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me_irl
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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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me_irl
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Yes - well, that was just a normal washing machine that used cold water from the tap and heated it in the drum using electricity. That's basically what all washing machines on the market do, the hot water connector is a extra thing in the more expensive product lines. Directly heating cold water is more inefficient compared to my other hot water sources.
When I was a lot younger, pretty much every washing machine (here in the UK) had both hot and cold fill. It went away for three reasons.
It's more cost effective to heat a small amount of water directly at100% efficiency in the machine than drawing cold water out of the pipework and either heating it then rest of the way directly or pouring it down the drain until it ran hot from the 80% efficient gas appliance.
Interesting to hear it might be making a comeback. I can see the logic if there's a source of hot water from a heat pump, provided losses can be minimised.
Personally I have PV so (weather permitting) electric is preferable to gas other than for space heating and bathing. That could change though. As it is, the heat pump drier, efficient as it is, still accounts for the majority of the energy used for laundry, even with the washer doing an extra spin cycle.
Huh, and I always thought that was a new and shiny thing, never saw it on older (40 yrs+) washing machines when I helped cleaning out houses or something like that. Different countries, different appliances!
Yes, that would be inefficient, right. New houses here usually have a hot water ring system with hot water always circulating, so only a meter or so is actual cold water in the pipe, where the connector diverts from that ring. In winter the heat loss from the ring doesn't matter, you're heating the house either way and in summer it doesn't matter because PV and solar thermal bring in so much energy, you can't use it all anyhow anyway.
Same here, PV, battery, heat pump, solar thermal, dynamic pricing electricity and for emergency situations, wood burning water heater and two pumps that runs the whole heating system off the car or a generator using a few watts. When we built the house I opted out of a gas connection, so far that seems like the right direction.
I've found that some things require a good 75°C from time to time to not start smelling over time. Dog blankets, e.g. - but then again, from April to October hot water is practically free to me, so the temps don't really matter.
Nah quite the opposite, same experience as the other guy, looking at washing machines in Italy and Australia, they used to have hot and cold intake but moving to cold only and leaving it to the appliance to heat up a small amount of water.
My newish washing machine is a bosch, the model is prolly from 5 years ago though i bought it more recently, and it's got cold water intake only (unliken the ancient LG that was sold to someone who needed a cheap one)