Three loads of laundry a week. How?

[PotatoPudding]

Lighthearted thread:

I seem to see so many people saying they only do 3 loads of laundry a week for their entire family. How is this possible?

We are two adults and DS 5. I do the following:

• 3-4 mixed/dark loads a week
• 1 load of towels
• 1 load of bedding in colder months (different bed each week) and 2-3 loads when it’s hot (we all have our own beds, ranging from double to super king
• 1 white wash every other week, which is just school polos and the odd other bit but rarely a full load
• 1 ad hoc load every couple of weeks for blankets, dressing gowns, indoor fleeces, etc.

I wear one pair of jeans and one pair of joggers all week. I wear 2-3 hoodies/jumpers a week plus a base layer every day. I wear two sets of old joggers and hoodies for bed each week, as well as thick socks. DH wears a clean top every day for work but same trousers all week. DS wears school uniform and sometimes changes when he gets home. School coat gets chucked in the wash once every week or two. We do no sports or activities that require additional clothing.

For me, the laundry seems never ending!

How does this compare to other households of a similar size?

There's me, Dh and 5 month old DD and I do a dark wash, light wash, baby wash and a bedsheets wash a week. My washing machine is 10kg it's a lifesaver especially with a baby!

Do you separate out your baby's clothes from other clothes? Is that a thing people do? I never did that. Clothes are clothes regardless of the size of them.

I'm live alone. I usually do 3 loads of washing a week

Ive also noticed (because OH does all the washing) that despite me specifying things be separated strictly I dont think he is doing this. We have some lemon yellow/pastel yellow cotton towels and over time they are looking more and more grey/yellow

These must have been put in with other colours

I absolutely hate things being mixed up and dont understand how people just throw things in together.

Surely if he is doing the washing then he can do it his way?
We don't separate anything in our house and other than 1 famous occasion, when I put a new red top in (without washing it on its own first like I normally do) and DP white top turned pink, I can't say I have ever noticed a problem with colours running. To me separating things just seems to be creating more work for the sake of it. Only things that are done separately are towels and bedding as they take up the whole load anyway.
Maybe it's to do with temperature? We wash everything at 30 so maybe that helps.

Myself and two teenagers here....its feast or famine regarding the washing. My sons have a mad half hour cleaning their room and we end up with a couple of loads 🤣🤣🤣🤣 normally do two or three washes.....do towels one week and bedding the next. Then its on as soon as we get enough for a load

"9 kg washing machine – can fit around 45 T-Shirts or a medium king sized duvet and is suited for a large sized family"

Routinely I do get away with 3 loads - darks, lights and bedding/towels. Washing on 30c, with color catcher sheets - no issues so far. Occasionally I will run an extra load with seasonal clothing (before putting away), trainers or cushion covers/throws.

7kg washing machine and just me and DD 15 and the dog.
I do at least 5 loads a week. BUT DD is autistic and will only wear things once and anything with a dog hair she will immediately not use and must be washed.
I've always got 2 drying racks on the go

Perhaps it depends on the size of your washing machine drum.

Washer-dryer drums tend to be a bit smaller because of all the extra gubbins inside. I could probably do fewer washes if we just had a washing machine with a larger drum.

I've had bad experiences with mixing darks and lights, light beige towels and light pink top dyed a muddy grey by dd's navy pj bottoms, so I always separate into darks, lights and whites now. Even then I find dd's school shirts never seem to stay white for long, despite keeping whites separate and adding a scoop of oxy whitening powder!

We do more washing when dd has her period, as she puts a pair of period underwear on in the morning, another when she gets home from school, and another after she's had a shower before bed.

I tend to rotate our sheets and change each bed once a fortnight, but pillow cases on sleeping pillows (not propping up pillows) get washed one a week, sometimes twice as I have a bit of a thing about it!

Lol. I do three a day - at least! 😂

Well he can and is doing it his way, hence my now crappy towels clearly, so not sure I understand your first sentence.

The problem is, that things get looking tired, and grubby even when they're clean. Not very nice

I have a really nice (expensive) white shirt upstairs, Ive worn it 4 times now and it needs washing. That will not be washed by him, that will be kept separate and put in a small washing bag and put on with something to keep it white (not sure of what yet, some sort of vanish product or something)

I live alone and do 5 washloads a week. Even I'm baffled. I'm convinced someone is sneaking into my house when I'm out and adding their laundry to mine 😂

I’m actually baffled by some of the responses… I have an 8kg washing machine, 2 adults, 5yo and 2yo. Per week:
Mon - 2x load of towels @ 60 (plus any underwear or socks)
Tues - 1x darks/lights/colours, whatever I have the most of
Wed - 2x load of bedding @ 60 (plus any light underwear, socks or pjs (we only have light bedding))
Thurs - day off 😂
Fri - 1x darks/lights/colours, whatever I have the most of
Sat - 1x darks/lights/colours, whatever I have the most of
Sun - 1x husband’s running clothes from the week
I do whites once a fortnight/ 3 weekly as daughter has white polos for school and we don’t really wear much else white.
8 loads roughly a week.

I'm rather baffled that people appear to be washing towels separately, why?

4 loads a week ….we are 2 adult household

3 adults in the house with guinea pigs. I wash the pig stuff twice a week on its own, DH's uniform on a Friday on its own as it stinks due to the type of work he does, DD plays football and I wash all the kit so that's another 2 loads on a Sunday. All of this before any other washing gets done. I do a tumble dryer load (socks and pants with the occasional pair of jeans) that goes straight into the tumble dryer once a week and everything else gets done when there is time. My airer only holds 21 pieces of clothes so when it's wet I have to think about what day I do it.

Bedding and towels get done once a week and they go straight into the tumble dryer and if done early enough go straight back on the bed.

My DH was a fireman and won't let me use the machine if nobody is in the house so it all has to wait until someone is in.

Only because the 3 bath towels and 2 hand towels we use is a full load so might as well go on together. I also wash them at a higher temp but might not if I wasn't already doing them on their own

Oh dear !, equally lighthearted - but I think I need to "get my coat" on the cleanliness front. Family of 6 (4 teens or older) Our bedding - probably fortnightly, their bedding, when they finally decide it is too rank to sleep in it any more, no need to prompt, they are adults and a pizza box does not a good bed-fellow make !. Towels, me and OH, one or two a week. Them, one or two a day every fecking day each, dropped all over the place dampish. Given they must all be spotlessly clean, showering for up to half an hour each, sometimes twice a day, and causing World War III outside the shower room, I have started rounding up the towels, putting them in the tumble drier for 15 minutes with one of those tumble drier sheets and folding them for re-use by whoever comes in next. They do not know this, and I am not about to tell them. They would be completely horrified that they may have inadvertently used a towel that may have been used by a sibling (scarred for life, traumatised by 1st world problems etc.), and yes, they would rather drip dry on the landing than have it happen ! Thank you in advance for the help that will come my way - but really I have tried all of the, shortly to be advised remedies - towels of different colours, a lock on the towel cupboard, teach them some responsibility etc. No dice, secretive shared towels it is !! 😂

They go on a different setting in the washer and dryer. They make up a full load. They’re extremely fluffy, so would transfer fluff to the clothes.

🤣🤣🤣 I love it!

I don't wash towels separately either.
I separate light and dark but that includes towels, bedding, tea towels, cloths etc.

I think the size of the drum makes a big difference! We are 2 adults and 2 kids, lots of sports wash. I am washing all day long!! But then my machine is 7kg on the cotton setting and only 4kg on synthetics! The cottons wash gets things pretty clean but really wears out the clothes as there is a lot of spinning and according to the manual the cottons setting is only meant for bedding and towels. But if I were to use the synthetics wash for all the clothes then I could never keep up as 4kg is a tiny tiny load!! It beeps at me to tell me if I've overloaded it 😣 I often use the cotton wash for clothes I'm less precious about but on a reduced spin (takes 4 hours per load though!)

I wish I had a bigger machine but we have a new build and that is the largest machine I can fit in the under counter space that they gave me.

I hate laundry so much!!

Because they need a 60 wash with biological powder, everything else goes on non bio and at 40

We’re 2 adults and do about 3 a week. And we do exercise. We both WFH though so I often wear the same outfit 2-3 days in a row; in cooler weather. Some people wash their towels and bedding so much!