With the advent of larger drum capacities using a lot more water, the fact that many people don’t use biological detergents and the growing number of people with solar powered hot water there’s a case to argue that washing machines should be more sophisticated in this area and not just cater for a majority.

a) Andy’s point (post 493) is correct in so far as it’s only the main wash water and, in a small number of machines, the final rinse water, that are going to use any hot water at all.

b) The argument is still completely false as modern machines use so little water to rinse that a large proportion of the total consumption is actually on the wash phase. E.g. at least 6 machines that I can think of use so little on rinses (which is why they get diabolical Which? reviews for rinsing) that just over 40% of the total used is on washing. Siemens don’t make any that I’m thinking of however if we take the example that Richard has posted in post 492, and assume that machine uses water in a similar way to the 6 I’m thinking of, then roughly 25 liters of water is used on the wash phase…..which IMHO is worth drawing hot for in anyone’s money.

For what it’s worth, the cold fill only argument was probably dreamt up by some idiotic civil servant who didn’t understand the first thing about washers, or by some washer designer who hoped the customers didn’t know anything, back in the days when washers actually did rinse properly, thereby using probably 75% of the water on rinses. I still don’t accept teh argument because too many people, from all walks of life and with all levels of expertise, have the proof in their own homes that it just doesn’t work, however I’ll concede that when washers used maybe up to 70 litres to do a full cycle, but only about 15 of those were heated, then at least on paper the cold fill only idea may have looked like it had some merit.