Energy question

[Juliacat]

We live in a tiny house (good for the environment)

Which means we don't have many clothes, which means we have to do laundry a lot (bad for the environment)

but I still try to delay doing laundry until we have a full load (good for the environment)

but I can't delay it by more than a day or so or we'll run out of clothes.

I prefer to line dry (good for the environment)

but if I wait until we have a full load and then it rains that day, I have to dry in the dryer (bad for the environment)

So I guess what I'm saying is, if I base my laundry schedule around the weather forecasts, is it better to wash smaller loads and line dry, or wash bigger loads and dry in the dryer?

(And is there a difference here between hot water loads and cold water loads?)

[barose]

Good question. I wondered this myself.

We never do small or 1/2 loads regardless if we can line-dry or not because we figure its better on energy and water. We have a top loader so its more crucial. All of our loads are full and we do an average of 3 full loads a week for two people including sheets and towels.

DP has a lot of everyday clothes and doesn’t feel comfortable wear the same tops twice before washing. I have much less because I tend to buy based on quality not quantity (so I end up paying more for individual items that I don’t get on consignment) and I’m OK with wearing the same tops 2-3x before washing but I hand wash a lot of my delicate tops which I hang indoors. Other clothes we have are dry-clean only – we take them to a green dry cleaner.

Based on work schedule, we can only line-dry on the weekends. We can’t line dry in the evenings because the clothes will stay damp because of the fog.

Our energy bill tends to be pretty high so we try not to use the dryer as much as possible. Sometimes, we have to use it for 5-10 minutes if the clothes don’t get dry before dark/moisture in the air.

I think it’s easier overall because we probably do have more items to wash. We change sheets weekly and go though a lot of bath, kitchen and cleaning towels (especially since I’m trying to use less paper!)

[glorified_rice]

It's definitely better to wash on cold. I wash everything but rags on cold when I'm line drying. We have a Fisher & Paykel washer which is not HE or front loading, but it has some great features that make it an energy star model. One great feature is that the water level automatically adjusts to the amount of clothes you have in it. It's still better to do a full load every time, but I would say that if you knew it was going to rain, it might be better to do a small load to get by and dry on the lowest setting...that way your energy expenditure will be less and you'll still have clean clothes and not be behind on laundry.

[Juliacat]

Here is a good example of what I am saying: Today is PERFECT line drying weather, warm and windy and sunny. It will be at least 5 more days before we have another day this line-drying-perfect. So I put the large load of "warms" I washed last night out to dry. I then washed a medium load of "colds" and put those out to dry, too. The only laundry I have left is a load of diapers and dishrags, about 1 1/2 days' worth, but I could easily wait another day and a half to wash them. Do I use the unnecessary hot water now in order to avoid using the dryer in a day and a half?

[oceane]

I don't have an answer to your dryer question, because I don't know if the dryer uses more energy than the washing machine. but I was wondering whether your washing machine has a mechanism to recognize smaller loads? because ours does and then automatically reduces the amount of water etc used. If that is the case you can also wash smaller loads of something if necessary.

[Juliacat]

We have a front loader, so it's pretty energy-efficient, and it does recognize the size of the load.

[ladyinred]

Originally Posted by glorified_rice

It's definitely better to wash on cold. I wash everything but rags on cold when I'm line drying. We have a Fisher & Paykel washer which is not HE or front loading, but it has some great features that make it an energy star model. One great feature is that the water level automatically adjusts to the amount of clothes you have in it. It's still better to do a full load every time, but I would say that if you knew it was going to rain, it might be better to do a small load to get by and dry on the lowest setting...that way your energy expenditure will be less and you'll still have clean clothes and not be behind on laundry.

Why do you wash your rags in warm water?

[Juliacat]

Originally Posted by ladyinred

Why do you wash your rags in warm water?

I don't know about her, but I wash rags and diapers and menstrual pads and other gross, germy things on HOT to kill all the gross germs.

[lightheart]

how about drying inside? racks or a line.

what about changing to a wringer washer, so that you can reuse the water, start with hots, wash them, leave the water in and do your warms leave the water in do the colds, the temp will cool down as you do the different loads.

[glorified_rice]

Originally Posted by ladyinred

Why do you wash your rags in warm water?

I don't wash my rags in warm water. I said that I wash everything but rags (pads and other misc. gross things included) in cold... but truly, why would you even care?

[Toolip]

I would say that it definitely seems worth it to do laundry when you can hang it on the line.

The dryer uses about 10X the energy of the washer so even if you don't quite have a full load, I say wash it and hang it out!

Oh how I love those line-dried scratchy towels!!!!

[Helen_A]

Overhead airers are fantastic - we used to have ours positioned on the kitchen ceiling over the fridge/freezer, making use of the heat they put out whilst doing their job :-)

In this house we have a dogleg stair and the airer has gone up over there, where the previous owners had hung a huge (and very hungry) chandelier. We've put a single bulb in its place (plan is to fit a light pipe there later in the year though).

The other thing we are doing is fitting a sunroom out back on the deck this summer - we'll be able to air clothes out there when it is raining, and come the winter it should act as a good 'solar gain' for the rest of the house :-)

[barose]

Originally Posted by lightheart

how about drying inside? racks or a line.
.

I only hang our shirts, underwear and my jeans to dry indoors. Sheets, towels, etc are either too large or would take forever to dry in our house -like days.

Originally Posted by ladyinred

Why do you wash your rags in warm water?

I wash all towels, sheets, rags and certain whites in hot water. I know its "bad", but I do want to kill the germs and allergens - especially if I don't dry them in the dryer.

[ladyinred]

Originally Posted by glorified_rice

I don't wash my rags in warm water. I said that I wash everything but rags (pads and other misc. gross things included) in cold... but truly, why would you even care?

I was just curious. Wondering if there was something about rags that made it not as good wash them in cold water. Since we switched to liquid detergent I have been washing everything in cold but I worry sometimes that I might not be washing things in the right temperature or something. I never really thought about the germ thing, I guess I figure the detergent and vinegar would take care of that. I heard that it's best to wash pads in cold so that the stains don't set in, mine are pretty stained anyway so I guess it doesn't really matter lol

[glorified_rice]

Originally Posted by ladyinred

I was just curious. Wondering if there was something about rags that made it not as good wash them in cold water. Since we switched to liquid detergent I have been washing everything in cold but I worry sometimes that I might not be washing things in the right temperature or something. I never really thought about the germ thing, I guess I figure the detergent and vinegar would take care of that. I heard that it's best to wash pads in cold so that the stains don't set in, mine are pretty stained anyway so I guess it doesn't really matter lol

I'm sorry I was snippy, I was in a bit of a bad mood that day. I thought you were making fun of me for washing rags in cold Anyway...with the pads, I always rinse them out in cold water first, possibly pretreat them, then wash them in hot. I'm sure the detergent and vinegar probably take care of most of the germies if you do wash on cold, and then the sun, of course, if you're line drying should take care of the rest. I wash that stuff in hot though, mostly because I'm a germa-phobe.