Does washing at 30 degrees clean the clothes?

[krisskross]

Just wondering really. I normally wash colours and darks at 40 and whites at 60.

If I change all except whites to 30 will it make any difference?

boring thread if the day winner

I wash everything at 30. The clothes come out clean. Bacteria don't like to be dry, if your knickers are dry in the drawer very little will be living on them, believe me.

People only wash towels once a week?
Ew.

Yes - and they don't smell prior to going in the wash. Why waste water, electricity and detergent?

Thenlater,

I don't know about you, but my towels are used to absorb water from clean people. They are then thoroughly dried, before absorbing more water from clean people the next time they are used.

I wash them all once a week - except obviously for swimming towels, which absorb dirty chloriny water from not so clean people and thus need washing immediately!

That's what happens in our house too teacher and I never wash an odd random towel with other stuff: they all go together in a hot cottons wash.

I wash everything on thirty degrees and hang it on the line outside if possible. Once or month or so I put towels, etc, through a hotter wash. Our clothes look and smell clean.

It's nothing to do with the bacteria on dry clothes, it's cross contamination in the washing machine that's the issue. Say you wash a pair of underwear or a tea towels on 30, the bacteria present on the dirty washing will multiply rapidly in the machine. This then stays in the washer and gets worse with each 30 cycle. This then spreads all over every load of washing you put in the machine, onto your hands when loading and unloading the machine and then God knows where else.

where in the machine does this bacteria lurk? As a thin film inside the drum somewhere, is that the idea?

the drum sits in a big watertank full of heating elements and pipes and lots of hard to reach nooks.
that's where the sludge sits and grows.

similar to the grouting in the shower: gets wet a lot but unless you air and clean you will get mould.

I wash towels and bedding at 60 which is hotter than hand wash.

I wash everything else, black, coloureds and whites, delicates, wool etc together (yes, touching) at 30 degrees (this is a cold wash) as my wash cycle takes 50 minutes with lots of friction.

Everything comes out clean, and in perfect condition, no dye leaks, no funny shape changes, and I use less leccy.

I leave the door open and wash the filter regularly. I also use a vinegar hot wash when I remember so no sludge or smells.

I live abroad so only cold wash. It's fine, I'm totally used to it. You can buy special sachets of bleach that you run through the washing machine once a month or so to clean it out.

God, but I love a MN washing thread.

30 degrees washes won't cause an issue with hygiene inside the washer as long as you do hot washes as well. So for example, a load of coloureds on 30 is fine, but make sure your next wash is a hot wash (60+). That will keep the washer clean.

Lots of countries have cold water washing only but these also have special detergents specifically for cold water. We don't have those here.

I find that the boys' greasy, foody handprints don't wash out of their clothes at 30. Everything of theirs gets washed at 40, sometimes 50.

there might be a difference between the coldness of cold water in the UK, and the coldness of cold water in some other countries.

PigletJohn, that's very true.
When we visited Australia a few years back, the friends we stayed with did a lot cold water washing with a specialist cold water detergent, but the cold water was warm - more like 25 or 30 degrees

I repeat: not all bacteria are harmful, in fact only a small percentage are. Leaving the door and drawer open between washes helps to dry the innards of the machine out therefore depriving all those not-dead-at-30 bacteria of their perfect breeding conditions.

Your washing machine must dry out extraordinarily quickly, wow.

And I don't think anyone is worry about bacteria on their clothes being harmful but people are right to want their clothes to not smell awful.

there are smelly washer/smelly clothes threads on here all the time...

But washing at 30 doesn't make your clothes smell awful. As far as I can tell from this thread the only possible issue is that bacteria might build up, but unless there's someone in your household with health problems that might be affected by that, I don't get that there's any problem. Bacteria aren't bad for you.

Oh dear, I can't for the life of me see that millions of evil bacteria are stealthily lurking in the depths of any washing machine waiting to infest the next load of washing

Were that the case then the entire population would be dropping like flies, suffering from the Dreaded Lurgi or worse......

How many of you have gone down with unmentionable or otherwise bacterial or viral infections after wearing clothes you've washed in your (or anyone else's, or a launderette) washing machine?

Never in my life so far!!

Smelly clothes are due to not washing often enough, not using enough powder etc or stuffing too much into the machine at a time.

I am not sure, but surely all these forrin machines that use cold water only DO actually heat up the water as well?? ...my machine is cold fill only, but has a full range of washing temperature options.

Tondeleya, all modern machines are cold fill only and then they heat up. But these forrin ones I'm talking about don't heat the water up apparently, they wash in cold water! Honestly, I've been on threads on here with people in Aus and Japan who swear blind that all laundry is done in cold water.

ouryve - fgs, I posted that it helps. Why else would that be the standard advice between washes?

My machine doesn't smell, our clothes, bed linen and towels don't smell and no one in our household, or any visitors for that matter, has dropped dead from a bacterial infection caused by laundering stuff at 30 degrees.

What really pisses me off about these kinds of threads are those posters who insinuate you must be a dirty cow with smelly clothes unless you boil wash everything daily with bleach.

amazed at all this worry about bacteria
I do all normal washing at 30 with a non bio liquid
towels and sheets I wash at 40
tea towels and dishcloths and kitchen towels, a short wash at 40 but separate from everything else.
we are all perfectly healthy and non smelly
the only issue we have is that if clothes dry very slowly (eg indoors when it's summer and heating not on)- then they may start to smell but that is normal I think
I do leave the machine door open though