New Bosch washing machine | 3 hours and 50 minutes cotton cycle | WTF?

[ThisOldThang]

Our old Bosch washing machine gave up the ghost. The cotton cycle took around 90 minutes with extra rinse selected.

The new one has a 3 hour and 50 minute cycle.

How is that acceptable to anybody?

From what I've read it's all due to water efficiency. I live in Britain. We've got shit loads of water falling from the sky. This isn't an arid Greek island.

Am I unreasonable to think this is total bullshit and not what any family needs? Which morons allowed this to happen?

That's not the only cycle though, is it?

I have a Bosch washing machine. Yes the 60c cotton cycle takes that long - or longer if you choose eco. But there's also a 40c mixed wash which takes just over an hour (10 minutes more on eco), a 15/30 minute quick wash and loads of other options too. Plus a delay start button so you could set it before going to bed and it'd be finished when you get up in the morning.

It's not about saving water. It's about saving energy.

Mine is maybe 3 years old, but it doesn’t have a speed cycle or a mixed load.

I have a Bosch washing machine. It’s about 4 years old so probably not the same model as yours. Mine has a ‘mixed load’ that I use all the time. You can change the temp on it, still only takes about an hour. Does the job fine.Does yours have that programme?

I have an 18 minute quick wash.
Large loads 45 minutes.

Yeah I use the eco wash setting quite a lot it's cheap for electric and water. I use easy care for most things. My husband and sons clothes are generally very messy so I wouldn't get away with a quick wash on their things.

What's ridiculous is a 3 hour long washing cycle called eco-mode! Not much of an "eco" anything if you need to burn electricity for 3 hours, is it!

Yes my Bosch, at least five years old, has really long cycles but I use the mixed load at 60 minutes for everything except towels and bedding. Then I either use the eco wash if I'm not in a rush or Speed Perfect. I'd be surprised (and annoyed) if I bought a new machine and it only had a limited range of long cycles.

But you are misunderstanding.

It takes less energy to agitate slowly and let clothes steep in the water than it does to do it quickly.

It doesn’t get churned around for hours. The reason it takes longer is that it uses soaking much more - so you’ll hear it churning around for a short time and then it will be silent for a soaking period. Then another short churn, followed by another soak.

Its more gentle on clothes than the shorter cycles people are picking for this very reason.

I use the eco wash all the time. It's not often it takes the advertised 3h 50 as it works on the weight. I put one on this morning and it cut it down to 2 hours. I generally put it on on a timer to finish at 6.30 in the morning. It uses a lot less water and energy using the eco setting.

I feel like I’m becoming a broken record on here but there are a lot of not very logical conclusions in this thread.

Scientists across many different companies, who have spent their entire careers studying the best combination of water usage, power usage and impact on the cleanliness of your clothes have determined that the Eco wash cycle is the best option.

They will have run hundreds, if not thousands, of tests in all sorts of circumstances on different materials, stains, etc.

And yet…so many people think they know better from…what exactly?

If the Eco wash cycle doesn’t fit your life circumstances by all means use another cycle - but don’t then talk about climate change or whatever.

It’s literally one of the smallest ways to make a change - just run it overnight. You can still do 3 washes a day, surely no-one is doing more washing than that if you have an average sized family?

I have a Bosh with speedperfect. I think the cotton wash is supposed to be 2 hours long but I've never used that. Pressing the speedperfect button cuts it down to an hour. That's the longest cycle I use.

I have loads of different programmes on my washer, I use the daily quick which takes 28 mins and then stick back on another spin which takes 12

They are all cold fed now too which adds to the times

Use whatever cycle you like but just FYI if you rely on using ‘quick wash’ cycles:

It won’t get your clothes as clean, as the detergent doesn’t have the time it needs to fully break down oils, sweat and dirt. So it’s fine for lightly worn clothes but anything more than that won’t be properly clean, you might not see anything immediately but it will accumulate over time.

It defaults to lower temperatures as there’s less time to heat the water and so this is less effective on bacteria which can cause lingering odours.

It has less rinsing time so is more likely to leave detergent in the fabric which can leave them feeling stiff and/or irritate sensitive skin.

Because it relies on constant churning of the clothes with little soaking periods it’s much harder on your clothes and you’ll get less use out of them and see more bobbling, wear and tear.

It uses less time, but is using more electricity and water and so costs you more.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I have seen how the 3-hour cycle works on my washing machine. There is nothing slow about it. It just pauses occasionally and nobody will ever convince me that it is more efficient than another cycle I have that runs for just 57 minutes.

My Bosch washing machine has long cycles too, but there are some additional buttons that allow the standard cycles to be sped up - doesn’t your model have those?

One additional point I forgot, for the reasons noted above quick washes also don’t get environmental allergens out as well and so again - anyone with sensitive skin may find it gets irritated.

The shorter cycles I use are delicates and wool, so no that’s not true.

This is bonkers. That “stops occasionally” is it’s soaking period, when it’s using almost no energy whatsoever.

They will have run literally hundreds or thousands of tests to determine that it saves energy and water. That you think you can glance at your washing machine a few times during its 3 hour cycle and think this means you know more is delusional, surely you can see that?

I know it’s just a washing machine thread but bloody hell, the level of delusion and thinking “I know better” based on literally nothing is really indicative of what’s going wrong in our society right now.

Best for whom? Not for me, a working mother who wants to get through several loads of washing in a day, not overnight.

What they haven’t spent time analysing is what would be best for the working mothers buying their machines…

Why would you think some bloke working for a washing machine company knows better than all the people washing their clothes on a regular basis.

FYI Eco washes use 30-60% less energy than quick washes, which also means 30-60% cost saving and that doesn’t even account for the wear and tear on your clothes that quick washes have.

I have a beko of a similar age, but I’m finding lately that the rinse and spin isn’t really taking any water out, the clothes are still sopping wet when it’s finished?

usually do one of the wash cycles then rinse and spin before hanging it up, but it’s not working recently? Cleaned the filter and checked the hose and all that - it doesn’t feel bad enough to call someone in but it’s really annoying. When I look up videos, it’s not as bad as those look - there’s no water standing in the drum, but the clothes haven’t been spun imo!

Because I bloody well work in this area and FYI most of us aren’t “blokes” thanks.

Most of the people I work with are women who are also, shock horror, mothers and therefore, guess what, not only run hundreds and thousands of carefully studied tests but actually use washing machines on a regular basis at home too.