Hi there,

My washing machine has a ‘economy wash’ setting on the dial but it takes over 2 hours!! How can that be more efficient than the 30-minute program?

Dan

It’s a good question. It’s obvious that an economy setting should use less…well, less something than a standard wash – so let’s see if we can explain what’s going on behind the dial.

Firstly, ‘economy wash’ will be compared to the machine’s standard wash – while the 30 minute program is a shortened program, designed for clothes that aren’t that dirty in the first place.

Before thinking about which program we select, here’s the basic washing process:

• Add water and detergent and warm it all up
• Bounce things about for a bit
• Drain off the now dirty water, add fresh water (maybe with conditioner)
• Bounce the clothes about a bit more
• Drain while spinning the drum to push out the excess water

The average ‘normal wash’ cycle will take about 90 minutes to go through those steps. Now, the ‘short wash’ program is going to cut out some of the bouncy bit to save time. It’s almost certainly fixing the wash temperature to 30^oC rather than 40^oC (actually not a bad thing anyway: see this ‘Granny said’ myth) and may well cut down on the volume of water it adds to the drum. For clothes that are lightly soiled this will be sufficient to clean them – but dried-in stains and ingrained dirt will need more time to soak and more bashing to get the muck to break free from the fabric. Think of it as the difference between a roasting tray with burnt-on fat vs. a side-plate that’s been used to make a jam sandwich: we can get away with wiping the plate with a sponge and giving it a quick rinse; the other needs a good soaking and far more elbow-grease to clean up.

Back to our washing machine and its eco-cycle. Compared to the standard wash, its ‘eco mode’ will use a lower wash temperature and less water but, to compensate, will spend more time bashing things around in the drum because that’s an energy efficient way to clean clothes. It might – machine’s vary – also cut down on the quantity of detergent that gets added. Same with the rinse cycle: more time but less water. The spinning will might go on for longer, too – and possibly building up to a higher maximum spin speed: it’s fairly cheap to spin a drum and it means the clothes need less onward energy to dry fully.

In short: the eco mode is designed to replace the machine’s standard wash cycle. The quick cycle serves a different but equally useful purpose.

So. Do we use the ‘quick wash’, standard cycle or eco mode? Of those, the standard cycle is the last one to pick in our view. If you’re dealing with the clothing equivalent of side plates used for sandwiches then the quick wash will be ideal: it’s energy efficient and, well, quick. The economy wash should really be our go-to setting for most things (aside from the delicates that need a cold wash, etc) as the best balance between cleaning power and energy usage. Just remember to factor-in the extra time: saving energy is sometimes going to be a compromise.