When Did Laundry Care Methods Change?

....is an interesting combination of various different options of doing laundry...and all you Aussies feel free to correct or add to this too please...

If we accept that the wringer machine of the 1930's was when things started to get interesting (and 'affordable'), then Australia, did much the same as the US and Europe and a few things a little differently...

Wringers and twin-tubs which could reuse the wash and/or rinse water were the norm until the mid-late 1960's....they were reasonably economical to use with many people doing 'whites' then 'coloureds' or 'overalls' in the second use...

Then came the Automatics...full size, American style machines generally though there were European machines such as the Keymatic too. Our top loaders could generally be had with an internal heater depending on the model...

But automatics were very expensive so manufacturers here did away with the automatic part and left people with a dial that was basically a big switch with wash/heat/drain/fill/spin and sometimes 'suds-return' options...whichever part of the process you select would continue until you moved the dial....you could still re-use the wash water (or rinse) so they were economical too.

COme the mid 1970's Automatics were the go though you could still get twin tubs, wringers and possibly semi-autos. Water consumption seemed to be on the increase with multiple rinses (spray and deep) becoming more common....heaters seem to start fading from list too around this time in top-loaders and Hoover Australia started to manufacture the Zodiac 12 machines based on the British Hoovers but without a dispenser drawer and with the option of no heater...

Australia was a land of the top-loader...mostly based on American designs or concepts such as the Fluid Drive system as an example...

Come the late 1980's and energy costs were starting to rise. Detergents (Cold power in particular) were being promoted as suitable for cold water washing and gradually people changed....especially if they tried it for a quarter and saw the impact on their power bills....

Now we move forward...

Many parts of Oz are hit with water restrictions with some areas literally down to xxx litres per day. Water, and to a lesser degree, power/energy efficiency are the drivers that Governments want us to focus on. We use a star system for appliances. Generally many councils will offer a rebate if the machine is 4* rated or better. This equates to roughly 10litres per kg of clothes washed....

As a result, front load machine purchase is on the rise as all of them are at least 4* rated. Some top load machines are too, but when you read some of their manuals they suggest not using certain programmes for, say towels, as they need more water....

...and many are still washing in cold even though all our front load machines come with heaters - habits are hard to break though I have had success with one friend...she was stunned at the difference after washing at 40c in a front load machine compared to cold in her top load machine...

So there we have it...

We've gone from Wringers to Front loaders and had every variation on a theme - with and without heaters, auto and semi auto and many have changed detergent/water temp preferences in the light of rising energy costs....


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Post# 427435 4/7/2010 at 11:51 (5,126 days old) by mieleforme ()
Checkrate/Likes I want everyones take on this. Here is a link to my post. CLICK HERE TO GO TO mieleforme's LINK

Post# 427439 , Reply# 1 4/7/2010 at 12:15 (5,126 days old) by Hoover1100 (U.K.)
Checkrate/Likes *I think on the European side of things* I'd be pretty safe to say it had nothing to do with energy conservation. I think front loaders became most popular here partly because they take up less room, but mostly because of the way they were marketed. Bearing in mind until the 80s most European front loaders used more water than most U.S. toploaders, and possibly almost as much energy (remember 90% of the energy used in a washer is used in heating the water, the less hot water used the less energy the machine uses.) I think I'm right in saying that by the time automatic machines started to become affordable here in the 60s, a top loaders were marketed as being old fashioned and less automatic, their similarity to wringer washers and to some extent twin tubs enforced this idea. Infact when we went to visit family in the U.S. in 1997, Mum looked at my Aunt's 1979 Kenmore and said "is it actually automatic?". Detergents for front loaders were called "Automatic" in the same way they are now called "HE" in the U.S. I guess this would lead people to think of high suds detergents as being for non-automatic machines, putting toploaders in this category. Until a few years ago most machines in the U.K. had a hot and cold fill, yet the heater was needed to obtain and maintain hotter temperatures. This is not exclusive to front loader laundry in Europe though, as most Top loaders, twin tubs and wringer washers had built in heaters, and failing that many households had seperate laundry boilers before the days of automatics. Since the 80s (possibly earlier) the average temperatures people wash at here has gone down. Almost everyone I know washes almost everything at 40c, and with a good detergent and the correct cycle I personally see no reason why clothes would need hotter temperatures than this. Detergents may be pushing for people to wash at 30c or even lower, but I know few people who actually believe clothes will be cleaned below 40c, and are unwilling to give it a go. So basically I think while the reason for front loaders becoming more popular in the U.S. now is purely down to energy efficiency, this really didn't play a part in it in Europe. Hope this helps! Matt

Post# 427444 , Reply# 2 4/7/2010 at 13:11 (5,126 days old) by mieleforme ()
Checkrate/Likes *I think on the European side of things* That helps a lot man. Interesting to know it wasn't efficiency that made things evolve the way they did. I thought machine size may have been a factor but wasn't sure. You have a Facebook request headed your way.

Post# 427447 , Reply# 3 4/7/2010 at 13:35 (5,126 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)
Checkrate/Likes One of the reasons I think that frontloaders became soon more popular than the V-axis toploaders in Europe is probably the hot water systems used in Europe. At the time that automatic washers became popular in most European households used small flow through water heaters (except from the UK I believe). It would take ages to fill a toploader with those water heaters. The preferred system became washers with an internal heater. Heating up the wash water in a frontloader (around 20 liters on a full load) would be easier to do than in a toploader (60-80 liters I believe).

Post# 427464 , Reply# 4 4/7/2010 at 16:27 (5,126 days old) by favorit ()
Checkrate/Likes Matt I'm not so sure vintage frontloaders used almost as much energy as contemporary automatic toploaders. I' m thinking of the british Hotpoint V-axis full automatic toploader. IIRC the max fill level is round 60 litres, while the most water hog of vintage fronloaders uses round 30 litres per fill. Then the amount of hot water would be 2:1. Both kind of machines start from a hot fill, both machines use the internal element to boilwash. To be fair we have to listen to those who actually own these Hotpoint (Chestermike ? Aquarius1984 ? don't remember who)

Post# 427465 , Reply# 5 4/7/2010 at 16:28 (5,126 days old) by wringingwet (Walterboro South Carolina)
Checkrate/Likes *Heat makes all the difference in the world* Scream at me but I have an Asko something front load and it heats water to 205 degrees. It gets white so white but it will also melt polyester. I wish America would manufacture a front loader on 220 to heat its own water and clothes. As much as asko is a pain the behind to deal with I still love the way they preform. The Dishwasher use 4.5 gallons on a full bob load and they come clean .. ( I have three of them so party is not a problem with real dishes ... out here in the woods the appliances' and nature are in harmony LOL Philippe

Post# 427466 , Reply# 6 4/7/2010 at 16:35 (5,126 days old) by askomiele (Belgium Ghent)
Checkrate/Likes *Heating up the water...* Foraloysius is right. When automatic washers where interoduced over here, it was not an exception they where installed in houses where there was NO boiler to preheat a large quantity of water. In some households hot water was boiled on the stove or made with a separate heatingcoil laying in a steel bucket. Drumtype washers where at that time the only one where a heatingsource could be installed and heat up the water while washing.

Post# 427467 , Reply# 7 4/7/2010 at 16:37 (5,126 days old) by favorit ()
Checkrate/Likes Philippe, many members here say the real issue is to draw a further 220 Volt line in the laundry room/corner. I hardly make up this statement. I mean : people have no issues to draw a new line for their new induction cooktop or double oven so I don't understand where is the problem to draw a new line for a 220 V washer or a 220V dishwasher ....

Post# 427468 , Reply# 8 4/7/2010 at 16:42 (5,126 days old) by favorit ()
Checkrate/Likes *a further clue of Louis/Askomiele point of view* The coal fired non automatic frontloader CLICK HERE TO GO TO favorit's LINK

Post# 427474 , Reply# 10 4/7/2010 at 16:57 (5,126 days old) by brisnat81 (Brisbane Australia)
Checkrate/Likes Hi Louis, On my W423 the Prewash is heated as well as the main wash. Both to the selected temp. So thats 40L heated. A Full cycle as was reccomended back then would give you 40L plus the 10L cool down and then 5 20L rinses. I'm pretty sure the Aussie W423's were rated at 130L for a full cottons load. Perhaps this excluded the prewash. The Whirlpool Self heat toploaders here claimed 90mins from cold to 60degC with a 2400watt element.

Post# 427482 , Reply# 12 4/7/2010 at 17:29 (5,126 days old) by LordKenmore (The Laundry Room)
Checkrate/Likes *Cost of washer* Mieleforme, your last Gardenweb post commented: "If only she knew what I paid for this set she would more than likely try to have me committed." It's worth thinking that older washers really aren't so cheap when you adjust for inflation. Many grandmothers will whine about how expensive a top-flight washer is today, and say "I spent only X dollars in 19--!" (One of mine would have, had the topic ever come up!) Exact dollar amount and year vary grandma to grandma. Yet, you convert that x dollars and 19-- to today, and the price difference isn't that great. Thought #2, assuming you have a Miele, as your AW.org name suggests, you have a washer designed to last 20 years. It could possibly outlast many cheaper washers, and cost less in the long run.

Post# 427472 , Reply# 9 4/7/2010 at 16:51 (5,126 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)
Checkrate/Likes My mother's Miele W423 from 1975 and as far as I know also older models from Miele used around 20 liters in the main wash, so 20 liters needed to be heated. At the end of the main wash extra water was added up to a total of around 30 liters.

Post# 427479 , Reply# 11 4/7/2010 at 17:10 (5,126 days old) by LordKenmore (The Laundry Room)
Checkrate/Likes Having at least some heat in water does make a huge difference. At one time, I did the thing the green people told me to do, and used nothing but cold water. Then, I switched to warm, and was stunned at how much cleaner clothes were. I haven't tried really hot water yet...I use top loaders, and so I'm locked into what the water heater supplies, which is considerably cooler than 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Plus, I'd feel guilty using so much hot water. Although, I have wondered if hot water really is such an environmental problem compared to chlorine bleach, which most Americans use chlorine bleach to whiten whites, and kill germs. Chlorine is not exactly a friendly chemical, and I've wondered if chlorine may not cause more of an environmental problem than heating water to a high temperature.

Post# 427486 , Reply# 13 4/7/2010 at 17:49 (5,126 days old) by ronhic (Canberra, Australia)
Checkrate/Likes *Australia....* ....is an interesting combination of various different options of doing laundry...and all you Aussies feel free to correct or add to this too please... If we accept that the wringer machine of the 1930's was when things started to get interesting (and 'affordable'), then Australia, did much the same as the US and Europe and a few things a little differently... Wringers and twin-tubs which could reuse the wash and/or rinse water were the norm until the mid-late 1960's....they were reasonably economical to use with many people doing 'whites' then 'coloureds' or 'overalls' in the second use... Then came the Automatics...full size, American style machines generally though there were European machines such as the Keymatic too. Our top loaders could generally be had with an internal heater depending on the model... But automatics were very expensive so manufacturers here did away with the automatic part and left people with a dial that was basically a big switch with wash/heat/drain/fill/spin and sometimes 'suds-return' options...whichever part of the process you select would continue until you moved the dial....you could still re-use the wash water (or rinse) so they were economical too. COme the mid 1970's Automatics were the go though you could still get twin tubs, wringers and possibly semi-autos. Water consumption seemed to be on the increase with multiple rinses (spray and deep) becoming more common....heaters seem to start fading from list too around this time in top-loaders and Hoover Australia started to manufacture the Zodiac 12 machines based on the British Hoovers but without a dispenser drawer and with the option of no heater... Australia was a land of the top-loader...mostly based on American designs or concepts such as the Fluid Drive system as an example... Come the late 1980's and energy costs were starting to rise. Detergents (Cold power in particular) were being promoted as suitable for cold water washing and gradually people changed....especially if they tried it for a quarter and saw the impact on their power bills.... Now we move forward... Many parts of Oz are hit with water restrictions with some areas literally down to xxx litres per day. Water, and to a lesser degree, power/energy efficiency are the drivers that Governments want us to focus on. We use a star system for appliances. Generally many councils will offer a rebate if the machine is 4* rated or better. This equates to roughly 10litres per kg of clothes washed.... As a result, front load machine purchase is on the rise as all of them are at least 4* rated. Some top load machines are too, but when you read some of their manuals they suggest not using certain programmes for, say towels, as they need more water.... ...and many are still washing in cold even though all our front load machines come with heaters - habits are hard to break though I have had success with one friend...she was stunned at the difference after washing at 40c in a front load machine compared to cold in her top load machine... So there we have it... We've gone from Wringers to Front loaders and had every variation on a theme - with and without heaters, auto and semi auto and many have changed detergent/water temp preferences in the light of rising energy costs....