How long would you leave wet laundry in the machine?

[WillSingForCake]

I've recently moved into a new house which has an Economy 10 electric meter, which means that electricity is a lot cheaper if we use it between 1pm-4pm, or 8pm-10pm (and also there's a few hours in the middle of the night when it's also cheap).

I don't like to run the washing machine between 7pm-7am because it's really noisy and wakes my baby DD. But if I set the timer so it's on in the period between 1pm-4pm it means the wet washing will be left in the machine for at least a couple of hours as I don't get in until early evening.

So basically, what I'm asking is how long would you leave wet washing in the machine for? Does it get a bit manky if left in?

I don't think it gets manky as much as it gets crumpled - does your machine have a setting where it doesn't do the final spin? That way it sits in the water, then gets sloshed around and spun when you go back to it, so it's not damp and in a pile at the bottom of the machine IYSWIM?

If you use a fabric softner it stops it from going smelly over night. A few hours with out it though should be fine

i would set it on a timer so it comes on around 6am, so the final spins dont start until after 7am.. then out straight away. i know our machine only properly spins for the last 10mins

I leave mine in about a week and have to rehash it

Plus I doubt it would wake your DD once she was used to it. It's just background noise.

If you are lucky enough to have an unheated, bitterly cold futility room (like me) it can stay for a couple of days without going mouldy. It is better to leave the machine on spin delay so it is in cold water and fabsoft with no air.

If you are going to drape the wet washing around the house to dry, it will be more prone to mould growth.

I'd leave it with the hours you said but tumble dry it and use fab conditioner.

A few hours should be fine, if I leave mine overnight and it smells, I just puy some more fabric conditioner in and run the rinse cycle. never more than five times though

p.s.
Most of the electricity is used in heating the water. Running the motor to churn and spin uses far less. So the initial fill and wash will benefit most from the cheap rate.

If you have half-price economy electricity, a tumble drier might do a load of polycottons for about 15p worth of electricity. You do need to have good smoke alarms if running unattended at night in case they overheat, though I have never seen it happen, it can.

Legs,

Without wishing to be unkind, your washer may benefit from a service wash, and clean filter and drawer, as it may have resident sludge.

I agree with MushroomSoup - most babies quite like 'white noise', however, if you thnk it will disturb you / neighbours, then there's no problem leaving it a couple of hours.
I regularly put a wash on before 7am when I go out to work, and might not then be back until 4 or 5pm. I'd have thought that pretty normal for people at work.

Thanks all, some great advice here. A special thanks to Pigletjohn for the information that the initial heating of the water costs more than the spinning. I always thought it was the other way round, and have often not turned the machine on towards the end of the cheap period (or 'happy hour' as it's known in out house!) because the spinning at the end would fall into the expensive time.

by chance, I was looking at the instructions for my own machine last night (it is an older one with hot and cold fill) and it says, for electricity use:

40C cottons and linens, 6kg load, 51 litres water
cold fill 0.5kWh
hot and cold fill 0.2kWh
(because the hot water taken in needs less heating)

60C cottons and linens, 6kg load
cold fill 1.15kWh
hot and cold fill 0.4kWh

30C woolens or delicates
0.3kWh (because it is not heated much. It only takes in cold water in case the hot is already above 30C)

All the usages of water and electricity are much lower with a 2kg load, because my machine senses that it only needs 32 litres of water, so there is less to heat.

I currently pay just under 12p per kWh for electricity. I would hope your off-peak rate is considerably cheaper.

Modern machines tend to be cold-fill only because they use so little water that by the time the boiler, if a combi, has started up and filled the pipes, the machine has taken in most of its water.

Thanks Pigletjohn, that's inspired me to dig out my manual to see if it's got electricity usage info.