Seventeen Loads of Washing... I'm not am I?

[RedRainRocks]

AIBU in the slightest? Seventeen (spelt out so you're sure it's not a typo). 17 loads of washing this week I have done and put away. (As well as working 72+ hours) I accept I am a little bit OCD about the sheets and towels being on a hot wash alone and that only white things go in the white wash but I do not understand how this household can make so much damn washing!?!!! These are all full loads.

AIBU to ask how many loads you do on an average week, if towels and bedding are done at least once a week and if 22 flannels are an average weeks usage in your household?? I probably am but please ...tell me they are not going to put "now we have no clean clothes to wear" on my gravestone?

There has to be an easier way than this... Surely?

I do about that. 2 or 3 loads a day generally. 2 adults, 2 or 3 teenagers. And 2 dogs because it's been so muddy they had one of two towel loads a week.

Just go to the bloody laundrette. The joy of everything being finished in 2 hours by the lovely ladies while I'm doing the weekly shop across the road or taking the DC to whatever activity is immense.
I do one white (10 kg) and one dark (8kg) load every week. Sometimes an additional red/pink/brown. It's all folded for me and back in the drawers (sometimes back on the bed!) within 24 hrs.
Cost for 4 people? €10 per load (£7.50). Money well spent IMO.

I love these threads...that post I just wrote has to be the most boring piece of text imaginable. I mean, who gives a shit about my washing regime?

You have to take into account that teenage boys go through a phase where they simply can't re wear a t shirt after one wear. Even after about an hour. And you have to wash the school blazer at least every week. The phase doesn't last for ever but I couldn't bear my son to be a smelly kid.

22 flannels, what's that all about? I buy 1 flannel every couple of years, hardly ever use it, then throw it out when it smell mouldy. I thought everyone did that.

I do 2 loads a week, occasionally 3.

5 of us in total, 3 DC aged between 4 and 15, 9kg washer.
Most weeks it's 4 or 5 loads, occasionally 6. No more than that though and nobody smells

I don't think many people are actually " dirty". The days of heavy industry are more or less on their way out.
Can't you hang towels out or over the bannister?

As a result they need to wash/shower more, so the towels don't last as long.

When clean people come out of the shower/bath, they are as clean as the towel itself...the towel does not immediately need a wash after each use.

And I never suggested they did. However, it's not always reasonable to be leaving a towel for over a week when it's been having daily usage....

There are 5 of us (3dc and 2 adults) and I probably average a couple of loads a day, so that's 14 a week, easily, possibly more.

I am a long way from being must-have-everything-clean-on-a-daily-basis type : okay, we have clean underwear daily, but clean pyjamas and towels only once weekly, (towels sometimes every 2 weeks), clean bedding every 2 weeks (sometimes 3), if I can stretch outer outfits / school uniforms to last 2/3 days then I will (unless they are seriously skanky). Almost never wash flannels but probably stick the kitchen towel and teatowel in with a general wash twice a week.

And yet I can easily do 2/3 loads a day. One bedding change for all of us is 3/4 loads in itself (1 double bed, two singles and one cotbed) - you can hardly put 4 duvet covers, 4 sheets and 7 pillowcases in one wash! And I could never fit all our towels (3 x normal bath towels for the DC, 2 x bath sheets for DH and I, 3 x hand wash towels) into one wash either - I generally have to split them across 3/4 washes as you can't put that many towels into one wash even with a large capacity machine.

So even being moderately skanky about washing I could probably equal the OP for wash loads per week.

About 10 loads a week here, a disproportionate amount of it DD's (blw a baby who won't wear a bib...)

I am so over-invested in this thread, I have just checked what I washed in my towels load today: 1 huge bath sheet, 1 reg bath towel, 4 hand towels, 3 kitchen towels, 2 tea towels, 4 flannels and 2 micro fibre cleaning cloths. I think our washing machine is larger than average capacity, but not huge.

Two single beds worth of bedding will easily go in our machine. Dh and I have a superking bed so our bedding is more or less a full load.

I never wash less than a full load though (unless woollens) so perhaps that's why I don't stretch it out to 17 per week? .

Washing clothes so much is really bad for the clothes. And doing so much laundry is bad for the planet and a huge waste of water.

I average a load a day: I change towels probably weekly. Haven't used flannels since I left home in the early 1990s (what do people use them for? I was with my hands in the shower, and shower every day - as do my husband and kids - so we don't need to use them for inbetween shower washes. I can't think how you'd get through 22 in a week!). Bedding changed every couple of weeks. My husbands running gear really ramps up the amount of laundry - you really can't re-use sweaty run kit or leave it sitting in the basket for days.

My kids (7 and 4) can easily get 2 days out of a set of clothes. I don't think they're particularly unusual - small kids don't sweat, they're past the stage of chucking thier meals down their fronts, an daughter's school are briliant with making sure they put on their long-sleeved overalls before they do art, craft etc, so no paint spatters.

The idea that clothes smell bad if they're not washed after every wear is laughable. Do people seriously wash their jeans every day?

I wash jeans every time they're worn. They get creased and I don't like creased clothes.

Pingu - I wash my face with a flannel. It's very effective at helping exfoliate and much cheaper than scrubs etc.

I agree that most clothes are washed too much though. I don't launder things unless they smell, or unless they are stained/dirty. Hanging outside in the fresh air and then a quick blast of steam from the iron helps freshen things up.

I double cleanse and use 2 flannels a day.

I have finally got spotty teen to start properly cleaning his face - so he's using 2 a day too!

We use our towels daily, often twice a day if we both run/cycle and they get washed every couple of weeks. We're clean when we get out of the shower, and therefore the towel just can't be that dirty. The children have theirs for at least a couple of weeks before they're washed - usually when I can't remember when I last washed them!

Washing towels, sheets and clothes so frequently is totally unnecessary. I am genuinely horrified that people think it's an acceptable use of the worlds resources to do 10+ loads of washing a week which they also put through a tumble dryer.

About the same OP 6 people here and 2-3 washes everyday. The dryer is going to bankrupt us. We do a tonne of sport though.

Wow Savage. I really hate freshly dried jeans because they're so hard to do up! Ideally get several days out of mine.

Tbf I don't wear them to work so only evenings and weekends.

Thats a mental amount of laundry.

We are two adults and two kids and we do one load a day, plus one load of bed linen a week (dcs one week mine the following). Plus one towel wash a week. 9.

Pre dc, 4-5 per week, usually all at the weekend. 1xbedding, 1xlights, 1xdark and one towels. Post dc, at least one per day

I just wash for me and do one load a week. That does all my clothes, two towels, two flannels, tea towels and cleaning cloths, pillow cases, and either the duvet cover or the fitted sheet (alternate weekly). I don't iron anything.

3 adults
3 loads of bedding, towels, bath mats etc per week
4 loads of clothes on average
3 bedrooms which get a weekly linen change
I do have a large load washing machine and I don't do all the washing we all muck in, so each person changes own bed and if doing any washing asks for items to make full loads up from others

If we left towels for a couple of weeks, they would be minging, they really would.