The efficiency of home appliances

[john70t]

Clothes Drier.
Mine runs at about 60-80rpm. Thump thump thump. And around it goes beating the stuffing out of expensive duds. All that heavy clothing also takes a lot of electricity to pulverize. No wonder the bearings on these things don't last.

It would make a lot more sense to have more air and far less spinning, like mother nature.
Maybe only 5 rpm, or spin up every two minutes or so.
If a heated routine is required, this could be done in cycles as well or tapered off at the end of cycles.

Washers (clothing and dishes)
There are three phases to cleaning: large particle removal, clean cycle, final clean rinse and/or dry.
Everyone knows that applying heat, liquid, and surfactant and then just letting it soak is far more efficient.

I leave dirty cloths in the wash machine, with a small amount of detergent, and an hour later the water is pitch black.
Then I add more detergent and run it through.

Machine in the USA these days just plow through the routine at the same speed.
Bam bam bam. Back and forth the agitator moves at 120hz churning the water and clothing into froth.
Maybe the better machines have these soak cycles, but I haven't seen them yet.
The washing machines in Japan move a 1/4 turn every 5 seconds instead.

With the droughts these days, I'm thinking the washers of the future will use water misting with ionizers or sonic vibrators instead to shake the dirt loose.

What say yea?

[DanielDudley]

I have a top load washing machine from New Zealand. It pumps the water up from the bottom, and recirculates it over the top like a waterfall. Less water usage, more cleaning. Senses the load and determines the amount of water needed per individual load.

It also spins at 1000 RPMs when wringing out the water. My old pathetic drier now dries my clothes in less than half the time it used to.

[Scott R]

Don't really care I suppose, utilities are cheap, appliances are cheap. I just toss them when they no longer work, and never worry about what their actually doing to get the job done, just that it gets the job done.

[pavulon]

Ever since I bought a front loading washer, my clothes take forever to wear out. I'm a big fan of the "soak" option too. I have 4 kids and the washer and dryer are 13 years old. I've repaired both of them a couple of times (washer drum chassis replaced under warranty and the water pump killed a bearing once, dryer heat element also once) but I'm impressed that they keep going!!

[wdfifteen]

Get a front loading washer.
I don't know about a drier. It seems the best way to get air flow through a lot of clothes in a compact space is the tumble drier. I don't know of an alternative that doesn't take up a lot more space.

[ckelly78z]

If I have a stain or extra dirty clothes, I take some liquid detergent and spread it on the spot before hand and use the normal cycle with the "pod" detergent packets. I have experimented with hanging clothes out on a laundry line in the sun and breeze, but everything comes inside stiff and not soft or comfortable, but it does smell nice. I think the drying process requires heat and a bit of movement to make the clothes soft.

[Rinty]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Get a front loading washer.

+1. One of the better buys we have made.

And ours has a hand wash setting that I can use for my motorcycle suit.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by john70t

Clothes Drier.
Mine runs at about 60-80rpm. Thump thump thump. And around it goes beating the stuffing out of expensive duds. All that heavy clothing also takes a lot of electricity to pulverize. No wonder the bearings on these things don't last.

It would make a lot more sense to have more air and far less spinning, like mother nature.
Maybe only 5 rpm, or spin up every two minutes or so.
If a heated routine is required, this could be done in cycles as well or tapered off at the end of cycles.

Washers (clothing and dishes)
There are three phases to cleaning: large particle removal, clean cycle, final clean rinse and/or dry.
Everyone knows that applying heat, liquid, and surfactant and then just letting it soak is far more efficient.

I leave dirty cloths in the wash machine, with a small amount of detergent, and an hour later the water is pitch black.
Then I add more detergent and run it through.

Machine in the USA these days just plow through the routine at the same speed.
Bam bam bam. Back and forth the agitator moves at 120hz churning the water and clothing into froth.
Maybe the better machines have these soak cycles, but I haven't seen them yet.
The washing machines in Japan move a 1/4 turn every 5 seconds instead.

With the droughts these days, I'm thinking the washers of the future will use water misting with ionizers or sonic vibrators instead to shake the dirt loose.

What say yea?

My opinions tend to differ from yours on what would work better.

And there wouldn't be no drought, if the BHL's would stop dumping all our water into the ocean.

[T77911S]

dont get me started

we had one of those old clothes washers for 20yrs. my wife had a kids resale shop so EVERYTHING that came into her store went thru that washer. with the use it had it was about 100yrs old when we got rid of it.
so dumb A$$ me wants to get her something "nicer". so we looked at the cheap ones like we use to have but opted for a little nicer one. that thing SUCKS!!

we had to get a new dishwasher. this thing runs for about 4hrs it seems like. how in the world it is energy efficient i will never understand.

we were talking to this lady at a store that USE to sell applpiances so i figured i could get an honest answer out of her about whats good since they no longer sold them. well i did.
dishwashers, BOSCH use to make a really great one. thing was it took money to make a good one and no one would pay the price for one and now i dont think they make one.
she also told me there was this one brand that offered the sales people a big bonus for selling this certain model/brand even though it was not very good.

[beepbeep]

All our appliances are Bosch. Hot water is made by our geothermal pump (COP > 4) so I bought a dishwasher that can be configured for hot water service. That way water is never heated by electricity when washing dishes, only water pump runs which draws less than 100W.

When it comes to washing machine and tumble-drier: Typical washing machine uses ~1.2kWh per run. Typical electrically heated tumble-drier will use around 4kWh per run. Thus, there is no point optimizing washing machine as drier is the real power hog.

So we bought a heat-pump equipped tumble-drier that uses one third of ordinary one.

[1990C4S]

If you are worried about the efficiency of a clothes dryer, why not use a clothesline?

[aigel]

Not sure where you have been the last 15 years but there is huge progress made in appliances if you are willing to expand your search past $300 for a new unit. Front loading washing machines finally caught up to European models and do a fine job, i.e. with long soak cycles, low water usage and high speed spins (leaving the clothes much drier, to where the dryer has much less work to do.

And on the dryer, there has to be better ones these days as well, but no expert there. As mentioned above, I don't know, because my clothes are exclusively line dried. In the summer it dries very quick here in CA and in the winter I like to hang inside to up the humidity! I was amazed how much my dryer cost when it broke 10+ years ago. Living in a dry climate now, never replaced it.

G