For how long and at what temp do you wash your clothes?

[keekss]

My washing machines standard setting is 30 for about 28 minutes.

Is this long enough to actually get the clothes clean? Should I be upping the temp/putting it on for longer?

usually the 3 hour eco cycle.

Do clothes actually need to be washed for so long though? 2/3 hours seems excessive

Dunno but that’s how long my 60option takes.

40° for 1 hour 13 mins

40c for 3hr20. Often run overnight ready to hang out in the morning. Its amazing the stains that come out in a proper long wash :)

Varies sometimes 60c, 1 hr wash, mixed wash 1 hr, 40c, 1 hr, sometimes 20 min quick wash.

Newer machines have massively long cycles, I thought there was something wrong with the one we had in a rental place as it took 3-4 hours for a cycle, I wondered how it can be eco if it's spinning all that time? A friend explained to me that it's not actually spinning the whole time, the long washes incorporate long periods of soaking which enables the water and agitation and detergent to be more sparing because they have more time to actually work. I am kind of glad she said this as I would have been really annoyed when I got my own new machine just to find out it had really long cycles too.

So I choose based on how long I have available. If I have the whole day free and I don't need to do loads of washing, I do it at 40 on the eco cycle which takes 3 hours 45 minutes. If I need to cut that down, I press time saver and it goes to 1 hour 45. If I am really in a rush I use the normal cotton cycle at 40 degrees and I can choose with the time saver button whether it takes 1, 2 or 3 hours so I choose the 1 hour cycle.

Everything seems to come out washed just the same whichever of these three options I pick.

My 60° cotton is 1 hour 38 minutes, my 40° is 1 hour 51 minutes and my 60° synthetic is 1 hour 32 minutes, all on the quick wash setting. These are my 3 main programmes.

I like to get a lot of wear out of my clothes (for example, I wear everything except underwear and socks at least twice; I often wear the same pair of jeans or bra daily for 7 or 8 days in a row; and I used to feel cross when DS didn't get 2 wears out of an outfit, even as a toddler) and wear them until they are visibly dirty, so in my case, I don't think 30° or very short washes get my clothes clean enough. For people who change their clothes daily, I'm sure a short wash on a low temperature is fine.

Oh and I sometimes fill the washing machine so much that I literally couldn't get another pair of socks in, so no way could that work with a short wash setting!

look into manual of your machine.
most short cycles only take half ir a third load,
us they use loads of water and electricity compared to using a full load on the eco cycle.
as a pp days, moving the drum doesn't take much energy but heating water does.
plus we are on a water meter.

@CremeEggThief

Oh and I sometimes fill the washing machine so much that I literally couldn't get another pair of socks in, so no way could that work with a short wash setting!

That's not how you should do it, you should only be filling about 2/3 full so the clothes can move around get properly washed

It’s worth noting to the Bosch lady, I always use speed perfect on my dishwasher, just as good results.prob the same for your washing machine

20 minutes on a 40c.
Bedding and sheets are just over an hour on a 60c

There was a long and very informative thread about this previously - about Bosch machines I think.

It was revealed (and surprised most) that the quick washes are very expensive and inefficient. The machine has to heat the water faster and this costs a lot more than the long annoying slow washes of over 2 hrs. Those slow washes heat the water gradually and the washing sits in the water a lot and the water itself does a lot of the cleaning rather than son much furious moving around.

Shorter washes also use very little water so often don't get the clothes clean unless you add in extra rinse and spins. They are also only suitable for half or quarter loads and when people overload they really don't clean well.

Eco wash which makes the length of time cheaper still and lowers temperature is cheaper and more energy efficient.

So, the best way is to put the washing on time delay the night before on a long, slow wash. But you have to be pretty organised to do that.

If think it very much depends on how dirty your clothes are, I have uniform , in food.
Mainly quick 60c washes and every now and then long 60 c washes.
Everything else comes clean enough at quick, 40c or 60 c washes

It's not too bad actually, if you have a time delay function on your machine, you can stick it in whenever you have time during the day, then set it to begin about 4-5 hours before you wake up. That way first thing in the morning it's done but hasn't been sitting around for hours, so as long as you hang it up fairly quickly it's OK.

It only works if you need to do washing once or twice a day max, but it works OK. I don't mind leaving my machine to do its thing for a few hours.

I didn't know heating the water was more expensive than spinning it, though. All of our hot water is electric, it makes me want to rip out our old probably energy inefficient boiler and replace it with a newer one. We are renting, though :(

Tumble dry is the biggest killer in terms of energy use...which I think most people know.

So having a machine which does a decent spin means the clothes are drier when they come out. Of course line drying is best if possible, but if you have to tumble, at least putting things in for as short a time as poss because they are almost dry through spinning (cheaper than tumbling) is the way to go.

I think the real difficulty peoole have is that they want their washing done an hour after they think of it. They aren't in the mindset of planning a bit ahead. They often want it quickly so they can get it on the line for a full day of drying or very possibly that they have further loads to do and get through - if you have to do 4 loads in a day, a 3 hour cycle might not be great, although Insuppose if you're tumbling too, it do reads the loads out. Because lots of people need to do lots of loads every day or don't have to do lots every day but having 'washing days' where they do 2 or 3 loads and then don't do any for a a couple or few days, speed seems of the essence. For the latter group it would be better to do a load a day or every other day rather than one or w big washing days, in terms of being able to run the slow Eco programmes each time.....but it's a different mindset and approach to laundry....perfectly possible of course.

Personally I do as many long slow washes as possible and try to think ahead. Then on the odd occasion where I need several loads on one day or to do just a few items, I feel I can do a speed wash (much more costly and energy inefficient) because my other loads have been more sensible. But always using the fast, espensice and less green wash seems to be what lots of people do.

@WombatChocolate Really interesting read, thank you