[BabyPeanut]

The washing machine didn't do the spin cycle today.

But I was thinking how a front-loading ASKO washer might be just the thing to push my electrical consumption under 400 kWh a month.
http://www.askousa.com/laundry/model.php?id=W6021
http://www.askousa.com/laundry/model.php?id=W6461

Now I need another 240 W outlet installed. Hopefully this won't mean ripping up the kitched to drop wires. There is a box on the wall with a big knife switch that hooks to the 240 W for the dryer.

Well Stephen Palmer Electric and Bray and Scarff will be getting my money again. But PEPCO will not be as much.

[rerere]

But I was thinking how a front-loading ASKO washer might be just the thing to push my electrical consumption under 400 kWh a month.

Staber. Staber makes 5 washing machines. 4 have coin slots.

You want the non-coin slot one.

Low water, low power, and simple.

http://www.staber.com/

Last time I bought one - under $1000.

[BabyPeanut]

Does the Staber have a built-in heating element?

No.

The ASKO does. I was thinking I could move to tankless water heating now that the dishwasher and the washing machine can heat their water.

[BabyPeanut]

ASKO

Quick Wash cycle will clean better than an old-style agitator and do it in only 35 minutes while using only 5.7 gallons of water and 0.3 (2¢) kWh of electricity

Stabber

The Staber washer uses up to 16.5 gallons of water for a full load in the normal wash cycle, and up to 12 gallons total on the low water level setting.

[BabyPeanut]

Well the old washer got unstuck when I pushed the basket around but I'm still stuck on my dream of an ASKO. I got an electrician to talk me out of a W6021 model washer by telling me there wasn't enough amperage on the circuit to support the washer and dryer at the same time. My final decision was to get the WCAM1812 combo Washer/Dryer unit. Never again will I have to move clothes between a washer and a dryer. Never again will I run a 5.4 kWh clothes dryer as the new unit is only 1.3 kWh. I will get to plug the huge air hole that the existing dryer vents out of which will save a bundle on heating and cooling my house. The new dryer doesn't need a vent as it uses moisture-condensing technology. I also get more storage space as the washer/dryer only has one cabinet instead of two.

http://www.askousa.com/laundry/model.php?id=WCAM1812

[rerere]

I'm still stuck on my dream of an ASKO.

Then pointing out how simple a staber is, or how it being a top loading yet side adjatating means no gasket failure won't make you consider one.

But perhaps others would like the 150 watts wash 340 watt spin cycle power frugleness.

Or how the design is a small pully to a big pully - no transmission to go bad.

My father joked that I could 'bicycle power' the Staber. I have no idea of a ASKO could be so modified.

[gg3]

Yes, the Asko is a very very nice machine (having read the stuff on the web link).

Also apparently quite versatile in terms of water and energy usage.

I'd be very interested to know what the actual load capacity is, in terms of pounds of mixed dry laundry. The sales info on the Asko page talks about "large" capacity and "up to 14 bath towels" but that's not the same as knowing actual pounds of mixed dry laundry going in. Over time we could compile a set of numbers on current best-practices in terms of KWH/lb. and gallons/lb.

You can probably use cold water cycles for many things and save the energy that would otherwise be used to heat the water. But the hot cycle is a good thing to have when you need to sanitize a load, i.e. after someone in the house has had a cold or flu.

If you use the complete wash and dry cycle, total cycle time could run as long as 3 hours. Don't let that bug you; just plan your washing accordingly. Do one load per day, on more than one day.

Another thing you can do if you don't mind going back to moving clothes back & forth: do a wash-only cycle with high-speed final spin. Then hang the clothes on a line overnight. Then back into the Asko for a dry cycle, which should be only 15 - 30 minutes or so to get completely dry (rather than an hour); 50 - 75% energy savings on drying cycles. May not be necessary right now, but nice to have the option for when energy prices start taking off.


Re. Staber: One of their main selling points is the fact that these machines are mechanically simple enough to rarely need a repair, but if they do, they're user-serviceable. That is, you can replace belts and other components yourself. This is part of the reason they're popular in rural and offgrid locations.

As far as powering it from a bicycle is concerned: I'm willing to bet that Staber reverses direction of the motor every ten or twenty seconds (clockwise, pause, counterclockwise, pause, repeat) to avoid tangling. So you'd need a rigid chain drive so you can pause and reverse pedaling direction every so often.

Personally I went for a machine at the retro-cool / low-tech end of the spectrum: a Danby twin-tub, which does two loads an hour for about 1/2 KWH total power consumption. With my water-recycling system the water usage will get down to approx. 14 gallons fresh water per approx. 12 lbs. dry mixed laundry. The separate centrifugal dryer gets the laundry so dry I can hang it on an indoor clothes line and it's totally dry the next day. It does require manual involvement doing the wash (moving clothes from the washtub to the spinner and back again a couple of times), but that's a minor inconvenience considering the benefits.

Also just discovered a "micro dryer" on a webpage in the UK. It's basically a normal dryer but 1/3 the size: handles only about 3 lbs. but draws only 700 watts. The utility of this would be specifically for finish-drying the occasional item that wasn't drying fast enough on the line, for example a couple of pairs of jeans or sweats, or bath towels, during damp or humid weather. This unit is apparently capable of running on USA mains power as well as UK, plus or minus changing the plug and possibly switching a couple of straps on terminals inside the machine. If I get one of these I'll probably post a review around here.

As a generalization it would be interesting to compile results on all of these machines as part of an overall project on energy efficiency. Each machine probably has its most-efficient and least-efficient modes of operation, so by publishing the info, we could help people to make the best use of whatever they have. And not only for washing machines, but for most of the things people use. For example with automobiles, what's the most efficient road speed for each model? This kind of information could become very useful in the years ahead.

[BabyPeanut]

The unit arrived. I got to plug up the 4" (10,16 cm) round hole in the wall that the old dryer vented out of. I think it feels warmer downstairs now without that big hole in the wall. I put DOW Great Stuff polyurethane foam in then a layer of #3 coarse steel wool then more foam and capped it off with a circle of cardboard with lays flat with the opening. The steel wool will discourage rodents from chewing their way through the foam.

There's room for a table now two where one of the cabinets was removed. The new unit has only one cabinet for washing and drying.

I've never had a front loader and I have questions about the laundry soap I was using. It's a Seventh Generation[tm] liquid soap and the bottle doesn't say if it's OK for front loaders or not.

[gg3]

Re. detergent: Ha!, this is good: You wash with neo-high-tech, I wash with retro-low-tech, but we both have the same taste in detergents! Let's make a commercial:-)

BTW, it's probably a "detergent" rather than a "soap." Soaps as such have fallen out of favor in laundry applications because in areas with hard water, powdered soaps just form curds and don't do much cleaning. Detergents can be made from eco-safe ingredients, hence such brands as Seventh Generation and a bunch of others.

On the back of my bottle of Seventh Generation is the phone number 1-800-456-1191, open 9am to 5pm East Coast time. May as well call them up and ask what the proper dosage is for a full load in that specific machine.

Keep in mind that all detergent makers compete on how clean they get the clothes, rather than how little it takes to do the job, and for that reason they tend to play it safe by recommending a higher dosage than might be necessary for most people's wash. Detergents are formulated to be non-irritating, so as far as the manufacturer is concerned, a little extra detergent that doesn't quite get rinsed out isn't a bad thing, and aside from the fact that it boosts sales slightly, it also leaves a mild scent which people identify as "clean clothes smell." The stuff I have (liquid) has a mild orange scent to it.

So whatever dosage they recommend, use about 2/3 of that for the first load and see how it comes out. Then adjust upward or downward from there. It shouldn't take more than two rinses to get most of it out. If you can't smell it at all after one rinse, you're probably not using enough. If you can smell it after four rinses, you're using too much. If you barely smell it after two rinses, that's probably about right.

Note, the item about "how the clothes smell" is: after the rinses but before drying. So while you're adjusting your detergent dosages, you might want to take a few items out to sniff them while they're still damp, before running the dry cycle. After you get the dosage adjusted, you can take full advantage of the wash-and-dry-in-one-cycle capabilities of the new machine.

With liquid detergents you can also pour a little directly onto really dirty spots e.g. the grass stains on the knees of your jeans, and rub it in, and that will boost the cleaning effectiveness on those areas.

Also be aware of over-sudsing. Especially in front loaders, excess suds can't just come out the top of the washer, so they might end up seeping around the door seal and into the machinery or onto the floor. Also excess suds can cause the pump to appear to have stopped working; this is called "suds lock" in the appliance repair industry. The solution is to get as much water into the washer as possible, so the weight of the water pushes the excess suds through the pump. None of this constitutes an emergency, merely a minor pain in the butt that's easily solved if you know how. In any case, starting with a deliberately conservative dose of detergent will usually preclude any possibility of over-sudsing.

Important: After you take a load out, keep the door open for a day. This allows ambient air to circulate and evaporate any residual moisture that might have been in the door seal or somewhere else the dryer air didn't get to. Closing the doors on front-loaders when one or more components is still damp, often leads to mold growing, and consumer dissatisfaction with the machine. Letting it air out for a day after each load solves that problem.

And, congratulations on getting more free space in the room. Put a phone in there and you can blab to your friends whilst sorting and folding.

One last item. Washers, and front loaders in particular, tend to attract house pets. If you have a cat, don't be surprised if s/he decides the washer drum is a cool nest to hang out in. Also cats have been known to sit and watch the clothes whiz around, like it's a TV show. Dogs seem to like to curl up and take naps in front of washers; they probably like the sound of the agitation. In any case, look in the drum before tossing in a load, just to make sure the cat isn't sleeping in there. You don't want to know what your cat will do to you if you dump a bunch of dirty socks in its face:-).

[gg3]

Two more things:


ALWAYS check and clean out ALL of your pockets, shirts and pants, before putting them in the washer.

With front loaders, a little sharp metallic object in the load, like a paper clip or a staple or a car key or a pen or whatever, can puncture the rubber door seal and then you've got an expensive repair on your hands.

Also with washer-dryers, a piece of gum or candy in a pocket can turn into a baked-on smear of sticky stain-producing goo in the drum. Think of the wads of gum you might have seen in any poorly-maintained dryer at a public laundromat. Think of them leaving sticky pink strands on your nice shirts. Eww. Well, that melted Snickers bar in your shirt pocket could end up doing the same thing, so be sure it's not there before you toss the shirt through the hatch.

Just make a habit of checking all the pockets before you put anything in there. It only takes a few seconds for each piece.

AND, check the door seal after you take a load out. Sometimes little objects such as coins will end up getting stuck in the folds of the rubber gasket. Just gently run your finger around folds of the seal to see if there are any surprises waiting to be plucked out.

If Asko has managed to find a way to eliminate the door seal gasket, that would be a major technical advance.

Keep a jar on the table for coins you find in your pockets (or in the door gasket). Let the jar get good and full, and then count out the money and either spend it on something goofy or put it in your post-collapse savings account.


Two: The paradox of partial loads and strain on the machine:

The heaviest load on any horizontal or inclined-axis rotating drum device, is when the drum is about 1/3 full and the load is stiff. It takes more horsepower to rotate a drum that is 1/3 full than to rotate one that is half-full. And a drum that is 3/4 full is even easier to rotate, and one that is totally full is easiest of all to rotate.

The reason is because the smaller the load (down to about 1/4 full), the more "lifting" action that occurs between the top edge of the load and the point at which material slides off the blades and slops back down. The lifting is what uses energy.

Note, the measurements of how full, are based on the appearance of the load when it's thoroughly wet. Half full means that if the drum is at rest, the wet load comes up to the centerline.

When a load is larger than 1/2 of the volume of the drum, the material that is located above the centerline acts as a balance to the weight of the material that is located below the centerline.

However, the more full the drum, the less the mixing and scrubbing action. A load that totally fills the drum will not wash as well; all you get is water attempting to fall through the resistance of the clothes, there is no relative motion, and basically not much happens.

For best cleaning action, you want the wet load to be at less than 1/2 of the volume of the drum. However, realistically you can increase that to 60%, which will slightly reduce the load on the motor without much effect on cleaning action.

For drying, you want enough free space that the clothes can tumble freely and fall through the air stream. A totally full load will take much longer to dry. Best case for overall efficiency is the 1/2 to 2/3 full load, and best case for the fastest drying time is a load of about 1/3 full (though that would be a less efficient load for washing purposes).

General rule as a summary: Fill the drum to about 2/3 full with dry stuff, and it will probably be about 1/2 full when everything is soaked and therefore more compact. That's about your most efficient load.

If Asko's instructions say something significantly different, I'd be interested to hear the details.

[BorneoRagnarok]

Wah, so complex. Here I use my own hands and legs to wash the laundary. No more washing machine except on Chinese New Year holiday. Now I don't trust any washing machine to do the cleaning job for me. I prefer the manual way.

You can spin the clothes with your hands. And at 35 Celcious , it dry it in 2 to 8 hours depends on the clothes materials and size and humidity level. Peak oil or no peak oil alike. I hate the way the machine spin my delicated clothes. Here in Asia, we use cheap clothes that's not suitable for extreme washing.

Now, I wonder what to do with the washing machine.

[gg3]

I did a lengthy experiment in hand-washing, for over a year, trying to find efficient methods. Hand washing uses no electricity but the rinse process uses a huge amount more water than any washing machine I know of. Typically the whole routine took about two hours every Saturday night, to wash a load equivalent to one load in a machine.

In order to keep the quantities manageable, I found I was wearing everything for three or four days (!), and changing my sheets once a month or so, which in American terms, is pretty close to "eww, gross!"

It may be that you (Borneo) can do it faster because among other things you can spin the clothes manually outside by just swinging them around in a wide circle to get the suds and water out. In the city where I am, there is no "outside" for this.

Today I can spend an hour and do two loads, using about 1/2 a kilowatt hour (somewhere I think I mis-posted 500 KWH; in fact it's 500 watt hours or 0.5 KWH), four loads for 1 KWH. To me that's a justifyable use of electricity. And I can find plenty of other places to save 0.5 to 1.0 KWH per week: for example I don't watch television, so that's about 90 watts x 27 hours per week (average TV viewing), or about 2.4 KWH per week that I'm already not using. Minus the TV and plus the washer, I'm still ahead of the average by anywhere from 0.4 to 1.9 KWH per week.

[BorneoRagnarok]

In order to keep the quantities manageable, I found I was wearing everything for three or four days (!), and changing my sheets once a month or so, which in American terms, is pretty close to "eww, gross!"

So smelly , do you happen to be a software hacker ?

It may be that you (Borneo) can do it faster because among other things you can spin the clothes manually outside by just swinging them around in a wide circle to get the suds and water out. In the city where I am, there is no "outside" for this.

No way, man. I am not a propellar head. Just use your hands to squeeze your clothes. You will get use to it. I do that since my college days. As you know there are lots of imitation goods in Asia, sometimes I accidently buy one of those pants that leak the ink . If those clothes are mixed in washing machine , you can say bye bye to all your precious clothes.

[gg3]

Hi Borneo-

I'm a telecoms geek, I program PBXs & voicemail systems.

When I was hand-washing, I don't think I stunk up a storm though, someone would have said something:-).

Re. squeezing out: Tried it, and it does not work with blue jeans and certain types of shirts, the material is just too stiff. Also it's an inefficient method; it does not extract all the suds, so multiple rinses are necessary. Every method of hand-washing & hand-rinsing I have tried, has used a huge amount more water for rinsing, than any washing machine I know of.

There is one method that may be reasonably close, which is the use of a hand-powered wringer to wring the water & suds out. Hand powered wringers are about half the cost of a complete twin-tub washer however, and have to be attached to a rigid mounting of some kind, which is difficult in an apartment (one doesn't go drilling holes in walls at random).

As I said, I'll do without TV and keep my twin-tub. Net energy savings, plus the "clean & fluffy" factor.