Washing at 40 or cold is not a good idea

[Stangerthings]

There is an advert for washing clothes in cold water. I think this is wrong. I washed a load of towels at 40 degrees and had to wash them again as they smelled dirty so how is a cold wash going to remove bacteria?

A friend grew up with a traditional 1950s Yorkshire mother who threw bleach at everything (including him if he didn’t shift fast enough). The fact that he didn’t die of some ghastly disease does not prove that this strategy is effective or necessary.

Op hasn’t been back I see, typical of these sorts of posts

if your washing stinks at 40 and you removed it from the machine straight away, there’s something wrong with your machine and/or detergent. Even a cold wash with detergent will wash.

Don't be silly. We don't wash our hands at 60c and there is no need to wash regular laundry at such high temperatures either. Warm water and detergent are perfectly sufficient to clean clothes. And unless you're in a hospital or care home, you don't need to laundry to be sanitised, merely clean. The world isn't sanitised and neither do our knickers need to be!

I do an occasional hot wash to clean the machine or if kids or pets have an upset stomach but other than that 40c for everything else.

I'm immunosupressed, but not in a care home or hospital. There are quite a few of us around.

Ah this explains a lot. I switched to theory recently and those capsules do not melt. Had wierd blobs in clothes

One more trick...

Don't load the washing machine full, aim to half. If you cram it with clothes/towels etc, it can't fully clean them and will still smell uncleaned.

I do most of my stuff on a 30 degree ‘eco’ wash. It takes about 2.5 hours but uses much less energy and water because the clothes go through several stages of soaking. The clothes come out damp rather than wet so they dry much quicker. They’ve always smelled and looked absolutely fine.

...looks down at all the dog slobber and mud on my jeans....

Germs, you say?

Grew up in NZ. Now live in Australia.

Wash everything on cold. Not 20 or 30 degrees, but cold. Everyone does. Linen on 30 degrees. Or bump up if a stomach bug in the house.

I’ve just had to redo a wash as the towels didn’t smell clean but as it they’d been used a few times and hung up on the back of the bathroom door. It was a 30°C wash.

Not sure if it’s the detergent, washing machine or what.

Oh yes, I'm quite aware of that but that's a completely different context to a hospital or care home where bedding is shared between multiple potentially infectious patients and immunosuppressed patients. Your own household laundry doesn't carry anywhere near the same cross contamination risks.

And if your immune system is so severely compromised that you've been specifically advised to hot wash or sanitise everything inside your own home then it will no longer come under the bracket of 'regular laundry' which is what I was referring to.

I am still not sure you are going to catch any nasty lurgy from your knickers.

Most of the “science” on here is about about the same level as “put a scarf on or you’ll catch your death of a cold”.

I would only wash at 60 for things with vomit etc (like today as DS was sick all over his bed last night). Clothing I wash at 30 and towels/bedding at 40. I put laundry cleanser in when I wash the kitchen cleaning cloths (also at 40).

so how is a cold wash going to remove bacteria?

its not, but then neither is a hot wash. You need to boil the washing for bacteria to be removed completly in the washing machine.

hanging out on the line the sun will remove much more bacteria than the washing process

not all bacteria is bad, you have literally trillions inside you

It's actually good for pieces of laundry to rub against other pieces. It's called agitation and cleans things more than just sloshing around in lots of water. Just like how we would rub and scrub our hands to clean them instead of just dunking them in soapy water. You definitely don't want the machine stuffed full but ideally about 3/4 full when dry means about 2/3 full when wet and plenty of room to move but also to agitate against other laundry.

I wash everything at 20C and use white vinegar and soda crystals in my wash as I live in a hard water area. My washing smells lovely and my washing machine never needs a clean. I live on my own though so only do one wash a week usually which no doubt helps

I wash most things at 40 and it smells fine unless I use colour washing tablets or liquid and then for some reason it all smells of a horrible damp smell. I’ve stopped using colour detergent because of it.

I use the quickwash cycle too

But who the fuck has mould on their towels?

school dc who forgot their swimming kit was wet at school for an entire term - the towel would come back mouldy

I never said towels. I just meant anything that might have anything nasty on it that you don’t necessarily want to bin.

Agreed. Specially when washing machines these days use very little water. If you cram it full, the clothes have little room to move and won't be properly cleaned. It's better to put two loads than one packed to the rafters. The energy and water consumption will be minimal but there'll be a difference in clean and smell.

I had to look it up, but I wash everything on cold , which appears to be between 15-26 Celsius.

I’ve never had that issue

That’s all I would do. I didn’t say anything different.

A couple of weeks ago I washed a load. I washed at 40 and I forgot to add detergent. The clothes came out clean, they had a neutral smell. I wore those clothes anyway without any issues. So washing at a lower temperature with detergent should be fine.