How to do your laundry in order to save energy

[njiang46]

Do laundry when you have to or once a week. When you do your laundry, try to use cold water for the whole process. It will save 2lbs of CO2 each time.

[lisaflex]

just an fyi - this has been a topic before and there are interesting tips, etc on it

[badeth]

wash your clothes every other day or every second day to save electricity and water

[Grainlady]

Most people could wear outer garments more than once in order to save on so many clothes in the laundry, but most don't. I wear a pair of jeans several days. The last day they may be designated for house cleaning or gardening/yard work on the weekend. P.J.'s can be worn for a week before being laundered. We have an area in our closet where we hang clothes that we "need to finish dirtying". Clothes we wear to church, or special occasion where they are only worn for a couple hours, are changed when we get home and are re-worn to work. Wear an apron when working in the kitchen to keep your clothes clean during food preparation.

We use one bath towel each for the entire week to save on the laundry load. If you have small children, you can use small microfiber towels instead of a large bath towel (you can get a bundle of them in the car care department). These towels air-dry quickly for re-use.

I disagree with using cold water for washing clothing. YES, it saves money on heating water, but detergent manufacturers and clothing care labels define "cold water" as 80-85°F., and most cold water is MUCH colder than that. Many of the new models of washers will automatically add hot water to get the correct washing temperature for "cold", even if you set the washer for COLD WASH. Cold water below 65°F is NOT recommended for washing clothing. "The detergent will not activate and clean effectively in water that is too cold.".

If you want to save money on heating water, I'd suggest using my 1-gallon method for washing dishes (which is done with "saved" water from running the shower to get hot water). I heat 5-cups of water in an electric kettle (electric kettles are more energy efficient than a kettle on the stove because the water is in direct contact with the heating element) for doing dishes that don't go into the dishwasher and after-meal clean-up. Using a small plastic tub to wash the dishes in (rather than a sink that holds 5-7-gallons of water), the 5-cups of water are heated, approximately 5 more cups of the gallon are added to the hot water, and the remainder of the gallon is used for rinsing. If you wash in hot/soapy water, you can safely use a cold rinse. If you do dishes 3 times a day, you will save more money, water and energy using the 1-gallon method than if you use an Energy Star dishwasher once a day.

We hang our clothes on a line to dry - and have lines both indoors and outdoors. We have named our dryer "Rip Van Winkle" it's used so little.

For those of you who aren't allowed a clothes lines outdoors, you can place lines in your garage to use.

[Sassyclass]

You may have to take the weather into account if you hang dry your clothes. I wear my work jeans 3 times before I wash them as long as they aren't soiled with grease. I wash everything except bed clothes and towels(washed in hot, rinsed in cold) in cold water.For the most part I do laundry when it is needed.

Cat

[Teresa T]

I still need to get a nice indoor laundry line. Unfortunately my nice apartment complex would have a fit if I put the laundry on my patio. I wish I could, I would have plenty of room

I owned a house for 7+ years but never hung my laundry outside because the yard always felt dirty. I had a nasty neighbor who threw garbage in my yard.

I wash in cold to save energy. The clothes seem to come out OK. My mother always washed in cold and never had a dryer. Still the same. I use a much smaller amount of detergent than the recommendation. I like Seventh Generation products and I'm pretty sure that is their brand that Trader Joe's sells under their own label. One jug will last for a long time.

[Holding Pattern]

We have a Fischer & Paykel washer & dryer, very energy efficient. We do 99% on cold. We also like the Purex 3 in 1 sheets, instead of buying detergent, softener, & dryer sheet the one does all, and very efficiently, I might add.

and an earlier post mentioned that detergents do not activate in cold water, many didn't used to... most boxes now will say something about good for cold water. They know people have caught on...

[madhen]

I wash most of my laundry in cold, and it cleans up fine. I use about half the recommended amount of detergent. (Still want to try making my own, but have been too lazy.) I also try to make work clothes last more than one usage, which I can usually do if I go into the house and change BEFORE doing all the animal chores.

I do go through a LOT of laundry, because I change out the dogs' bedding (full-size quilts or sheets) weekly and the birds' towels (5-6 per change) once or twice weekly, and the bunnies' towels about every other day. If it were just me in the house, I'd be able to do wash every other week! Right now, I do a load every day or two.

[TigerGirl1226]

We too try to wear clothing more than once if possible. DH does it with work jeans, we try with jammies, and I do with bottoms (skirts specifically). Our washing is usually done on weekends or as needed during the week.

[SimpleLinda]

I always use cold water for laundry, except for my whites, then I use hot, but we heat our water from our outdoor wood furnace.
Towels/bathclothes are not that dirty anyway, we use soap/water to bathe in, dry our clean bodies off with the towel, so really unless they are extra dirty, cold is fine for me, and I normally do a couple of loads a week for dh and myself, my daycare kids nap on beach towels that are sent home to be washed and returned.

This is a great thread, I'm learning new tricks everyday! TFS

[NikoSan999]

I do all the above except I limit my running the washer and dryer until after 9PM. The rates are cut drastically after 9 up until 7AM. You can find this on your electric companies website. I did.

There are some things I do put in the dryer.

[Teresa T]

I do all the above except I limit my running the washer and dryer until after 9PM. The rates are cut drastically after 9 up until 7AM. You can find this on your electric companies website. I did.

Wow, that's a tip! I didn't know about that one. I'll check into PG&E here in California and see if that does apply.

I also wear clothes outside the house more than once. Once home I change into my 'around the house' clothes anyway. Work clothes worn only once.

[Judi Dial]

We bought our washer with an internal filter and being able to specify load sizes, temp. Our dryer also gave us more control than others. In order to get the features I wanted, we got a Maytag and a General Electric, not a set. Getting the extra filtering and the load size adjustment (when it was new) was more important to me than having a matched washer and dryer. (Drove the salesman nutz!)

I wash one small load a day. If I don't do that, it gets out of hand here.

I also use concentrated soap (so does Grainlady, but we use different ones). I have made my own, but DH doesn't like the way it feels in our water (we have a lot of particulate) so I gave up making it.

I have other ideas, but they aren't well thought out yet, so I'm not going to put them here. I've tried 3 times and it still isn't right!

Judi

[klean163]

I wash in cold water and wash 2 times aweek Klean163

[katis]

I do all the above except I limit my running the washer and dryer until after 9PM. The rates are cut drastically after 9 up until 7AM. You can find this on your electric companies website. I did.

Thanks for this info. I found out our off peak rates is 10pm-7am