Kitchen Appliances / Washing Machines

It can sometimes seem that doing the washing is a never-ending, futile task, with the laundry basket filling up almost as soon as you have emptied it. Though a great washing machine won’t reduce the speed at which the laundry pile builds up, it can at least deal efficiently with dirty clothes – delivering outstanding washing, rinsing and spinning to leave them spotless. Our Choice Buy models excel at lifting dirt and grime to provide effective cleaning and pristine results.

Washing machines today offer a range of added features, some of which you may find more useful than others. These features include electronic displays that allow you to check the stage a programme is at and how long it has left to run, variable spin speeds that let you lower the spin speed to protect delicate or woollen items, and extra rinse programmes that can be beneficial for those with allergies or sensitivities to washing powder. When buying a washing machine, you need to work out which features are important to you, so that you don’t end up paying for extras that you will never use.

Larger-capacity washing machines

An average washing machine can take about 7kg of laundry, but manufacturers today are producing machines with drums that can take up to 11kg of dirty clothes. These machines can be useful for large families and can prove more economical. Compared with smaller machines, water and energy use per kilogram of laundry are frequently lower for larger-capacity washing machines – but only when you put on a full load. Big machines use large amounts of water, so if you don’t fill them up, a lot of water is wasted.

Maximising water and energy efficiency

According to uswitch.ie, laundry is one of the biggest sources of energy cost for consumers, with the average washing machine alone accounting for up to 7% of a household’s electricity bills. With energy costs continuing to rise and the introduction of water charges, many households are looking to use their washing machine as efficiently as possible. Beyond choosing an energy-efficient appliance when making a purchase, the following are some steps you can take to maximise efficiency:

1. To get the best value out of the water and energy you are using, try to wait until you have a full load to wash. Even if your washing machine is smart enough to detect the weight of the load and reduce water consumption accordingly, half loads will use the same amount of electricity. The 40°C cottons cycle on washing machines is designed to take a full drum load of laundry so when you are buying a new appliance, consider whether you will be able to fill an 8-kg or 9-kg drum on a regular basis, and if not, it might be better to opt for a smaller capacity machine that holds up to 6kg or 7kg of clothes.
2. Lowering the temperature of your wash – switching from 40° to 30°, for example – can often achieve cleaning results that are as just good with today’s detergents while using a very significant 40% less electricity and also being gentler on the environment. There is, however, a downside in that regularly washing at 40°C or less will not completely eliminate mould and bacteria from your appliance. To deal with the build-up of mould and the possibility of a resulting musty smell, it is necessary to do a service wash once a month, which involves running the machine without any clothes at a high temperature of 60˚C. See our “Getting rid of musty smells” section below.
3. Extra-rinse programmes are wasteful of water, so try to avoid using these unless really necessary – for example, if someone has sensitive skin in the household and you want to make sure as much detergent as possible is removed from laundry. If you are finding detergent residue on your freshly washed clothes, rather than immediately reverting to the extra-rinse programme, check that you are not overloading the machine and try using less detergent – tests by our colleagues at Choice magazine in Australia show that you can use up to one-quarter of the recommended amount of a top-performing detergent and still get a good wash
4. Treat heavily soiled items of clothing with a suitable detergent or soap before popping them into the washing machine as this will help eliminate the need to rewash garments that come out of the drum still stained at the end of the washing cycle.

Noise reduction

Spin drying is the noisiest stage of the washing cycle, but you can keep this noise to a minimum by making sure that your machine is level in all directions and reducing any problems that can arise from imbalance. Also, the machine will be quietest when you follow the manufacturer’s recommendation about the optimum load for the appliance. Small loads can be noisy as there is more room in the drum for the clothes to move about and this can cause the load to be unbalanced.

Getting rid of musty smells

Many consumers today are washing their clothes at 30˚C and 40˚C as a way of cutting down on their energy use for both financial and environmental reasons. However, some people who continuously wash at 40˚C or below can find that the drum of the machine smells musty due to the growth of mould and bacteria that higher temperatures can remove. This problem can be solved by doing a service wash once a month to clean the machine out. This involves running the machine without any clothes at a high temperature of 60˚C. Manufacturers’ instruction manuals often contain recommendations for what cycle to use for cleaning the drum. Leaving the both the machine’s door and detergent drawer open after use lets the air circulate and helps to prevent the growth of mould and bacteria.