had the 90s and 00s
I know people who never wash their jeans to reduce wear, and they seem to have no problem with it. (They do occasionally put their jeans in the freezer overnight to kill germs).
Hah do you work for the EU in the eco brigade department lol!?
Works well for people who don’t sweat and in colder climates I guess.
And isn’t the “don’t wash” just an indictment of the quality of the garment? I guess if people want to trade less clean clothes for “brand new dye” colour that’s up to them.
Yes clothes need to be clean. Bit of an odd question
Do you wash yourself with no soap and a cold single small cup of water once a week?
A cool rinse uses minimal water and very little energy, so feel free. The tradeoff of a top loader using 1x water in the wash and 1x water in the rinse vs a front loader using ~2/5th water in the wash 2 * ~2/5th water in the two rinses is still a significant net savings.
Assuming you have a setting for the rinse the biggest issue for me is remembering to keep the door open so it dries.
I see only front-loaders in Europe, and a mix favouring top-loaders in North America. Could it be that Europe (consumers or the EU) has encouraged efficiency more?
Yes, energy efficiency requirements are definitely the driver behind front-loaders becoming universal in Europe. But in recent years, they've also come to dominate the market in many other countries that aren't bound by those requirements.
Yeah agreed. Especially in humid climates. Like saying turn off all the lights and use a head torch. Like yes it will save energy. Also very uncomfortable and inconvenient.
The article details closed schools etc. Presumably many of the places closed also had ceiling fans and therefore deemed insufficient to counteract the health crisis
The wikipedia entry talks of widespread power outage. This seems to be common in these parts of the world during summer.
Can’t blame ceiling fans if you cannot turn them on.
Bookmarked this amazing collection of resources! Would love to see
more on e-waste minimisation too, as I was shocked to read how much
electricity (and potable water) goes into manufacturing and disposing
of devices.
Two things I never see mentioned as being 'green,' even though they incontrovertibly are:
* Use a good ad blocker, eg uBlock Origin. Consider enabling Medium or Hard Mode.[0] Ad & analytics servers use electricity too, so the fewer connections the greener!
* Watch videos at (gasp) lower resolution. Even with CDNs, mostly your internet electricity footprint is just a function of the total data transferred. I find videos are perfectly watchable at 360-380p resolution, and I'll only occasionally switch to HD if there's very small text.
Of course both tips help make the most of older hardware, which extends device longevity.
Avoid using energy-hungry appliances during peak hours.... ovens/stoves
We've gotten pretty good at shifting most of our use out of peak hours, but when peak runs from 4pm-9pm, it's hard to avoid cooking during that period (which, I suppose, is one reason that's the peak). Though we have shifted most of our oven cooking to a small convection toaster oven, which should save at least some electricity.
I couldn't make the math work on home battery storage. The difference between peak and non-peak is 37 cents, so if I shift 5KW of usage from peak to non-peak, that's $675/year in power savings, but the cost to install a whole house system that could shift my home's peak usage would be in the $10,000 range.
If my next EV can act as a battery for the house, that may shift the economics since I'd have a "free" 80KWh+ battery (and inverter? Not sure if the car acts as an inverter too), so would only be paying for the wiring.
As far as I know, my utility won't buy back power at peak rates, the best I could get is a credit to offset my power usage, which only makes sense if I have solar (which is not simple since I live in a condo without a lot of roof area even if I could get permission for solar)
Yeah, having a functional energy market definitely helps make these things make sense. We have half-hourly, bidirectional metering, and being able to save solar and sell it at a good rate means the payback period is looking like 7 years for us.
Our grid is also experimenting with paying people to borrow their batteries for predicted high usage events, up to £25 for one event.
I guess this means nothing if you can't access it but hopefully it's a model that spreads.
Yeah, there are a lot of more affordably priced solutions out there, but they still need a subpanel or similar cutover switch to be installed and that's where a lot of the electrician's cost is. Plus, the inexpensive ones like this $3300 Ecoflow are 120VAC (up to 3600W), so if you want to be able to power larger household loads like an oven or heat pump, you need to buy two (or more) of them (or a bigger unit), which doubles the price and gets you into the price ranger of other whole-house systems like a Powerwall or Enphase.
With the 120VAC unit, about all I could power in my house is lights, TV's, and maybe some small kitchen appliances, which limits how much power I could shift off of peak, maybe a KWh or two, which makes it harder to get any payback on the investment.
Unless the spread between peak/offpeak power prices becomes larger, I'm not sure that battery storage is going to be a worthwhile investment (for me). Or maybe if the utility bought back power at a reasonable rate during peak periods as the other poster's power company does...But the California PUC doesn't seem to be interested in incentivizing that model.
Given that where I live installing a heat pump water heater costs over 20 years' water heating electricity consumption for me, and it would still use some electricity, so the payback period would be even longer: no, thank you.
Every so often I do the calculation to see if replacing my fridge would be worth it. The payback period is about 15 to 18 years for that. A new fridge would have more even temperatures throughout the cabinet and better temperature control, and be quieter, so I still review it every now and then.
Obviously my internal discount rate for investments is over 6.7%.
Some of these seem a little out-of-date given technology improvements since 1998 - it looks like he updated the numbers & notes but not the conclusions.
Lighting is almost never a major household energy user since the development of modern LED lights. Their efficiency increased so dramatically in the incandescent -> flourescent -> compact flourescent -> LED transition that you can leave a whole household of lights going all day and it'll take less energy than one clothes dryer load.
Same goes for refrigeration - modern refrigerators and chest freezers are extremely well-insulated, and use negligible electricity amortized over a day. This also has implications for power outages - many folks don't realize that you can get one of those portable emergency battery backs and it'll power your fridge for days, so if you're prepared it's relatively easy to avoid having your food spoil in a power outage.
Washing machines, other mechanical appliances like dishwashers, and even heat pump water heaters are also not huge contributors - advances in electric motors have made them very efficient.
The biggest remaining culprits are HVAC, EVs, clothes dryers, electric ovens, and anything with a heating element. This is largely inherent in the thermodynamics - 1 kwh of electricity is only 3412 BTUs, so mimicking the 15,000 - 25,000 BTUs of a gas range is around 5 kwh. Heat pumps can help a little for large-volume heating, but current technology has a max efficiency of about 400%, and a theoretical thermodynamic max for reasonably safe evaporator & condenser temperatures is about 700-800%. The secret to higher efficiency with electric heating is to heat less volume, which is the principal behind induction cooktops (heat just the pan instead of the whole stove), electric kettles (heat just the water instead of the whole stove), and toaster ovens (heat 1-2 cf instead of 5-6cf).
If you can, replacing a clothes dryer with a drying rack can yield very big dividends. A single full-size dryer load is about 5 kwh; a clothesline is free. In our family-with-young-children-and-gas-heat before getting an EV, the clothes dryer was about 40-50% of our household energy usage all by itself.
> In our family-with-young-children-and-gas-heat before getting an EV, the clothes dryer was about 40-50% of our household energy usage all by itself.
A decade ago when I still had young babies and were cloth diapering, we hung dried as much as possible so I definitely concur. However unless you live in phoenix az, it's not a year round solution, and you end up using the Dryer a lot no matter what.
The biggest culprit IMO is that humans aren't building housing based around the ecological area because it's "too expensive" for property developers to do the architectural and environmental planning necessary for 100+ year multi-generation, multi-family homes.
We generally raze an area, and then build what is basically an ecologically dead zone for up to 5 people with imported non-native grasses (lawn) and plants that aren't built for the ecology of the area to last a maximum of 30-50 years [1][2]
Said another way, everything you write is correct, but it's basically moot because human society building and growing in such a way that it is mathematically impossible to be ecologically sustainable.
Doesn't solve the problem though, just tries to reduce the impact of a social structure that requires dry textiles of a certain kind and certain frequency of use.
The actual goal should be to eliminate the structure that requires: "drying of wet clothes in period of time"
So how would you eliminate the need for the entire wasteful laundry process altogether?
I actually discovered the product becuase I thought I had to invent it.
The way I see it is that there are certain number of mechanical process that keeps our standard of living high. I'm trying to shrink the energy footprint while maintaining or improving our high standard to living. I have an 8 apartment building that was formed by renovating an old school.
Everything is pretty energy efficient and we have a 40 kW solar array. The overall goal I have is to continue to reduce the energy footprint while maintaining I hight standard of living.
Ultrasonic is probably the most efficient way to eliminate our current laundry dogma. I don't know of any existing ultrasonic closets for clothes cleaning. I do know of ultrasonic water cleaners that are used to reduce detergents.
I would say that line of thought can be quite dangerous. I come to that conclusion because the human story seems completely devoted to that question.
As an Industrial Designer with plenty of latitude of how to focus my time this is my approach.
Our currently industrialized world has created opportunity for people above a certain earning threshold to make their own inflation. This can create many paradoxes but I will focus on one particular idea.
There are people at high income levels in cities that live in tiny little apartments and and will pay above average prices for appliances. If these people purchase appliances with extreme efficiency and high costs they are not affected. Overtime the idea is that the high-end of the market is choosing the ultra products and the low-end is tagging along.
Since both the high and the low market both are living in tiny apartments they share the same experience but at different price points.
What I'm personally doing is using an 8 unit apartment building as a development lab for future appliances with this goal in mind.
The past appliances have all come about with a new service for the "kitchen", fire, running water, refrigeration, and ...
The process of renovating the building had me scale back the initial services. I have built out the apartments so that running new services to each unit is expected. I have a list of services such as compressed air I expect to make available to kitchen.
What I believe is that we have to bring the energy envelope of the high-end to match the low-end.
I have added my email to my about if anyone wants to speak further.
I'm not clear about how it works, and specifically about what energy it uses: Is it a dehumidifier and a fan? Is there any heat (I see they offer a heat-pump versinon)? Can I run it on fan-only mode (eg, like my clothing out in the breeze)?
I believe it can run fan only. I think it depends on the humidity level inside the room.
They make heat-pump and condensing dryers both are installed without a vent. I installed 7 condensing dryers in the other apartments.
I think the tech specs show that the condensing dryer uses less energy. I also didn't want the heat-pump dryer adding a load to the apartments heat-pump heating system. The fear may have been unwarranted.
> unless you live in phoenix az, it's not a year round solution
I hang clothes in 90+ F temperature and high humidity. Generally everything dries in a day, at most, no problem. After some experimentation:
* Don't overlap clothes. (Maybe that's obvious.)
* A slight air current is needed. I don't even mean a fan; merely opening the window on a calm day will create enough. I don't know why - maybe you just need enough to convect away the slowly forming water vapor and associated cool air. Obviously, the clothes must be exposed to the current.
And while I'm at it, how to hang the clothes IME:
* Fold each item over a bar [0]. The bar can be the crossbar of a standard hanger, a drying rack, a railing, etc.
* You don't need to spread them out horizontally; the two sides hanging vertically and touching each other as in the image [0] dries just as fast (I wouldn't have guessed it, don't know why).
* Don't hang the item by the shoulders; with the water weight, many items will stretch where the shoulder is on the hanger.
Everything dries in a day in any weather, almost always.
There are some things that make sense and others that will not.
Changing light bulbs to all LED is simple and economical.
Buying a new car that gets better gas mileage and/or moving to an EV or EVH doesn't actually make sense unless you intend to use that car over a period of time that actually amortizes it. That's why it is generally not a great idea to lease a vehicle.
But this is contrary to popular belief because there is no catch-all for everyone.
I have a 30 mile commute. If I maintain my vehicle and add in fuel costs, it is cheaper to maintain an older vehicle and fuel it than it is to try and amortize the cost of a new vehicle over it's span.
That is, in my humble opinion. If I apply the same techniques here, you have to make decisions about how you live your life in the domicle you've chosen.
You'd think it... common sense not to leave the lights on, radio (or BT speaker, whatever 2024), fridge doors open, preheating your stove or oven unintentionally or without focus (preheating and being distracted, wasteful).
Ultimately technology won't save us. Hopefully common sense will. Hopefully. But we know how hopeful things go.
As somebody who has just received an £450 ($600 USD) quarterly electric bill this article was relevant. Unfortunately I'm doing everything already it suggests and I'm still using 4000kWh yearly.
LEDs - flicker, CRI, incompatible dimmers and/or dc converters. $50USD min price per bulb if you want anything near quality (of just a $1 incandescent bulb). the problem is the price of power, not the product.
"modern" dishwashers - after 1995 or so they don't actually clean your dishes. i used 20. i clean the filter / chopper regularly. i rinse off my dishes which are already barely soiled to begin with since i don't eat fast food. no matter how you place the dishes, there will always be a few with food stuck on them. fucking disgusting.
ac - it exists for a reason, you are more productive as an obvious corollary to being less lethargic. although it is true that lots of people are oblivious and don't just open the window on a nice day. you also need it to prevent moisture build up (to avoid rotting wood, mold) and stagnant air. while we're at it we have to talk about heating: i don't know the numbers but i'd say in winter you need it at 16C-17C at all times to avoid mold / condensation / rotting wood.
front loading laundry - i used 5. they mold in the front after 1 use. you have to leave the door open all the time, not even for just half an hour. and you need a fan in front of it. they construe the fact that it uses "almost no water" as "it's using super advanced methods". given the general incompetence of the tech industry, one with common sense takes this as "it doesn't clean your laundry". the gasket on the front of each and every single one has a unique and overpowering smell if you go anywhere near it that feels like breathing in knockout gas, and it doesn't go away even years after purchase. to put it into perspective, it's like 10x stronger than what comes out of annoying kids' vapes.
clothes line - your clothes will have germs (the dryer is the part that kills them, not the washer) and mold on days when it's not hot and arid.
you require a cell phone to do basic banking stuff and security theater that has to be replaced every 4 years at the bare minimum due to bitrot. and requires being smart for covid or school shit. it still takes 30 sec to load a web page that uses 100% cpu. you're not allowed to talk about being efficient, stop making me pay more for what little tech actually works.
> And if you really want to lessen your carbon footprint, you'll also want to look into eating less meat and driving less.
that's great, i do both of those things more than you, from the looks of your profile picture. now stop charging me (you are responsible as a voter) for the modern versions of basic human needs.
> Almost no manufacturer whose products are sold in the U.S. bothers to publish energy and water use per load specs in their user manuals or on their websites. They also don't tell you the temperature they use for Hot and Warm settings.
That has been a problem for me too, and I've even contacted the manufacturer. How much energy do I save using cycle A over cycle B? It would be nice to make an informed choice.
Edit: It applies to clothes washers, clothes dryers, and to dishwashers.
For dryers: I don't grasp how the cycles differ in energy consumption. Evaporating away that mass of water will require a certain amount of energy. I see (non-physics-informed) people who advocate running dryers on a cooler cycle, but does that help? Doesn't it use the same amount of heat energy but spread out over a longer time, which would increase the drum-spinning energy required? I could imagine that somehow the cooler cycle is more efficient due to convection rate or something similar, but is it?
The traditional approach to quantifying these things is to buy a Kill-a-watt[1]. Manufacturers don't know about the electricity supply situation (brownouts/sag, line condition, etc.) in your area so the best they could do is ideal numbers. Yours might be 20% worse.
Welcome to the rabbit hole of home energy use monitoring!
92 comments
[ 6.8 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] threadIt's not clear to me why front-loading washers are more efficient than top-loaders. Is there something inherent in the design? Or is it simply that top-loaders are "old"?
Tl;Dr less water has to exist to pass clothes through it if it's a horizontal rotating cylinder of clothes. Plus the tumbling is mechanically beneficial to cleaning. Top loaders are being scraped and agitated, front loaders tumble.
OTOH top loaders can take larger loads. At a cost of more water.
I believe the spin cycle may also distribute better horizontally. Less likely to become a disc around the centre so more efficient centrifuging.
(Have had both btw. Currently a front loader from LG which plays a typically korean perky "I'm done here" tune at the end)
But no matter how efficient they are, I hate front-loading washers. A top loader can wash a load in 20 minutes; front loaders takes hours. That means extra noise for many hours and inability to do multiple loads quickly. And usually front loaders have a much smaller capacity than top loaders. Furthermore, once a front loader starts, it locks the door to prevent water spillage, but this prevents you from throwing in extra items that you found or taking items out part way through. And front loaders cost more, are harder to repair, and end up smelling bad (probably because of the rubber gasket--needed to waterproof the door--that accumulates gunk).
https://ibb.co/QcMwqnm
This doesn't seem accurate. The regular permanent press cycle on my front loader completes in about 40 minutes. There's also a "quick wash" cycle that takes about 20 minutes.
The last top loader I used also took quite a bit more time than 20 minutes. This was a good 25 years ago, so maybe they were just slower then.
But they do have 30-minute (or less) quick wash option too.
Even if you ignore the European top-loaders with a horizontal drum (which are basically just like US top-loaders except more efficient, smaller, and that don't destroy clothes with elastics) that's not been true for decades.
Front loaders only have a few periods where water goes above the level of the door opening, and at any other moment you can pause the washing and open the door.
They might cost more in the US, I guess, new front loaders in the EU are cheaper (200-300€ for the base models that work fine and don't have WiFi or whatever) than what I could find when I lived in Canada though (which were more around 500-600 CA$ iirc) but nothing is really comparable.
And... they don't smell bad?
Frankly the most important difference to me is this central axis in American top-loaders and which clothes wrap themselves and which always ends up destroying elastics. But I think it's necessary for mixing the clothes, sunbed unlike frint loaders gravity hinders mixing rather than helps it.
If you do not regularly clean the rubber gasket _and_ leave the door open to dry out the rubber completely, you end up with a smelly, slimy mixture of clothing lint-infused mildew.
> Frankly the most important difference to me is this central axis in American top-loaders and which clothes wrap themselves and which always ends up destroying elastics.
You can buy modern top loaders do not have an agitator that destroys clothes.
https://www.bhg.com/impeller-vs-agitator-washing-machine-748...
I wish the energy efficiency regulations would be updated to ban designs that leave standing dirty water inside appliances.
To prevent mould growth around the gasket, leave the front door ajar after use.
My front loader can complete a load in 15 minutes on its fastest setting, it can take hours, but only if you ask for it. There is no magic, the longer it takes, the better it cleans, no matter if it is a front or top loader. You choose the setting according to your needs. Also, with regular clothing, it makes very little noise except during the spin drying cycle. If it is behind a closed door, you can't hear it at all.
It is a rather recent model from Indesit, one of the most, if not the most popular budget brand in Europe. I paid 330€ for it, which is a typical entry-level price. Top loaders are almost non-existant here, so I can't say much about the price. The rest of the points are right.
The positives obviously outweigh the negatives for most buyers, considering front-loaders are almost universal now days in much of the world, even in non-EU countries which aren't bound by that market's energy-efficiency requirements.
Do you never clean them or something? 2 tablespoons of bleach and run the auto-clean mode, wipe the gasket, and there zero issues. I do this like 4 times a year.
On capacity, do you need much more than 9 kilos?
The "Quick Cycle" for my front loader is 35 minutes. The regular cycle is 45.
I'm not sure how much an impact that actually has these days.
Usually you have a few minutes before that happens, and there are designs (from Samsung I think) where you have a small door in the door to add more.
I like front loading washing machines because you can still put things on top of them, they waste less space.
(I know all this because I recently had to replace our 17-year-old washing machine and I wanted to know which brand to buy)
Keep in mind they are both running basically the whole day with only small breaks for years.
Is this anecdotal or based on some real-world evidence/statistics? I can't recall having a single front-load washing machine break down in the past 20 years or so, or need any maintanance beyond cleaning out filters and replacing drain hoses. And I've used many in the various different households I've lived in. They all seem very reliable!
It is the rinse cycle, not the wash cycle, that needs to be run twice.
Front loaders get mold too, fun fact, mold eats soap. So vinegar helps here too.
Downside? Clothes wear and fade faster.
I know people who never wash their jeans to reduce wear, and they seem to have no problem with it. (They do occasionally put their jeans in the freezer overnight to kill germs).
Works well for people who don’t sweat and in colder climates I guess.
And isn’t the “don’t wash” just an indictment of the quality of the garment? I guess if people want to trade less clean clothes for “brand new dye” colour that’s up to them.
Yes clothes need to be clean. Bit of an odd question
Do you wash yourself with no soap and a cold single small cup of water once a week?
A cool rinse uses minimal water and very little energy, so feel free. The tradeoff of a top loader using 1x water in the wash and 1x water in the rinse vs a front loader using ~2/5th water in the wash 2 * ~2/5th water in the two rinses is still a significant net savings.
Assuming you have a setting for the rinse the biggest issue for me is remembering to keep the door open so it dries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Asia_heat_wave
~200 deaths and ~450 hospitalizations is "works"?
Source: other people, so not very reliable
Edit: the click-through link actually mentions 3-8 degrees
Just use both! A ceiling fan will certainly reduce your dependence on A/C, if it doesn't eliminate it.
* Use a good ad blocker, eg uBlock Origin. Consider enabling Medium or Hard Mode.[0] Ad & analytics servers use electricity too, so the fewer connections the greener!
* Watch videos at (gasp) lower resolution. Even with CDNs, mostly your internet electricity footprint is just a function of the total data transferred. I find videos are perfectly watchable at 360-380p resolution, and I'll only occasionally switch to HD if there's very small text.
Of course both tips help make the most of older hardware, which extends device longevity.
[0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode
We've gotten pretty good at shifting most of our use out of peak hours, but when peak runs from 4pm-9pm, it's hard to avoid cooking during that period (which, I suppose, is one reason that's the peak). Though we have shifted most of our oven cooking to a small convection toaster oven, which should save at least some electricity.
If my next EV can act as a battery for the house, that may shift the economics since I'd have a "free" 80KWh+ battery (and inverter? Not sure if the car acts as an inverter too), so would only be paying for the wiring.
As far as I know, my utility won't buy back power at peak rates, the best I could get is a credit to offset my power usage, which only makes sense if I have solar (which is not simple since I live in a condo without a lot of roof area even if I could get permission for solar)
Our grid is also experimenting with paying people to borrow their batteries for predicted high usage events, up to £25 for one event.
I guess this means nothing if you can't access it but hopefully it's a model that spreads.
https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-pro-transfer-switch
With the 120VAC unit, about all I could power in my house is lights, TV's, and maybe some small kitchen appliances, which limits how much power I could shift off of peak, maybe a KWh or two, which makes it harder to get any payback on the investment.
Unless the spread between peak/offpeak power prices becomes larger, I'm not sure that battery storage is going to be a worthwhile investment (for me). Or maybe if the utility bought back power at a reasonable rate during peak periods as the other poster's power company does...But the California PUC doesn't seem to be interested in incentivizing that model.
Add home battery to store electrical energy when cheap (potentially from your own solar panel) and use when expensive.
Then let your country / state lower the electricity carbon intensity.
We must electrify
We can do both - switch everything to electric, and simultaneously adopt habits that limit waste of these.
Obviously, don't save electricity by using carbon intensive energy sources, that'd be counterproductive.
I agree with the rest of your comment.
Given that where I live installing a heat pump water heater costs over 20 years' water heating electricity consumption for me, and it would still use some electricity, so the payback period would be even longer: no, thank you.
Every so often I do the calculation to see if replacing my fridge would be worth it. The payback period is about 15 to 18 years for that. A new fridge would have more even temperatures throughout the cabinet and better temperature control, and be quieter, so I still review it every now and then.
Obviously my internal discount rate for investments is over 6.7%.
Lighting is almost never a major household energy user since the development of modern LED lights. Their efficiency increased so dramatically in the incandescent -> flourescent -> compact flourescent -> LED transition that you can leave a whole household of lights going all day and it'll take less energy than one clothes dryer load.
Same goes for refrigeration - modern refrigerators and chest freezers are extremely well-insulated, and use negligible electricity amortized over a day. This also has implications for power outages - many folks don't realize that you can get one of those portable emergency battery backs and it'll power your fridge for days, so if you're prepared it's relatively easy to avoid having your food spoil in a power outage.
Washing machines, other mechanical appliances like dishwashers, and even heat pump water heaters are also not huge contributors - advances in electric motors have made them very efficient.
The biggest remaining culprits are HVAC, EVs, clothes dryers, electric ovens, and anything with a heating element. This is largely inherent in the thermodynamics - 1 kwh of electricity is only 3412 BTUs, so mimicking the 15,000 - 25,000 BTUs of a gas range is around 5 kwh. Heat pumps can help a little for large-volume heating, but current technology has a max efficiency of about 400%, and a theoretical thermodynamic max for reasonably safe evaporator & condenser temperatures is about 700-800%. The secret to higher efficiency with electric heating is to heat less volume, which is the principal behind induction cooktops (heat just the pan instead of the whole stove), electric kettles (heat just the water instead of the whole stove), and toaster ovens (heat 1-2 cf instead of 5-6cf).
If you can, replacing a clothes dryer with a drying rack can yield very big dividends. A single full-size dryer load is about 5 kwh; a clothesline is free. In our family-with-young-children-and-gas-heat before getting an EV, the clothes dryer was about 40-50% of our household energy usage all by itself.
A decade ago when I still had young babies and were cloth diapering, we hung dried as much as possible so I definitely concur. However unless you live in phoenix az, it's not a year round solution, and you end up using the Dryer a lot no matter what.
The biggest culprit IMO is that humans aren't building housing based around the ecological area because it's "too expensive" for property developers to do the architectural and environmental planning necessary for 100+ year multi-generation, multi-family homes.
We generally raze an area, and then build what is basically an ecologically dead zone for up to 5 people with imported non-native grasses (lawn) and plants that aren't built for the ecology of the area to last a maximum of 30-50 years [1][2]
Said another way, everything you write is correct, but it's basically moot because human society building and growing in such a way that it is mathematically impossible to be ecologically sustainable.
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...
[2]https://mosbybuildingarts.com/from-boom-to-break-down-the-pr...
https://us.asko.com/laundry/drying-cabinets
It gets delivered on the 25th and I’m really excited.
Doesn't solve the problem though, just tries to reduce the impact of a social structure that requires dry textiles of a certain kind and certain frequency of use.
The actual goal should be to eliminate the structure that requires: "drying of wet clothes in period of time"
So how would you eliminate the need for the entire wasteful laundry process altogether?
Everything is pretty energy efficient and we have a 40 kW solar array. The overall goal I have is to continue to reduce the energy footprint while maintaining I hight standard of living.
Ultrasonic is probably the most efficient way to eliminate our current laundry dogma. I don't know of any existing ultrasonic closets for clothes cleaning. I do know of ultrasonic water cleaners that are used to reduce detergents.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20230001711/downloads/IC...
> The way I see it is that there are certain number of mechanical process that keeps our standard of living high
This is where I think I’m focused. Specifically “keeps our standard of living high”
Can you think of a process to evaluate standard of living in a way that we would agree on how to measure standard of living?
As an Industrial Designer with plenty of latitude of how to focus my time this is my approach.
Our currently industrialized world has created opportunity for people above a certain earning threshold to make their own inflation. This can create many paradoxes but I will focus on one particular idea.
There are people at high income levels in cities that live in tiny little apartments and and will pay above average prices for appliances. If these people purchase appliances with extreme efficiency and high costs they are not affected. Overtime the idea is that the high-end of the market is choosing the ultra products and the low-end is tagging along.
Since both the high and the low market both are living in tiny apartments they share the same experience but at different price points.
What I'm personally doing is using an 8 unit apartment building as a development lab for future appliances with this goal in mind.
The past appliances have all come about with a new service for the "kitchen", fire, running water, refrigeration, and ...
The process of renovating the building had me scale back the initial services. I have built out the apartments so that running new services to each unit is expected. I have a list of services such as compressed air I expect to make available to kitchen.
What I believe is that we have to bring the energy envelope of the high-end to match the low-end.
I have added my email to my about if anyone wants to speak further.
https://cottagecraftworks.com/kitchen-food-prep/non-electric...
Thanks. I've never seen that.
I'm not clear about how it works, and specifically about what energy it uses: Is it a dehumidifier and a fan? Is there any heat (I see they offer a heat-pump versinon)? Can I run it on fan-only mode (eg, like my clothing out in the breeze)?
They make heat-pump and condensing dryers both are installed without a vent. I installed 7 condensing dryers in the other apartments.
I think the tech specs show that the condensing dryer uses less energy. I also didn't want the heat-pump dryer adding a load to the apartments heat-pump heating system. The fear may have been unwarranted.
I'm happy with the condensing dryers.
I hang clothes in 90+ F temperature and high humidity. Generally everything dries in a day, at most, no problem. After some experimentation:
* Don't overlap clothes. (Maybe that's obvious.)
* A slight air current is needed. I don't even mean a fan; merely opening the window on a calm day will create enough. I don't know why - maybe you just need enough to convect away the slowly forming water vapor and associated cool air. Obviously, the clothes must be exposed to the current.
And while I'm at it, how to hang the clothes IME:
* Fold each item over a bar [0]. The bar can be the crossbar of a standard hanger, a drying rack, a railing, etc.
* You don't need to spread them out horizontally; the two sides hanging vertically and touching each other as in the image [0] dries just as fast (I wouldn't have guessed it, don't know why).
* Don't hang the item by the shoulders; with the water weight, many items will stretch where the shoulder is on the hanger.
Everything dries in a day in any weather, almost always.
[0] https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
Changing light bulbs to all LED is simple and economical.
Buying a new car that gets better gas mileage and/or moving to an EV or EVH doesn't actually make sense unless you intend to use that car over a period of time that actually amortizes it. That's why it is generally not a great idea to lease a vehicle.
But this is contrary to popular belief because there is no catch-all for everyone.
I have a 30 mile commute. If I maintain my vehicle and add in fuel costs, it is cheaper to maintain an older vehicle and fuel it than it is to try and amortize the cost of a new vehicle over it's span.
That is, in my humble opinion. If I apply the same techniques here, you have to make decisions about how you live your life in the domicle you've chosen.
You'd think it... common sense not to leave the lights on, radio (or BT speaker, whatever 2024), fridge doors open, preheating your stove or oven unintentionally or without focus (preheating and being distracted, wasteful).
Ultimately technology won't save us. Hopefully common sense will. Hopefully. But we know how hopeful things go.
LEDs - flicker, CRI, incompatible dimmers and/or dc converters. $50USD min price per bulb if you want anything near quality (of just a $1 incandescent bulb). the problem is the price of power, not the product.
"modern" dishwashers - after 1995 or so they don't actually clean your dishes. i used 20. i clean the filter / chopper regularly. i rinse off my dishes which are already barely soiled to begin with since i don't eat fast food. no matter how you place the dishes, there will always be a few with food stuck on them. fucking disgusting.
ac - it exists for a reason, you are more productive as an obvious corollary to being less lethargic. although it is true that lots of people are oblivious and don't just open the window on a nice day. you also need it to prevent moisture build up (to avoid rotting wood, mold) and stagnant air. while we're at it we have to talk about heating: i don't know the numbers but i'd say in winter you need it at 16C-17C at all times to avoid mold / condensation / rotting wood.
front loading laundry - i used 5. they mold in the front after 1 use. you have to leave the door open all the time, not even for just half an hour. and you need a fan in front of it. they construe the fact that it uses "almost no water" as "it's using super advanced methods". given the general incompetence of the tech industry, one with common sense takes this as "it doesn't clean your laundry". the gasket on the front of each and every single one has a unique and overpowering smell if you go anywhere near it that feels like breathing in knockout gas, and it doesn't go away even years after purchase. to put it into perspective, it's like 10x stronger than what comes out of annoying kids' vapes.
clothes line - your clothes will have germs (the dryer is the part that kills them, not the washer) and mold on days when it's not hot and arid.
you require a cell phone to do basic banking stuff and security theater that has to be replaced every 4 years at the bare minimum due to bitrot. and requires being smart for covid or school shit. it still takes 30 sec to load a web page that uses 100% cpu. you're not allowed to talk about being efficient, stop making me pay more for what little tech actually works.
> And if you really want to lessen your carbon footprint, you'll also want to look into eating less meat and driving less.
that's great, i do both of those things more than you, from the looks of your profile picture. now stop charging me (you are responsible as a voter) for the modern versions of basic human needs.
That has been a problem for me too, and I've even contacted the manufacturer. How much energy do I save using cycle A over cycle B? It would be nice to make an informed choice.
Edit: It applies to clothes washers, clothes dryers, and to dishwashers.
For dryers: I don't grasp how the cycles differ in energy consumption. Evaporating away that mass of water will require a certain amount of energy. I see (non-physics-informed) people who advocate running dryers on a cooler cycle, but does that help? Doesn't it use the same amount of heat energy but spread out over a longer time, which would increase the drum-spinning energy required? I could imagine that somehow the cooler cycle is more efficient due to convection rate or something similar, but is it?
Welcome to the rabbit hole of home energy use monitoring!
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt