Washing poopy clothes in cold water?

[cottontail]

Please help me refresh my memory. Once we started having the massive full body poops, I just started washing all of our clothes in hot water.

Well lo and behold, I just got my first gas bill in my new place and it is much higher than I expected (think $170 for about 6-days of living here and we froze our lil' arses off)

Needless to say, I want to cut back anyway that I can and this is something that has been on my mind anyways.

Thanks for any help!

[Juliacat]

Switch to cloth diapers and then you won't have poop leaks any more and you'll only have one load to wash on hot, not all of them.

[chel]

do you do the hot for the germs or the stains? I've found oxi-clean type stuff great for poop stains. I'm not that concerned about germs, though I'm several years past the poop issues! I would think a good drying cycle or plenty of sun time to kill any germs that remain after washing (assuming no viral poop going around)

how does the water heater look? Maybe adding a cover and/or turning down the water heater temp?
Since you mentioned freezing, it could just more than just a water heater issue. Assuming you haven't done that much wash in 6 days. How the furnance?

[Conteuse]

Why not put all the poopy clothes in a bucket or something to soak for a week, and then just wash them all at once? You can still use cold for all the rest of the week.