About the wash

Factually the amount of water does not affect the quality the wash as much as the type of “mechanical wash”. Mechanical wash is the term used to describe the fashion of the mechanism washing machine uses to clean the clothes. Basically it is horizontal or vertical design of the basket, baffles and the back wall design plus the turn/reverse fashion of the basket.

If we turn to top load washers we will see that they’ve been using a 2 fill system for years and years where one long wash with 20 gallons of water was followed by a rinse of the similar length with another 20 gallons of water. These washers are still being widely used across laundry rooms and modern Laundromats and have their own fans among people who do their own laundry. They would argue that top load washers not only provide good quality wash but also are gentle to clothes, which are not being tossed around and continuously washed through the machine basket.

Front load machines were introduced with improved quality of the mechanical wash and increased efficiency of water use where 5 fills 7 gallons each (for a standard 18lb washer which has already bigger capacity than a top load) providing considerable water bill savings plus better quality wash. The system of 3 rinses was created to effectively wash out the detergent, which is added to the clothes during the wash cycle. Although washing machines manufacturers take out one of the rinses and give the Laundromat operator possibility to take out another rinse and prewash with a touch of a button to call their machines “water use efficient”.

Needless to say that detergents and chemicals people use to wash clothes undergo evolution and improvement throughout years as much as the equipment itself and they are much easier to wash out nowadays. So considering the fact that the outdated system of mechanical wash of top-loaders managed to wash out all the detergent during just one rinse it becomes obvious that modern front load washers can easily achieve similar or even better results, compensating the amount of water top-loaders use with the better quality mechanical wash. Common practice of skipped rinses of the modern computer controlled washers proves that. In addition the use of fabric softeners at the last rinse cycle solves the problem of soapy clothes completely.

So basically the water use efficiency of a washer equals to the number of fills and their volume. As a rule you could calculate water consumption as 0.4 gallons per pound of capacity per fill or a widely known formula: 2 gallons per rated capacity (based on classic 5 fills/baths system). So, for example, based on this formula w74 washer uses 36 gallons per cycle (0.4x18x5). In fact this rule of a thumb is also true for modern washers. Plus bear in mind that dry clothes put in the washer basket absorb water and there is “water waste” that happens when there is a leak in the fill system (water valves, fill hoses, drain valves, drain hoses) – it all adds up to everyday water consumption. You cannot change the fact that dry clothes absorb the water – you can only account for it in the calculations, but water leak can certainly be fixed and avoided.