Comments on: Don’t connect the hot water supply to the cold valve on a cold-fill washing machine

By: glen

glen — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:56:45 +0000

Depending on how far your sink is, you can get an attachment that fits onto the u bend of the sink waste pipe. A tap can be fitted by any semi competent DIY person as you can use compression fixing which have no need for soldering which requires a degree of skill and more specialist tools.

By: david

david — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:44:54 +0000

I think you may have to get someone in to do this. Was there a machine there before that was connected to the waste pipe. I think you can get a kit in B&Q to connect the cold feed to your pipe,but you will need to turn off the water and drill a hole in the pipe. This could be a disaster if you do it wrong. If you get someone in get a Price 1st there are a lot of crooks in the plumbing game as you probably know.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:03:27 +0000

I have just bought a new cold water fill washing machine but there is only a tap connected to the hot water supply under the kitchen sink to connect it to. There is a cold water pipe but no tap and no where for the waste water to go what should i do and can i do this myself or roughly how much is it going to cost me to get it done? HELP!!

By: Ratchet

Ratchet — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:50:59 +0000

I’ve got to say that after reading most of the information on this site that I still want a hot and cold fill washing machine as I feel that it would best suit our needs. One of the kids is sensitive to enzymes so we use non bio powder. I am eco minded and have solar panels being installed on my farmhouse which is undergoing renovation. I will have oodles of hot water from it and wood burning stoves. I have 4 very dirty kids and a dirty partner (stop giggling). We’re farmers and live on the farm hence there is an enormous amount of filthy washing to be done on a daily basis so we require a large capacity machine. Our house is being insulated to the nth degree, pipe runs are quite short and all pipes are lagged so although there will be heat loss it will be kept as low as we can manage. However our old water comes direct (no cold water tank) from our own spring and is very very cold. much colder than water that has been within the envelope of the house. So for us a hot & cold fill machine would be advantageous. I realise that my particular circumstances are not the norm but in more and more people are putting solar panels on their roofs and insulating their houses and apparently the incidence of asthma and exzema are increasing which may translate to more use of non-bio powder. So more people might be looking for a hot & cold fill washer. My remedy for my problem if I can’t find such a machine will be to fit a thermostatic mixing valve to the cold supply of the machine set at about 30 degrees. It might/might not work but hey nothing ventured nothing gained.

By: WMUser

WMUser — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 21:10:35 +0000

I will make this clear to everyone who hasn’t read my comments in other blogs on the whitegoodshelp site: WARM WATER from start to finish is superior to cold. The key word here is WARM water and not hot.

If you can start off with warm water at 30 – 35C MAXIMUM, that is ideal and enzymes in biological detergents will not be affected, in fact the enzymes will work immediately. The problem with cold water is the enzymes won’t work until the water temperature is warm, so power is wasted warming the water from cold.

Yes, warm water to start with can cut down on the time performed washing, but modern washing machines wash for far too long, which is one reason (of many) why they are less reliable now and clothing looks worn-out quicker. Shorter wash times will only be a problem if the main wash time was too short, say if it was reduced to washing for just 15 minutes instead of 1 hour.

Again, as some readers will know by reading my other comments in different areas of whitegoodshelp – warm water rinsing is far better than cold – it dissolves the detergent and removes all perfumes – which have been found to irritate skin (watch out as virtually all fabric conditioners, except Surcare, have perfumes). Also the warm water rinses will continue cleaning the clothes, so you get extra ‘washes’ too. :) I can now use less fabric conditioner than I used to and the clothes feel softer now compared to when I rinsed them in cold water using more conditioner.

I’ve found it quicker to fill up a large jug from the hot tap and tip the hot water into the soap drawer – this is the only time the water must be hot, as the water that’s already in the washing machine is cold. It makes no sense having spare hot water going unused, as the shower uses the hot and cold taps and little hot water gets used elsewhere. It would be different if hot water was being used to run a bath, but most people have showers fitted, either electric showers or showers connected to the hot and cold.