Which? have so far thoroughly tested 125 washing machines & washer dryers. Most manufacturers have at least one of their appliances tested and the more popular makes have had as many as 15 different models tested.
One remarkable thing stands out, and it’s something I find astounding. According to Which? they are almost all not good enough at rinsing. Even some washing machines and washer dryers singled out as a Which? “Best Buy” have been “poor” at rinsing and believe it or not at least one best Buy is “very poor” (accurate at time of writing).
From studying the figures it is clear that if “good”, or “very good” rinsing was one of the prerequisites for a Which? Best Buy there would be no Best Buy washing machines or washer dryers at all – not a single one. It appears that Which? have decided to allow the poor rinsing results to be a caveat instead of a best buy killer. Please note however that several Which? best buys are “satisfactory” at rinsing which is something at least.
Out of the 125 washing machines and washer dryers tested, a remarkable 75 of them (60%) were rated either “poor” or “very poor” at rinsing with only 3 getting the rating we should expect for all washing machines which is “good”. The rest were a mere “satisfactory”. To summarise, just less than 3 % of the 125 washers & dryers are “good” at rinsing according to Which?
[Since writing this article I've discovered Which? no longer give the majority of washing machines 1 or 2 star ratings for rinsing ability, and the majority appear to get 3 or 4 stars. Which? tell me they've readjusted their rinse marks to more accurately reflect the degrees of abilities between even poor rinsing machines. However, they are still critical of many of their rinsing abilities in the comments and the pros and cons.]
What does this mean?
Well for a start it doesn’t mean that we can settle for one of the three washing machines that are “good” at rinsing because they unfortunately let themselves down in other areas such as with “noisy spin, and poor brand reliability”. However, if you really need a washing machine that rinses better than any other – maybe because of allergies – then at least Which? have identified three candidates out of the 125 they’ve tested so far. I have to advise though that you should go for them only if good rinsing is your most important requirement and are prepared to accept big compromises elsewhere – as long as it rinses well.
How have we ended up in this situation and does it really matter anyway?
Surely all washing machines should rinse well? It’s surely quite simple, you just use enough water to rinse them properly. It’s astounding that we have reached the situation where the majority of washing machines and washer dryers on sale in the UK are apparently poor at rinsing.
This has probably come about because people have been focussing on other aspects, which has left rinsing as a low priority. Two explanations spring to mind. Firstly, the focus on using less and less water is clearly impacting on our washing machine’s ability to rinse effectively. Whereas modern detergents can facilitate efficient and effective washing results at lower temperatures and with less water, no such product is currently allowing effective rinsing with much less water. Good rinsing needs plenty of water which is in direct opposition to the current environmental concerns and clamour to be the washing machine using the least amount of water.
The second explanation I can think of is that the eco-labelling system which awards ratings for energy efficiency, spin efficiency and wash efficiency do not appear to take into account rinse efficiency. As such, manufacturers aren’t being judged on how well their washing machines rinse, only on how well they wash and how well they extract water on spin. I’m speculating at this stage, but I can’t see how so many washing machines could be awarded an “A” wash efficiency rating if the tests took into account how well the clothes were rinsed. Presumably, as long as all stains are removed and laundry looks “clean” no one bothers about how much soap detergent residue is left.
It might be a good idea to create a fourth category, “rinse efficiency” on the eco labels, or at least include the rinse efficiency as part of the wash efficiency test.
Ultimately if customers don’t notice an issue then it could be argued that it doesn’t really matter. Maybe it doesn’t for most people but it surely does to anyone sensitive to wash detergents and with allergies and there are many comments being added on this topic from such people. The current situation is that to anyone keen to buy a washing machine with good rinsing I have no washing machine to recommend because none of the companies producing the best, and the most reliable washing machines currently supply one that rinses above average according to Which? (although this could easily change and you would need to see the latest Reviews of 247 washing machines including the top performing Best Buys to be sure).
Are Which? wrong?
Are Which? being too critical? Are Which? applying too stringent a rinse test? I must admit I’ve not had many complaints from people saying their washing machine isn’t rinsing properly and my own Miele washing machine, which although a Which? Best Buy, didn’t receive a “good” rating for rinsing yet it appears to rinse perfectly well as far as myself and Mrs. Washerhelp can see. In fact I remarked to my wife that my clothes don’t smell of detergent like they used to in the old washing machine and deduced that it rinsed much better.
The thing about Which? is that they are totally independent. They work only for their subscribers interests and are actually a registered charity. They don’t make any money by recommending any product (even though they could) because they want to be seen as 100% unbiased. They are highly respected and I expect they test products fairly.
I suspect Which? are right and that modern washing machines don’t generally rinse very well because of the reasons I speculate about above. Whether it matters or whether it will change depends on whether enough of the public are bothered, or even notice. Comments added to this article below show that some people do find this a big issue. Please add your comment if you have an opinion on this matter.
Related links:
Which? research
NOTE: Which? do rate some washing machines as “satisfactory” for rinsing and even a couple are rated as “good” although unfortunately the few rated good (so far) are not so good on reliability.
Which? are constantly reviewing washing machines so if rinsing is particularly important to you it makes sense to become a member and see all the buying advice. I can’t print their advice for copyright reasons.
Here’s how they describe their reviews -
“We are of course well known for our traditional product testing. And when we test something like the proverbial washing machine, we will ask the laboratory not only to measure how clean the clothes get, but how much water and energy is used? How easy is it to work out the programmes? What is the machine like on specialist cycles? How long does it take? All these things feed into our best buy criteria. We will devise the testing schedule by looking at things from the ordinary user’s point of view: and if standard industry methods are not good enough we will devise our own methods”
Which? Best washing machine brands guide – 1 month trial offer available (access to full reports and all of the Which? online data available to subscribers only. Some useful information is still available to non-members and there is a great trial offer available – What do I get when I take a trial? ).
Causes of poor rinsing
There are some common causes of poor rinsing even in washing machines that do rinse well that it might be useful to point out. Anyone experiencing poor rinsing problems where washing comes out with detergent residues or white powder streaks should read this -
White streaks or residual washing powder after washing
Modern washing machines that are good at rinsing?
Which? washing machine reviews and test data available to Which? members. ( Which? Best washing machine brands guide – 1 month trial offer available )
Rinsing Capabilities of Washing Machines.
We heartily endorse these conclusions. For thirty years we had a succession of Hotpoint top loading machines which produced clean washing with little detectable powder residue using Persil . Towels were clean, soft and fluffy. Terry nappies could be washed and sterilised using the hot wash. These machines used full measures of washing powder and large quantites of water. When the last machine was beyond repair we purchased a Hotpoint Ultima WF 860. This has the energy and water economies now deemed necessary. However we immediately noticed that the towels were hard and the bedding activated breathing allergies.
Washing powder was reduced to the absolute usable minimum, about a table spoonful for a full load. Subsequent experiments, with care not to overload the machine, extra machine rinses, rinsing in the sink by hand and subsequent spinning in the machine have produced the following conclusions :
• Towels retain the most powder residue, the water in the sink becomes totally cloudy even after two extra machine rinses. The fluffy texture previously produced cannot be replicated, even using a good tumble drier. Towels hung out to dry without any tumbling dry like board.
• Heavy cottons like sheets retain large mounts of powder residue unless rinsed in the sink.
• Light cottons like underwear retain less, but can still irritate unless hand rinsed.
• Artificial fibres retain the least powder residue.
The problem can be diminished by using Ecover liquid wash, but this is not suitable for all washes.
Ecoballs, or the Lakeland equivalent do not leave residue, but the fabrics are often harsh, and stains are left despite the use of the stain removing cream supplied. The application of this is a fiddly extra job.
Through the good offices of John Lewis who supplied the machine two Hotpoint engineers visited us, and were both surprised by the amount of powder residue revealed in hand rinses. The machine was deemed to be working satisfactorily by the manufacturers.
It would seem to us that controlled experiments under laboratory conditions are necessary to measure the amount of powder residue left in fabrics by modern washing machines. Those with skin or respiratory allergies are at risk from the present generation of machines which may be energy efficient and use little water, but do not rinse clothes effectively.
P & E Kenyon.
I agree with the statement about not rinsing properly, I repair appliances for a living and have a 30 year old Hotpoint top loader myself, It is far more reliable than any new machines and far easier to repair. But the main thing is it washes and rinses better than any other machine I have tested, and I have tested them all. Also it will complete a 60 degree whites load in under an hour if the water going in is hot enough, and the towels are WHITE!! not shades of grey. My work jeans go in on a 40 degree wash covered in grease etc and cutting oil and come out clean after only 45 mins. The only down side to this is the water consumtion, but that is more than compensated for by the reliabity and longevity of the machine itself. I have many customers to
whom I have supplied reconditioned top loaders to replace new machines that just arent doing the job they are supposed to.
Mark.
Top loading washing machines do use a lot more water than front loaders although Which? don’t rate them very highly saying none of the ones they tested were good enough to be best buys.
They do tend to be more reliable too but they cost more to run. The extra water usage probably does make them rinse better. Each time a “problem” is addressed it causes another as in this case where the “problem” of using too much water is solved at the expense of reducing rinsing efficiency significantly.
* Online 30 Day trial available
Couldn’t agree more about the poor rinsing of modern washing machines. When my fifteen year old machine died, I bought another and had vague suspicions that it wasn’t rinsing properly. Quite by accident, my suspicions have been proved correct by a newly purchased set of Ecoballs, which require no detergent. The first time I used the balls on towels which had previously been washed tradionally, I was horrified to find that the machine was filled with foam and I had to do two extra rinses even though I had used NO DETERGENT. To think that we were using these ‘clean’ towels to dry ourselves, when all along we were smearing ourselves with chemicals. My daughter has mild eczema and I am interested to see if this clears up.
I have been using the Ecoballs for a fortnight now and so far find them to wash perfectly satisfactorily, except for my dishcloths which tend to pong a bit, although a quick soak in a mild bleach solution seems to have solved the problem. It is true that the Ecoballs aren’t perfect – it doesn’t remove stains and you must use a stain remover – but at least my washing isn’t chemical-ridden.
I have a 20 yr old Hotpoint 9520 which had no repairs appart from brushes in all that time. Whilst having to ultimately renew the drum bearings/spider etc I decided to get a new backup machine. I chose a Bosch WEA 24162 not thinking about rinsing efficiency. I am very unhappy with the rinsing of the Bosch. The washing smells stronly of detergent even after 1 or 2 additional rinses and using the extra water button. I completely agree with your opinions and am at a loss as how to pick a suitable machine. For me poor or inadequate rinsing is a major drawback which it seems all current machines suffer. I tend to wash all important things, towels etc in the old Hotpoint and socks, jeans etc in the bosch if I use the Bosch at all. By the way Bosch say its not a problem and I must use a certain powder to avoid undisolved powder which I noticed on the door seal. I’d rather have properly rinsed washing and forgo washing the car to be environmentally friendly.
Kevin, if rinsing is an important issue you should check out the Which? washing machine and washer dryer guides, each of which has a rinsing rating. These are affiliate links, which help Washerhelp and Whitegoodshelp if used (at no cost to the user) but I can honestly say that after being a member of Which? online for over a year now I would not buy any expensive product without checking the Which? reports and best buys out first.
(access to full reports and all of the Which? online data available to subscribers only. Some useful information is still available to non-members and there is a great free 30 day trial offer available)
My son has eczema and therefore I need a washing machine that rinses well. I too have noticed that my aeg electrolux washing machine despite being a best buy still shows soap suds in the machine from a previous wash if I put a washing load in without detergent.
I usually have 2 washing machines due to having 3 children as it is easier to get through the laundry quickly. My new 9kg best buy Bosch washer despite only owning it for just over 3 weeks has now broken as the rubber door seal pulled away and got tangled in a pair of trousers! The company I bought this from have agreed to replace the machine but this model has now been replaced or discontinued . I am unsure which model to replace it with as this company do not sell siemens washers which seem to be the only other usually reliable brand that is reasonable at rinsing..
Ruth: If they are replacing a faulty washing machine so soon, and particularly as they cannot supply another – and do not have one you want then you should be able to get your money back and buy from elsewhere.
If you want to research consumer issues I have a section here – Consumer advice – washing machines
This Which article and the resulting comments have made me SO cross. About 10 or so years ago I discovered that modern automatic washing machines just do not rinse properly – full stop, end of story. I reached this conclusion following a long period of time, during which my young daughter developed eczema, I was scratching my shins raw to the point where they were bleeding, and our bed linen was covered in blood where my husband had scratched himself raw round his neck, chest, back and legs. I deduced this was caused by biological washing powders, but changing to non-bio made no difference. I then decided to test that the machine was rinsing by plunging a towel into a bowl of hot water – well, it was as if it had never been rinsed! Then followed about 6 years of arguing with Bosch that their washing machines didn’t rinse properly, engineers coming out – one idiot told me that the white soapy froth in the water was surfactant! I pointed out to him that surfactant IS soap, stupid man – we ended up with John Lewis replacing the Bosch with a Miele, but the problem is still there. The scientific fact of the matter is that to remove detergent from clothes you need two things : warm or hot water AND plenty of it. Modern washing machines have neither – you cannot buy a modern machine that rinses in hot water, and neither can you buy a modern machine that uses sufficient amounts of water.
So I have to spend hours of my precious time rinsing, rinsing and rerinsing laundry by hand, spinning it out in the washing machine, and then starting the process all over again over and over again to get rid of the soap. For the last 3 years I have been too busy to do this, the result is that all our clothing and linen has a massive soap build up again, we are scratching ourselves to death, and I now have got a huge problem once again trying to rid my laundry of detergent.
It is absolutely ridiculous – AND to add insult to injury I wrote to Which and told them about this all those years ago and they basically said they couldn’t understand what I was talking about, that their tests showed that modern washing machines were very good at rinsing.
What a load of tosh !
Sorry to be a party pooper but I am a bit concerned that some important factors are being left out of this discussion.
If I recall correctly, Which tests rinsing by measuring the alkalinity of the water (detergent is alkaline) and also comparing the results to a high speed 2,800rpm industrial spinner. Tests like this are good and have indicated rinsing is frequently poor.
However, some of the home tests posted here seem to judge rinsing by foam or suds. Suds must be present for genuine soaps to clean but suds do not have to be present for detergents to clean. In the case of a detergent, suds are still useful as an indcator during the wash that some active detergent is left over and therefore there is not a shortfall. But foam is actually a problem in the actual wash part of the cycle. It prevents proper wetting of the fabric, buffers the fabric from a physical agitation, limits the passage of dirt from fabric, etc. Foam is unwanted during the actual wash, so foam inhibitors are an ingredient of laundry detergents.
When the foam inhibitor gets removed by the rinsing then left-over detergent will create lots and lots of suds. They are usually thin and wispy suds. So paradoxically, as fabrics are rinsed and rinsed (particularly if they are rinsed a lot) after the washing part of the cycle then suds often increase.
Some posts mention how suds appear when washing towels without using any detergent at all. I agree there must be some detergent but it may be so little and be so dilute as to not be particularly significant. (Of course, the person with eczema can not tolerate even this much but many people can.)
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I might add an observation to posting by Nikki Jenkins (13NOV2007) in which Nikki takes her visiting Bosch engineer to task for saying what could be seen was only surfactant. To slightly over-simplify, not all surfactants are detergents. Laundry fabric conditioners are surfactants (usually cationic) but they are poor at cleaning. The majority of household liquid disinfectant is also surfactant. So are many hair conditioners. In fact, if a washing machine is foaming over due to incorrect detergent dosing then adding conditioner (a surfactant) to the detergent water (mainly surfactant) will dampen down the foam quite significantly.
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Just to make life a bit more complicated, some formulations of laundry detergent (Tesco Liquid Bio comes to mind) actually do contain quite a large proportion of genuine soap whereas something like Persil Liquid Bio contains much less. This gives washing machine “foam watchers” an extra challenge in order to determin whether rinsing has been done properly.
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All this is by way of saying that suds can be a very poor indicator of good rinsing. (And that knowing a little about detergents can cause misleading conclusions.)
Party pooper? I wouldn’t say that was the case at all. Your comments are welcome and you sound like you have knowledge on the subject. However, If you say that the Which? tests are good, and do indeed indicate rinsing is frequently poor then there’s a reasonable chance that the presence of suds people have reported is an indication of poor rinsing.
You make an important point that the presence of suds is not necessarily an indication of poor rinsing although it’s confusing as logically if thoroughly rinsed everything should be removed.
I remember hearing that the suds are added for the consumer only, as they don’t like it when they can’t see soap suds, which they equate to cleaning. As you say, they are not necessary at all and in fact inhibit cleaning.
The whole issue is a puzzle because how can someone judge if their washing machine is rinsing properly other than if the rinse water is clear? I even read an article in the paper the other day that says researchers have found that detergent doesn’t cause skin irritation or allergy – even biological detergent ( Biological detergents not guilty? “Biological enzymes do not cause skin irritation” ).
At the end of the day Which? tests say that most washing machines are poor at rinsing which should be unacceptable. The trouble is, I don’t get many people complaining about poor rinsing so maybe it’s purely theoretical in that they still rinse adequately for most people.
I am fed up with the new general washer & I absolutely argree that modern washers are rubbish in rinsing. I had a Samsung silver nano last year which has a design fault of being too sensitive to balance the load in order to get to spin ( takes forever to finish one spin). Rinsing is terrible as well.
I changed to Zanussi 1227 & I am very unhappy with it as well because it uses so little water. Many times I took out the load to check after it’s been washed a few minutes in the washer, to my annoyance, my clothes or towels etc are not even completely wet, ( I tried half load to full loading the washer). It uses more or less same amount of water for the rinse cycles. So obviously how such little amount of water can do a proper rinse? Even if you are not bothered with the soap being removed or not, if you look at the water of the last rinse, they still look murky with dirt particles!
With the modern washers using very little water for rinsing, I noticed that in order to try to get so called efficient rinsing with little water, the washers are now programmed to have much longer spinning time in order to squeeze out as much water as possible from the load. With the laundry are fast spinned much longer; they get demaged or worn out more quickly; my new towels look as if they’ ve been used 10 years just after several washes!
Everytime I do the laundry, I have to spend lots of time to add extra water through the soap dispenser to increase the water level. I am trying to find a old generation washer which would do a more decent rinse even if it’s second hand.
Being a member of Thought Field Therapy (TFT)Association, I myself & many other fellow members have used TFT & various methods to test allergies for thousands of clients. Majority of people tested are found to be affected by most laundry products (detergent & conditioner) even though they are not aware of it at all, but their health are actually affected somehow. Few people get skin irritation by using them, but that doesn’t mean our health are not affected.
Just by smelling clothes which has been washed with laundry products, our sympathetic nervous system immediately show some signs of being negatively affected; (this can be measured with some equipment). How much worse when our skin are constantly absorbing the toxins from the clothes we wear or from the bed linens we sleep on, day in & day out. Eco Balls are found to be much more tolerable by the people tested. Ecover range is better tolerated than other common brands, but every individual is different. I use Eco Ball myself.
Many sources (eg: Dr Hulda Clark in her Cancer books) commented that most common personal & household products, including laundry products are cancerous or harmful. There are many internets sources give such informations.
We live in a unavoidable toxic world with toxic food & substances every where; the modern generation of washers add more nonsense & harm!!!
I have recently had my 4 mth old Bosch front loader replaced with an Electrolux toploader and have had no end of problems with residual washing powder build up. It has got to the point now where after every load I have to remove half the load and re-rinse, then put in said remaining 1/2 load and re-rinse also. The kids’ school uniforms (navy) don’t even look clean for the start of the week because of soap build up. I’ve tried everything – dissolving the powder (only using 1/3 of recommended amount) in hot water for an hour while previous loads are finishing, using liquid wash detergent (which apparently is a no-no because it’s a low suds machine), putting it down the middle, on the bottom (before washing goes in) and around top, hot load, warm load, cold load! NOTHING IS WORKING!!! I too have a child with eczema and he is starting to itch like crazy. You would think with all this modern technology at our fingertips they could sort out a decent machine with a proper rinse cycle or a decent powder that doesn’t cost the earth. As for my water-aid eco friendly machine – well it’s not so eco friendly or water aiding at all because I’m having to run it three times per load to effectively rinse everything through.
Hello Teri: I’ve written a new article especially to address your problem, it may not contain the answer but you never know. Hopefully it will help. Residual washing powder after washing
18 months ago, much against my husband’s advice because of the expense, I purchased a Miele washing machine because having done my homework I decided that the brand was definately the best. I am bitterly dissapointed by its inability to rinse thoroughly (I never for one moment investigated this possibility as my old machine rinsed perfectly). Despite trying every type of washing substance, powder, tablets, liquid etc, it still fails to rinse. My husband who had slight eczema, is now having medical treatment in an attempt to reduce his symptoms. I daren’t tell him that I believe the washing machine is to blame or I wouldn’t hear the end of it!! Cannot believe that this brand, I paid £800 for my model, fails to live up to its reputation in this area. Sadly I cannot afford to replace the machine and have resorted to using the tiniest amount of detergent at the expense of best cleaning results.
Of all washing machines you would expect Miele to be the best performance-wise not just in build quality. I wrote my article after learning that even miele washing machnes were often “poor” at rinsing according to Which? However, as pointed out in my article the majority of people don’t seem to have a problem with the standard of rinsing modern washing machines give.
If people are allergic to detergent though it is a different matter although I’m not sure how anyone can know for sure it is the washing detergent causing the irritation as it’s a complex issue ( Biological detergents not guilty? “Biological enzymes do not cause skin irritation” )
Here is a useful guide from the UK eczema society regarding laundry & cleaning which may be useful to anyone with this issue.
Do you use fabric conditioner? That potentially could cause irritation but the blame may be assumed to lie with the detergent. The thing about fabric conditioner is that it doesn’t get rinsed off properly as it only goes into the machine on the very last rinse.
It’s also possible that something in the detergent you use has changed since aquiring the Miele and that could account for the increase in problems.
At the end of the day the washing detergent manufacturers have some responsibility here and as one of the items in the eczema society article points out, detergent manufacturers should have customer helplines for anyone with allergic reactions to their products which should be looked into.
Have you tried something like Dreft by the way? Advice from the eczema society regarding washing detergent is, “wash clothes in the minimum effective quantity of non-biological, un-perfumed washing powder. Give clothes an extra rinse. Avoid fabric conditioners.”
I’m not too sure that using less detergent is necessarily beneficial as it would affect wash efficiency which could alow other things to cause irritation and combined with low temperature washes could allow bacteria to build up. It will also stop the water softening agents working properly which could cause damage to the washing machine through limescale over a period of years. However, if reducing quantity has definitely helped it’s probably the less of two evils.
House mites can also cause problems and they can survive low temperature washing as a previous article of mine points out Dust mites and washing machines
Related: House dust mites and eczema
Apologies if some of my comments are things you are already aware of. I try to be comprehensive enough to help others following too.
after reading this I bought some eco balls and i am wondering if they release peroxide after picking them up while they were wet made my hand burn (b-u-r-n) like i touched bleach has anyone else noticed this? help!
Matt: There’s a few mentions of eco balls on Whitegoodshelp you might want to look at Search for eco balls
My understanding though is they don’t contain chemicals, which is why they are eco friendly. There are probably various versions knocking about these days, what are yours called? “Eco Balls” are the original and a trademarked name.
they are the original brand eco balls and they do list chemicals i think(?) I wonder what the co ball company has to say about this (im in agony here)
There’s more about them here Washing Clothes the Green Way? Independent Consumer Feedback
Here’s a quote from the review -
one thing i also dont understand is that it created suds
If you use a washing machine with nothing in at all it will usually still create some suds because of all the previous residue inside the machine, it could be that?. Eventually it should stop but it depends how long you’ve been using the eco balls.
i usually do a wash with nothing at all and it dosent create suds as soon as i took the eco balls out it stopped
I have to run the “Rinse” programme after the machine has finished, it means I get extra rinses and the softener is dispensed during the last rinse on the “Rinse” programme.
The disadvantages: the machine takes nearly an hour longer to finish and it increases the “wear and tear”, but I’d rather my laundry is rinsed properly.
The clothes feel softer and don’t smell so strongly of detergent like they used to before I tried this method.
Worth a try?
It shouldn’t be necessary to run the entire rinse programmes again but with many washing machines you can’t select individual rinses any more. Many people actually like the smell of detergent and it’s specially perfumed to that end. If you have an extra rinse option button it’s worth trying that.
Make sure you don’t overload which can reduce rinse efficiency.
Just by chance I have come across this wonderful web-site and have been so thrilled to realise that I am not the only one to be so disappointed with a washing machine which is useless at rinsing. Six years ago when I bought my Zanussi machine, I complained to the retailer (with no success) and to Zanussi about the ineffectiveness of its rinsing. After much correspondence between Zanussi and myself I was left feeling that I was an oddity,
and that I didn’t appreciate advances in washing machine technology. I also felt so frustrated that I could not convince Zanussi of the utter uselessness of the rinsing function of the machine. Although I have reduced the amount of detergent to the smallest amount feasable, I frequently have to carry out extra rinses, and on occasion I have been known to wash by HAND to ensure thorough rinsing. Wonderful web-site. Thank you!
I have had a Miele for about 3 years. I thought I was buying the best in the business, but its rinsing capabilities are risible; I have to give the towels no fewer than 3 separate rinse after the wash has finished, and they STILL feel like planks and need to be tumbledried. So do the jeans. I have to use the “water plus” button on every wash no matter what the contents, and I only ever use a single bubble of detergent. I have had Miele engineers around but they say it is working normally. Well, this normally isn’t good enough. I would change it but the blog tells us that Which? says none rinses properly. Lets all write to the manufacturers and tell them their products do not reach the standard required as far as rinsing is concerned. Go on. Do it. I have.
Ann: I’ve added the following to the article after your comment -
Which? do rate some washing machines as “satisfactory” for rinsing and even a couple are rated as “good” although unfortunately the few rated good (so far) are not so good on reliability.
Which? are constantly reviewing washing machines so if rinsing is particularly important to you it makes sense to become a member and see all the buying advice. I can’t print their advice for copyright reasons.
My old energy ‘inefficient’ water guzzling machine finally gave up the ghost in January of this year after 15 years of excellent service (and great rinsing).
So, I purchased a A*AA Hoover model (It’s one of the models with ‘fuzzy logic’ that calculates the amount of water to use.) having read over 200 positive online reviews. No rinsing issues were mentioned so I didn’t give it a thought. However, the rinsing is awful. Even reducing the amount of detergent to as little as 15mls still required me to do additional rinse cycles because of excess suds. Not very energy efficient. I also noticed that the cold water going into the machine left powder or liquid residue in the drawer, meaning that some of this would be flushed down with the rinse cycle.
I tried loads of different UK marketplace detergents (including a couple of the new mega concentrated liquids that require tiny amounts, and found that they are no improvement on the regular type in terms of suds production) and the result was always the same. This worked out very expensive…but I was on a mission to find something that worked with this machine as I would have to live with it for a while.
Really cheesed off, I did some research and discovered this brilliant website where you happened to mention HE detergent which is produced for High Efficiency washing machines in the US. I gathered that HIgh Efficiency was their equivalent to our Energy Efficient machines. More research and I discovered that some ecological brands of HE detergent are exported from the US to the UK and are sold by ‘Green’ companies. I wasn’t on the lookout for any Biologicals, but they may be available too. Anyway, I ordered myself a bottle of low foaming HE, and it works! I have been using it for over a week now on all sizes and types of washes and haven’t needed to do one extra rinse cycle. The clothes etc. have come up great. And because it is less viscous, the entire dosage is washed from the drawer into the drum. I am so relieved to have found a solution.
So, what I’m left wondering is, why haven’t manufacturers of UK detergents revised their formulas in order to be compatible with the new energy efficient machines when this type is all that will be produced from now on? And why aren’t more consumers picking up on this issue?
Finally, I really wish that I had discovered your website before purchasing a new machine as its a great source of information.
I’ll still be doing my monthly maintenance wash!
Washerhelp, I’m providing this link to an online booklet entitled High Efficiency Washers and Detergents – Working in Harmony to Save Energy and Water. It explains in full (with illustrations!) why regular detergents won’t work in modern machines. I forgot to include it yesterday. I don’t know if you’ll want to post it or not…but I was thinking that it may help some folk out.
http://www.cleaning101.com/laundry/HE.pdf
Thanks Lynne: I’ll have a look at it and commment shorty.
I am looking for a new washing machine as my old (very old) Hotpoint 95620 is coming to the end, but it has been a wonderful machine, and rinses perfectly. I am wondering where the H E detergent can be purchased as i feel I will need it when l,hear all the complaints of non-rinsing machines. I wonder if the name of stockists could be published somewhere. Hopefully margaret Rutland
The HE article is refering to American style top loading washers, so unless you are in the US using a HE top loader and still using the high sudsing traditional top loader detergent it’s not something to be concerned about. It’s also dated 2005.
It refers to a change in the top loaders that traditionally had large central agitators and washed like the old twin tubs we had in the UK. As such they used high sudsing detergents – as did we in our twin tubs.
Back in 2005 a new type of top loader had started to become popular which had replaced the agitator with paddles similar to those used in front loading washing machines and used less water. This article says “traditional” detergent is no longer suitable for such machines and low sudsing (front loader) detergent is needed.
The automatic detergents in the UK are designed to be used in cold fill front loading washing machines and should work perfectly well if used correctly.
Poor rinsing has to be down to using less water on rinses as far as I can see. However, it must be remembered that detergent is designed to leave laundry smelling of it (usually a pleasant smell) and that suds-like foam in the final rinsing water is not necessarily evidence of poor rinsing as the strangely named “sorry to be a party pooper” mentioned in an earlier comment
I, too, am having trouble finding a washing machine that rinses well and am concerned that our government (United States) is going to make the energy star standards mandatory. After wearing clothing washed in “energy efficient” machines, I have to seek medical help for medication to counter my skin reaction.
Fewer machines are available that allow consumers to choose the water level they desire. We need to begin writing manufacturers about this problem–there must be many people who are itching and don’t know it is caused from poor rinsing in their washing machine.
Most people I have spoken to (moaned at) about powder stains agree that the rinsing on their modern machine is terrible. Powder stains seem almost inevitable and so I switched to liquid to avoid them.
Unfortunately this doesn’t mean they have been rinsed any better you just can’t see it any more!
A (somewhat inconvenient) possible solution that occurs to me is to hang around (or use rinse hold?) for the final rinse and use a large jug/kettle/hose to add more water (obviously don’t over fill it) to the rinse cycle(s) via the powder draw.
PS Liquids gives other problems (bad smells & scum) for which I had previously done 95C washes but I wonder following reading your article if I might be able to achieve a better outcome with Soda Crystals (possibly at a cheaper lower temperature). How much Soda crystals should I add ?
Hello Steve: sorry I missed your question. You are right in that liquids do give other problems which I highlight on Washerhelp. Anyone using liquids should definitely do a high temperature maintenance wash once a month to prevent a buildup of grease and slime and even black mould because these detergents don’t contain any bleaching agent.
Soda crystals are good at dissolving grease. I used to pour half a packet in and put my washing machine on a boil wash. However, this could be a good idea every three or four months, but I would use an ordinary detergent powder that contains bleaching agents for the regular monthly maintenance wash. Usually any non biological detergent, or any detergent not claiming to be kind on coloureds should contain bleaching agents.
Thanks for that Washerhelp – in particular with regards to the soda crystals which on the packet I bought only mentions what you would do with block sinks and drains. No mention of cleaning washing machines at all.
Do you think adding water to the final rinse would make a significant difference to the rinsing?
I believe my smell problems are worse due to the idiot who refitted my kitchen. I came home to have him proudly announce he had “rationalised” my drainage. Instead of a fairly standard and immediate U-trap with the hose connected to a 50cm drop it now trails 2m across the floor and up into the sink cupboard where it joins just above the kitchen sink trap. I have managed to raise the pipe around 4-6 inches behind the washer to form some sort of water trap, however the current arrangement where the trap as a long run before a 40cm rise seems to make water seeping back from the waste pipe into the machine inevitable. This adds stagnant water to the problem if the machine is not used very regularly.
I would have put the old waste route back but he had cut off the old waste pipe and concreted it up.
The problem is now compounded as I now have a dishwasher joining the sink outlet. The only solution to water seeping back that I see is to put a join for both dish and clothes washer just at the combined waste pipe’s exit point from the house.
Steve: To be honest I think adding water to the final rinse isn’t likely to make a significant difference although it may help a little. The idea of having to do that on each wash, trying to catch it before it’s finished the last rinse is depressing. If things are that bad, a new machine may be preferable although as discussed, most machines are not very good at rinsing. The Indesit Moon was above average at rinsing according to Which? but Indesit make budget machines and aren’t renowned for reliability.
If your washing machine doesn’t pump out into something fitted with a u-bend you can get smells, that’s the main purpose of a u-bend. Having said that the smells are likely to enter the kitchen rather than come directly from the washing machine as there is always water inside the sump hose which acts like a trap where smells shouldn’t get past.
I bought a Hotpoint Aquarius WF530T washing machine when I was 17 and moved out on my own, since moving back with my parents late 2008 just before my 20th birthday I have had this machine plumbed in on the 3rd storey of our house. Having done this the computer has gone wrong, but the main point is poor rinsing even with extra rinse pressed. I have had dermatitis and eczema for many years and had virtually no problems with it when we had an old Servis when I was a young child, this machine put water HALF way up the door to rinse and did this three times un like the terrible machines of today which only do two. How on earth can two 10 litre rinses be as good as three 29 litre rinses on the Servis? My mum and dads whirlpool is no better it fills for each rinse and the clothes soak up all the water and ends up rinsing with an inch of water in each rinse.
I am so fed up with my Hotoint I am getting a new machine one that lasts more than two ans a half years and rinses properly.
Could you please help advise me which machine rinses to a proper standard or do I have to get a second hand machine dating from before my self to get rid of this horrible skin irritation!
PS. Its marvellous to find some like minded people who know the truth about our new race of ecoliogically sound rinse compromising washing machines!
Oliver.
My old front-load washer (a Maytag Neptune) used about 25 gallons of water per load and rinsed 3 times with an extra rinse possible for a total of 4 times and I loved it. I replaced it with 2 different front-loaders and had skin issues wearing clothing washed in both of them–due to inadequate rinsing. After much discussion with representatives from Maytag and Whirlpool, I discovered the water standards are extremely tight on the new front-loaders. So, I purchased a top-load Maytag Centennial washer. You can choose the water level you want; and you can also choose extra rinse for every load. The top-loaders don’t have as many features and aren’t as “pretty” but at least they rinse my clothing well–using about 40 gallons per load. There are other brands that do the same, but be careful because some of the top-loaders are energy efficient and don’t allow you to choose your water level. Best wishes to you!
Cindy
Hello Oliver Shaw: I haven’t done personal research into the rinsing capabilities of washing machines other than to find out that most of them don’t appear to rinse too well. According to Which? research, most washing machines were poor and almost none were better than satisfactory, which inspired this topic.
I could of course read all Which? reports and put the results on my sites but it’s very unethical to steal other people’s content. One thing I can say though is that I was surprised to see Which said the Indesit Moon was above average at rinsing and I included that information on my article here – Indesit Moon
If Indesit made high-quality washing machines with an above-average reliability reputation I’d gladly recommend it for you. As it happens they are made by the same company that makes Hotpoint and of similar build quality. If you were happy to buy another washing machine of similar build quality to the Hotpoint with a pre-requisite of being above average rinsing you may be interested in it. Other than that I can only really suggest that you research Which? and take advantage of their 30 day trial offer. Which? washing machines put to the test
Cindy: Top loaders use a lot more water than front loaders and are generally not as good in other ways too but they do rinse better because of all the water they use. This problem shows how so often the answer to one problem only creates others.
Which is best, a top loader or a front loader washing machine?
Thank goodness I found this website before I called an engineer. My Bosch washing machine (2 years old) is dreadful at rinsing on delicate wash programmes. On a wool wash, everything comes out smeared with liquid detergent – and stains untouched. I recently bought detergent tablets because they were on offer – not only was there always residue on the clothes, but the tablets were sometimes only partly dissolved. It seems that there is not enough water in the whole wash cycle. I have the option to add extra water and / or an extra rinse to other programmes, but not delicates, so they get washed twice. When I first got the machine, I was pleased with how short the programme cycles were, but now I have to add all the extra functions, I am back up to 2 hours plus for a wash. I lived in the US for a few years – 25 minutes in an old laundrette top-loader and my washing was spotless.
Our Bosch machine rinses very poorly even on super-rinse. If I put a newly washed facecloth into a bowl of water the water goes very cloudy as the detergent comes out, Obviously the towels are the same but of course they don’t get immersed in the same way.
Since e-mailling you last I have replaced my dreadful Hotpoint Aquarius with a Bosch WFF2000 reconditioned washing machine. Not only does it rinse properly, it does 4 RINSES with water one third up the door for each, but is quieter than my Hotpoint ever was. It has short programmes each no more than an hour and fifteen minutes, my clothes are far cleaner even though they used to be washed for way over two hours.
It spins alot slower than the Hotpoint and my clothes are much much drier.
It would seem if you want a washing machine to wash, rinse and spin properly you need a reconditioned machine about 12-15 years old or so! And it was a snip at £145.00 with a 12 month warranty.
My clothing is not hard with detergent any more and my eczema and dermatitis has started to go away. My towels are actually soft and not like sandpaper any more!
If you have skin problems irritated by washing detergents old machines are the way to go, they actually rinse in water!!!
Oliver Shaw.
There is strong evidence that suggests most modern washing machines have gone so far up the road of being “environmentally friendly” that they don’t use enough water to rinse thoroughly any more.
If washing machine manufacturer’s main concern is to get good ratings for low water usage and this results in poor rinsing what’s wrong with making washing machines that do use the current low amounts by default on all washes – but have the ability to optionally use more water on rinses – up to twice as much if necessary. That way washers can still be promoted with badges and awards for low water usage but the user can choose to override the defaults for better rinsing if that’s more important.
Could not agree more!!!
Oliver Shaw
I think I have the ultimate solution!
If your washing machine is not rinsing properly, even if you press the “extra rinse” button, you may want to try this:
Buy a length of hose sufficient to reach from the cold tap of your kitchen sink into the soap drawer of the washing machine. Also buy the right adaptor for the tap or mixer tap.
After the first rinse with a spin (on some delicate programmes, it may not spin between rinses) when the washing machine starts filling for the next rinse, use the hose to fill the washing machine drum up to 1/3 of the height on the door glass. Using more water than 1/3 is wasteful – and if you are on a water meter – using more every time would be expensive!
Now let the washing machine continue as normal. I don’t advise doing this on the final rinse if you are using fabric conditioner as you will dilute it too much.
If you’re still experiencing skin rashes, stop using fabric conditioner for about a month to rule that out.
I hope this helps. I’m sure it’s worth a try if detergent residue is causing havoc with your skin allergies?!
Frustrated with Technology:
You call this the ultimate solution, I wouldn’t want to hang around waiting to fill my washing machine on the rinses with a hose pipe. It is a method but washers should already put enough water in without human intevention.
Plus my washing machine is in a third storey bedroom with no sink in sight!! My parents machine in the kitchen is filled with a kettle as it too cannot put enough water in for the wash or rinses!! I cannot use their machine as it leaves so much detergent in the washing. My previous Hotpoint was better but not by alot, then the computer failed after only two and a half years, just what you want when you spend £500 on a washer.
I have already replaced my Hotpoint with a reconditioned machine (Bosch WFF2000) that puts water one third up the door in the rinses and does it four times. All I have to do is press “Higher water level” or it will do three with water a quater up the door.
You say water half way up the door is a waste, I disagree as I had no trouble with my skin 15 years ago when we had the Servis Quartz 1000, three rinses half way up the door.
We are on the water meter but I would rather pay money for the water than be itching and scratching myself raw!
The Bosch only cost £145 with a 12 month warranty, bought in Halifax, West Yorkshire from a shop that specalises in reconditioned Hotpoints and Bosch!
Hope this helps with the rinse issues.
All the best, Oliver.
I agree that few people would put up with all the hassle that Frustrated with Technology does but I’m sure its felt to be a needs-must situation. The best solution to a bad situation. To be fair most people don’t seem to have a problem with the standard of rinsing.
As for having water half way up the glass being a waste – it’s only a waste if laundry can be rinsed just as well with less water. If cutting down on the amount of water to address one issue results in poorer rinsing which causes problems for some customers then that’s a pointless “fix”.
I suggested 1/3 height as families on water meters would end up paying a fortune, as the washing machine is used more often. Today’s living is too expensive as it is. I find one rinse 1/3 height works for me (along with the other rinses using less water): the clothes no longer feel rough and don’t smell of detergent like they used to before I tried this method.
If you find one rinse 1/3 height is not enough, maybe try 1/2 the height and maybe repeat again on the next rinses. I know it’s inconvenient having to fill your machine with extra water, but if it stops your skin allergies then it’s worth the aggro. Have a towel ready to wipe any spillages on the floor.
Be aware that today’s washing machines are electronically controlled and if you add too much water the electronics may “think” the machine has overfilled and will start pumping out the water immediately.
If you are not near a tap, maybe fill a watering can from elsewhere, without the round sprinkling head attached.
If you add soap powder to the drawer, pour the water into the pre-wash compartment so you don’t end up flushing down bits of powder that get left behind.
The only other suggestions I have are: 1. If you are buying another washing machine, subscribe to Which? and look for a washing machine or washer-dryer with a good score for rinsing. 2. Why don’t we all complain to both the washing machine and detergent manufacturer’s about this problem? The more people who complain, the better.
Frustrated with Technology:
Your comments are quite right, that adding water to your washing machine on the rinse cycle will help. This is clear evedence that they do not use enough water.
When I had my Hotpoint Aquarius I contacted them about my machines inabillity to rinse. The stupid woman in the call centre said she would check to see if all Hotpoints machines were like this, she said they were, I mean do you really need to be a weatherman to know when it is p155ing it down!!!
So I asked what Hotpoint were going to do about it, such as compensation towards me having to buy a new washing machine, short answer…..NO! Instead a very understated apology, which she bregrudginly had to give.
They did not care their useless washing machine had cause me no end of dermatitis and eczema, the stupid woman made me feel like an oddity and said Hotpoint machines were good at rinsing, I would like to know what sort of washer she has, I bet she hasn’t got a Hotpoint!!!
I even suggested they relaunched a machine that they used to make that use high water levels the Aquarius Diamond springs to mind (they will still have the blue prints, they won’t destroy those), they said it was a bad idea as this machine was bad for the environment as it was a “water guzzler”, why do we need machines that use little water we hardly have droughts as it rains most of the year in the UK. This environmental tosh is a selling point, playing on peoples caring side!
Going back 20 years who had heard of washing detergents aggrevating their skin, no body thats who! Because machines back the used alot of water, in the case of the Servis we had back then about 130 litres per cycle. The other week on the television doctor Hillary Jones was saying about more and more cases of detergent induced dermatitis due to it being left in our clothes. These modern washing machines are breeding a skin complaint, how long will it be before manufacturers see it is their fault and bring out some machines that rinse properly?
Have you ever noticed that every time you buy a new washing machine it does a rinse less e.g. Tricity Bendix 4 rinses, Siltal 3 rinses, Hotpoint 2 rinses. just an example of some of the machines we have had over the years. How long before 1 rinse? So it is not just low water levels but less rinse cycles also. Plus you don’t see “Super rinse” and “Higher water level” options on machines any more.
My reconditioned Bosch WFF2000 (4 rinses and higher water level option) has cleared up my dermatitis and eczema, it shows machines from 12 years ago do rinse properly. This machine uses about 100 litres per cycle. My Mums Siltal washing machine uses 49 litres per cycle, you cannot even see the water in her machine, not even on rinse, I am not slating this machine 10-15 loads a week, 8 years old and still giong strong!!
Hope this helps you,
All the best
Oliver.
Use Ecover liquid, only a small amount. If that’s no good then I suggest that when the cycle has finished you do another wash without any detergent – on my machine there is a “refreshing wash” cycle.
Carbon-Careful?
I have tried Ecover liquid and other supposebly natural alternatives to main-stream washing powders and found them to be as useful as a snooze button on a smoke alarm!!!!
I have to use skin ointments and creams and Ecover etc. does not remove them from my clothing, also if not properly rinsed out they still irritate my skin even non-bio! Also natural alternetives do not contain bleach which cause bacteria growth in you towels making them smell, also cause black slime in your washing machine. Unless run your machine empty regulally on a 95 degree wash.
I use Ariel biological powder which does remove the skin treatments very well even with “Short wash” pressed in on my machine, so long as it is properly rinsed out it is OK. I have tried all detergents and am allergic to the lot you name it I’ve tried it!!
Like I have said before washing machines using less water is a selling point, it has no effect on electricity usage what so ever, I do not care about the environment, I love my water guzzling Bosch to bits as it rinses perfectly well, and has cleared my dermatitis and eczema. The only point to saving water is if you are on a water meter, which we are. So what is more important saving water for a country that rains most of the time or not itching like a flea bitten cat? You decide!!
All the best
Oliver Shaw.
Using eco liquid, and not much, may help rinsing issues but unfortunately a consequence can be a build up of sludge and grease which can ruin a washing machine – Washing machine smells – causes of grease, slime and black mould inside washing machines
If this happens use normal detergent with bleaching agents such as detergent for whites on a boil wash once a month although that isn’t very “eco”. However, there’s not much point being environmentally friendly if it shortens the life of the washing machine or causes breakdowns.
Which? have done extensive tests on washing machine detergents and last time I checked the eco ones didn’t do too well although they said they were OK for lightly soiled laundry. I suggest if people are keen to be environmentally friendly they should at least try some for lightly soiled items though not necessarily to replace normal detergent Eco friendly (green) detergents
I’ve just realised something…
Compare laundry detergent with dishwasher detergent and you notice one major difference: dishwasher detergent does not foam (or if it does, it’s a very very small amount), compared to laundry detergent which foams excessively if you use slightly too much and/or wash too few items.
Nearly all new washing machines don’t rinse properly and I believe the reason is not JUST down to less water being used during rinsing and fewer rinse cycles. I reckon laundry detergent should be re-developed to rinse off fabrics easier and not create any foam. If they can already make dishwasher detergent to not foam excessively, why not do the same with laundry detergent?
Talking of dishwasher detergent, if new dishwashers continue to use less and less water and the detergent remains on our crockery, would that cause a health hazard? New washing machines are a health hazard to people with sensitive skin, as you can read above!
Frustrated with Technology:
Foam does nothing in laundry detergent unless heavily soap based, it is there for the consumer only, so leaving it out would have no effect on rinsing, only to the eye. The chemicals that irritate our skin are still there eg. enzymes, surfactants etc. Foam hinders the cleaning power of detergents by cushioning fabrics and preventing the weave of the fabric openning up properly due to it restricting movement.
Another big difference between the two detergents are laundry detergent contains OXYGEN based bleaching agents whereas dishwasher detergent contains CHLORINE based bleaching agents such as Domestos etc. also would remove colour from coloured clothing!!
As for dishwashers not rinsing properly, don’t worry detergent is removed from crockery very easily. Crockery does not absorb detergent like fabrics do. Dishwashers rinse more than you think, ours does two on Economy 50 and three on Intensive 65 (good job I kept the manual for that one!!!). There is no trace of detergent left on anything even after Economy wash.
There is deffinatley a niche in the market for someone to invent a washing machine and washer-drier that rinses properley with a choice of water levels say 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, up the door on wash and rinse also make it have a choice on the number of rinses say ranging from two to five. “Shaw’s Good Old Washer Co.” sounds good don’t you think!!This way people have a choice of how they want their laundry rinsing and washing. But make the default settings the current low water usages so it would sell and could also be A rated, the last bit suggested by Andy Trigg (Washerhelp), comment 48. Also make these machines mechanically timed as solid state timers are unreliable, often why modern washing machines break down!!
All of our washing machines that have lasted well have been mechanical, whereas the solid state broken down within two years!! We like ‘em simple up ere in Yorkshire don’t we Andy!!
All the Best
Oliver Shaw.
Oliver: Yes I agree, as far as I’m aware the suds in washing machine detergent are put there mostly for show. In fact suds inhibit washing because they cushion the laundry and reduce the effects of rubbing against each other, which is an essential part of washing. Therefore if too many soapsuds are introduced you will get less efficient washing.
My understanding is that a cynical public do not like detergent which doesn’t contain soapsuds and apparently do not believe it is washing properly unless there are suds. This may well be true but it could easily be dealt with if detergent manufacturers wanted to. It would be very easy for them to get across the message that you don’t need soapsuds. However, whether soapsuds are a substantial part of the rinsing problem or not I am not so sure.
Regarding your comment on solid-state timers being unreliable, they replaced mechanical timers years ago under the flag of being much more reliable. Clearly a solid-state controller should be much more reliable as there are no moving parts but in practice if they are not well designed or cheap components are used they can be unreliable. In some of the cheaper makes they can not only commonly fail but are so expensive when they do that they often write the machine off. However, we will never go back to mechanical timers because all they can do is switch mechanical switches on and off in a linear fashion. Today’s washing machines require computer program software to run and to monitor during wash. If they are made properly they should be more reliable than the mechanical timer.
Andy:
A point that I forgot to mention, alot of washing machines suds-lock during the intermediate spins these days. Meaning that detergent is not pumping away properly and carrying through to the next rinse. However only modern machines seem to do this, and less rinse cycles, often two is the norm means even worse rinsing.
My therory on this is not enough water in the rinse phase to dilute the detergent properly and spin it away, also modern machines spin very fast during the rinses about 800-to 1600rpm, whereas older machines do about 300-400rpm. None of our old machines suds-locked. The Siltal is a bugger for that, its rinsing is bad anyway but even worse because of it suds-locking. I have heard of Mieles doing this, not what you expect from the top quality end is it? I would never ever have a Miele as the rinsing is so poor, shame really as I always fancied one. Oh well at least I can keep my old reliable Bosch going!!
All the Best
Oliver.
Oliver: I’ve not heard of any problems with suds locking. As the machines are specifically designed to spin with water in during wash and spin to force water and detergent through the fabric it shouldn’t be an issue. Are you sure you don’t have a partially blocked filter or a partial obstruction in the drain hose or pump chamber that’s reducing how fast the water pumps away? That could cause such problems.
Andy,
These machines are not blocked, I have already had them in bits! The problem is instead of starting to spin slowly, they are going up to about 650rpm straight away, meaning the pump cannot cope. So it foams up the detergent and then will not go it just throws it down the door and around the tank until it starts filling for the next rinse!
My old Bosch starts spinning at about 100rpm and takes it from there up to about 400rpm, this machine never suds locks.
All the best
Oliver
Hello Oliver. On wash the spin is to force the detergent through the laundry, it shouldn’t energise the pump it should just throw all the water about and soap suds will be very evident. Then it should continue with the wash. Hope we are talking about the same thing.
Hi Andy
I mean the intermediate spins ie. between the rinses to supposably clear the water from the load from the previous rinse!
This is the programme sequence if it helps….
Wash – intermediate spin – rinse – int.spin – rinse – int.spin – rinse-int.spin – rinse – final spin.
All the best
Oliver.
Hi Oliver / Andy and all readers.
Thanks for referring me to this board Oliver: most interesting.
This suds-locking things is def for real Andy: my LG is a real bugger for it.
In the case of the LG the problem is caused by a combination of factors:
1. in the wash phase of the cycle the duration is excessive (about an hour on most programmes) and the agitation is very vigorous (which is good). This means that vast amounts of foam are created on every wash.
2. When the wash ends the LG spins (it does NOT spin at all with water in as you suggest many modern ones do) but it spins before any rinses start. This results in a very unpleasant sound and you can hear the motor labouring greatly and the drum slowing down as huge white tides of foam flow down the door.
3. when the rinses start there is, as I have so often moaned about on the hot fill board, insufficient water, so the rinses turn into 2nd, 3rd and 4th wash phases with the soap that’s left.
I get round this quite easily though – as mentioned in a post higher up this board I run water into the soap drawer if I am around to do so, and I do this on the first rinse or sometimes even at the wash phase (like the old “dilution rinse” that Hoover’s used to have). If I am not likely to be around when the rinses start I Select “rinse ++” which on the LG gets water up to about 1/4 up the door and also heats up all the rinses to 30 degrees to help dissolve the detergent better. I have to say that this is pretty good rinsing, but the drawback is time (and energy use). On a 60 degree white wash the standard time is 2h12m, but with Rinse++ selected it’s 3h50m.
Oliver – mum has a Miele Prestige PLus and with the “water plus” selected it washes in water that just reaches the bottom of the door glass, does a dilution rinse (adds water to the wash water up to 1/3 up the door) and then does all it’s rinses 1/3 way up the door too. Mum had a Hoover Electron 1100 (same as mine) before that – we bought hem at the same time when I first left home in 1983 and mum’s finally died 2 years ago, mine last July. Both of us dislike the new machines we have but Hoover are now so unreliable that we decided not to get them again. However, since mum started using the “water plus” she says the Miele is as good as the old Hoover except that it only takes cold water so it costs more to run. If your Bosch ever packs up completely you might like to reconsider Miele for a model with “water plus”.
Dave
I’m aware of the “water plus” feature, but have heard that Mieles also suds lock, actually from what I’ve found out near enough all modern machines do it. Also have read copies of instruction manuals for Mieles and they only do 2 rinses, my Bosch does 4.
Washers just arn’t as good as they used to be!!
On the Easy-care (synthetic) cycles my Bosch uses the dilution rinsing so as to avoid excessive creasing to the fabrics. The Bosch rinses absolutley perfecly so long as “Higher water level” is selected.
The worst rinsing I have come across is on a very reliable Siltal integral washer, my mums to be precise, the quality is brilliant but the rinsing that famous Yorkshire word sh1te!!!
I know a good engineer that should be able to keep the Bosch running for some time yet, aprenticed by a nice fella at Yeadon!
HTH
Oliver
PS. Post for you in Hot valve blog!!
It seems I was talking about something different due to misinterpreting the “intermediate spins” phrase. I thought it was referring to the spins during wash and rinse that some machines do with the water still inside. In the old days that would only happen if something went wrong but these days it’s used to force water through the laundry.
Andy
I was unaware that modern machines spun with water and or detergent in them to aid cleaning. Sounds like a stupid idea as that really will fill the drum and tank with huge torrants of foam, and that WILL decrease rinse efficiency. No wonder you was unsure what I mean’t by intermediate spins!!
This sounds really bad coming from a 20 year old but I preferred the way things used to be not the way they are now! Everytime they supposably redesign the humble washing machine I am always sceptical of what has happened. Lets face they are deffinatley not improving them, quite the reverse infact!!
I am deffinatley going to hang on to my Bosch forever if possible it may look old fashioned but it does a far superior job to the modern machines, I just can’t begin to tell people how good it is compared the new “improved” washers!!
HTH
Oliver
An alternative to laundry detergent already exists and is claimed to work equally well. I’m talking about the “Stainz r out” laundry sheets. The makers say these are made from natural ingredients and also claim they can replace conventional laundry detergent.
I’m wondering if products like this are the way forward? Do the ingredients rinse out of your clothes easier than detergent? Yes they are expensive, but if they clean properly and rinse away easily, maybe other manufacturers will make them?
Oliver,
the recon Bosch sounds interesting, but I can’t find anyone selling them. Could you say where you got it?
David,
My Bosch WFF2000 was bought at the “Washer Shop” in Halifax West Yorkshire!! Got it for £145 with a 12 month warranty and free delivery. Be wary of the new Bosch machines though as the rinsing is rubbish, look for one about 12-15 years old if possible, other option Hotpoint of similar age they were built properly back then!
WhatMatters – Unless these products contain any sort of bleach they will shorten the life of the washing machine-inparticular the drum spider. To counteract this you will be doing a hell of a lot of maintenance washes with ORDINARY bleach containing powder.
HTH
Oliver
Making an effort to be environmentally friendly is a good thing. But now it’s doing the reverse!!
In this page you read that people are being forced to fill their washing machines with extra water to rinse properly which defeats the purpose of saving water. If washing machines rinsed properly without using excessive amounts of water you achieve the goal of being environmentally friendly. On the other hand, if you use so little water to be “environmentally friendly” that people end up filling their washers with too much water for a decent rinse, again you defeat the purpose.
I’ve heard of people having problems with their toilets blocking because they don’t use enough water to flush, so they have to flush more than once and end up using more water than they were meant to save!
If we want products to work properly and be environmentally friendly at the same time, manufacturers need to thoroughly test them in the real world. Also appliances, cars etc need to be more reliable so you don’t have to dispose of them so often. I don’t see many “environmentally friendly” manufacturers making their products as reliable as they were 30 years ago.
WhatMatters:
Could’t agree more!
Being environmentally friendly (oh it pains me to write that) is not just about what an appliance consumes but how it was made, transported etc. It would have less inpact for a washer to do 4 rinses 1/3 up the door and it last for 26 years ( Daves Hoover Electron for instance), Than a cheap rubbish Merloni (Indesit/Hotpoint etc) rinse twice with 2″ of water in the drum and it only last 12 months!!
Its not as if water does not get replenished often enough, I mean it must rain 13 out of the 12 months we get in a year! Plus we pay enough for it with water meters and such like.
I’ve never heard of the toilet problem, but very interesting all the same, will ask people I know who have recently had their bathrooms refit to see if it a major problem! I know I’m sad!!!!!!
HTH
Oliver
I think nearly everyone who reads the comments will agree that not using enough water does more harm than good.
The problem about toilets not flushing properly is due to people using water saving devices such as the “Hippo water saver” in older toilets. I’m sure most new toilets are better designed, but as with any new development there are often pitfalls eg using less water in washing machines = poor rinsing! They even admit on the “Hippo water saver” website not to use the water saving device in toilets installed after 2001, what does that tell you?!
If we are not allowed to have washing machines use proper levels of water to rinse away all detergent, will they tell us to use vinegar instead of detergent? It’s getting ridiculous now, we’ve never had taps run dry because people use “too much” water.
Where can i buy High efficiency front loading detergent from within the UK that actually cleans and works? I use SA8 by Amway but get fed up of having to order it through a distributor. Persil, Ariel, Surf and all the others just foam too much
WhatMatters,
Ah, see what you mean, we have the 6 litre (water efficient) toilets and seem to have no trouble, flush well infact. I remember the Hippo water device, another usless sales tactic trying to get peoples gullable side!
Like you say water will NOT run dry it rains too much!
I’ve heard of people putting white vinegar in the conditioner compartment so it goes in to the last rinse saying it kills the detergent, it must smell bloody awful, bedding humming of vinegar and towels what a pleasent thought!
Simon:
The HE detergents such as Tide HD are just like Ariel, surf etc. They have a different name because in America there is two types of washer, Top-loading high water use that uses a high sudsing detergent and front and top loading HE machines that us low sudsing detergent eg the Tide HD. All our detergents such as Ariel are low sudsing and designed to work in low suds front loading machines.
All the best,
HTH,
Oliver
Oliver, I’ve been researching using white (clear) vinegar in washing machines. Many websites with information on white vinegar and laundry claim that it really does neutralise the detergent (vinegar is acid and detergent is alkali). On one website, it says the smell of vinegar disappears when the clothes dry.
To the lady who wrote comment #16: filling up the washing machine with extra rinsing water about 1/3 up the door (when your husband is away from home) should do the trick. Maybe try the vinegar idea too? Doing this should hopefully make his eczema clear up after a few months. Good luck. :)
Hi Whatmatters,
I’m aware of the chemistry, I’m in the right indusry for that!!!
I have heard of it working, but if washing machines were made properly in the first place you should not need to add vineger! Aluminium does not like acidity and thats what the drum spider is made of, plus expensive bit to replace!
To comment 16, High level rinsing and vinegar behind your husbands back, why not come clean (no pun intended), you wern’t to know when you bought the machine, after all you would expect Miele to rinse perfectly, especially at them prices!!
HTH
Oliver.
Where can I buy a Hotpoint top loader second hand? Model numbers Electronic De Luxe 9600, 9604 and 9605? The hotpoint wma30 is absolutely rubbish at rinsing unless i use ecover liquid. However i need to use bio as cleans better. Even a twin tub would be better than the modern rubbish we have no. Failing that I suppose it will have to be an Amercican top loading washing machine. Any recommendations greatly appreciated.
Simon,
The only place I could think of getting a second hand washing machine is a back street retailler, such as our local one in Halifax called the “Washer Shop”. Any particular reason you want a top loader? The old front loaders rinse perfectly well such as a Bosch WFF2000, Servis Quartz, Hoover Electron, Old Hotpoints. Well anything from just before 1992 should put water half way up the door to rinse and would usually do 4 on the cotton cycles, sometimes 5 such as old AEG’s (very hard to come by though).
My Bosch dates from about 1996 and does 4 rinses with water a third up the door for each.
American top loaders use water in excess, also most of them now are high efficiency and people complain about the rinsing just as we do about our energy efficient models. Also American top loader spin very slowly about 650rpm and use a hell of alot of elecrticity as there is so much water to heat and they are rated “G” for wash, so they do not wash as well as the frontload machines either! You are probably better off with a second hand front load machine than a new top loader IMHO.
Twin tubs are another issue you will not find a good one from the 70s or 80s unless you know someone that has one and are willing to part with it for cash! There are a few new ones about but they are cheap Chinese made jobs (mainly plastic), called a Thompson I think, that will not last. They are for VERY light usage indeed. I havn’t seen a twin tub machine round here for donkeys years!
HTH
Oliver.
Thanks Oliver been really helpful. Ill even try ebay lol.
Simon,
Your welcome!
Oliver.
Our Hotpoint WML540(G) rinses perfectly with any load, I did an overloaded towels wash after being on holiday approx. 7 or 8kg of bath towels, bath sheets, hand towels etc. and I used the Cottons+ 60+ programme (2 hours). and even after a sudslock in the first spin, the final rinse water was almost clear.
I think the Hotpoint washer have the best way of rinsing, which is slow tumbles in low water level then very fast tumbles in high water level, which in our machine fills almost half way up the door!
Even if the Mini Load option has been selected (which reduces wash & rinse time aswell as rinse water) the rinse is just as good, even without softner (I don’t use softner on towels).
So yes I do think there is an issue with rinsing in some machines but definitely not in the new Hotpoint WML range.
Hi Gary,
That doesn’t sound quite right, a modern Hotpoint is designed to fill to the bottom of the door glass on the rinses not half way up the door. The pressure switch must be slightly out of adjustment, although this is NOT a bad thing. I had a Hotpoint WF530T for 2.5 years and the rinsing was awful even with extra rinse pressed, but the water never went beyond the bottom of the door glass. Also sudslocked on ALL intermediate spins. There again I do not rate any Merloni product, well not now anyway!!!
HTH,
Oliver.
Hi Oliver,
Well it only seems to fill nearly that high in the Fast Wash 60C cycle since I overload it, but in the cottons+ 60C it is only just under that. The 1000rpm interm. spins between the rinses help a lot with the rinsing in the Cotton’s programmes otherwise I think rinsing would be poor. Yeah I was told the pressure switch had gone dodgy by people on YouTube (HooverAC110 is my channel). I just think that the rinsing is much better than in my old Hoover Performa AC110 as you couldn’t even see the water! but still it did 4/5 rinses in cottons!
I’m surprised you have trouble with your Hotpoint rinsing as I know others with Hotpoint’s an they never say the rinses is terrible, but I know how it is with skin problems as I have a slight one too, allergic to some detergents and because our previous washer did so many rinses it makes me use Extra Rinse all the time.
Thanks for commenting back to me :)
Gary
Dear Washerhelp
I have ordered a Miele WT2670 1600rpm washer dryer which is coming next week and am looking forward to it. I don’t suffer with any allergies or skin conditions so the rinsing shouldn’t be an issue. Although I may put Water Plus on if I feel that it doesn’t have enough water and I won’t be having washes which are too sudsy. Detergents such as Ariel Excel Gel can get very sudsy iof too much is used. I discovered this in my Hotpoint WD42O washer dryer. If you know of the rinse water levels then please let me know as it would be very good to be aware of this before the machine arrives. Like I said above the machine is due for delivery on 28th August.
And could you or someone else please tell me about its tumbles that it does as I would like to know. I am thinking that the tumbles are 13/2 for the cottons programme but could also be the same on other programmes. I think that good and fast tumbling can help improve wash and rinse performance. Please could you help. Many thanks.
Hi Gary,
No problem. Thats right it should only fill that high on fast wash 60 and super wash 60, but only on those 2 programmes the rest should just touch the bottom of the door, the synthetic cycles use a touch more, sorry I should have been more explicit! I don’t have the Hotpoint any more, got a reconditioned Bosch. The intermediate spins should be 800rpm on cottons and 500rpm on synthetics and fast wash 60.
Laura Mitchell
Re: tumbles.
If it tumbles too fast the washing will not fall correctly in the drum and will just cling to the outside thus providing poor wash performance. Also tumbling too fast on rinses will whip up a hell of alot of foam, Hotpoint machines do this and then cannot spin it away properly. So the balance has to be right, Bosch from 15 years ago and IAR Siltal from 8 years ago seem to have it perfect, cannot comment on Miele, never owned one (or ever will) or had me hands on one!
HTH,
Oliver.
Hi again Oliver :D
Ah cool yes thought Fast Wash 60C rinses should be high as they are only quick and as for Super Wash 60C well my machine doesn’t have it. The new Hotpoints don’t have that programme anymore. The synthetics programme is a fair bit below the fast wash 60C rinse water level on mind which is good too. Shame you don’t have the Hottie anymore :( but the reconditioned Bosch sounds great, what model is it :) infact I know someone on YouTube which has a recondtioned Bosch I think. You might not know me from there though, my account is HooverAC110. As for the intermediate spin speeds well Hotpoint have changed the Cottons to 1000rpm and the Synthetics 600rpm. Fast wash 60C is a little faster at 800rpm, this is only between the rinses though because on all programmes (which do spin after the wash) are all at 600rpm.
Thanks again :D sorry for the delay though :S
Gary
Hi Gary,
My Bosch is a WFF2000, about 15 years old or so. Sorry mate not me on YouTube, never been on that site in my life!! It would appear they have changed Hotpoint machines yet again, they are consantly peeing around with them and making them even MORE unrelaible. Thats why I haven’t got it anymore. It never washed that well anyway, never as good as my Mums IAR Siltal (8 years old), whereas the Bosch does!
They do keep increasing the spin speeds on the Indesit based machines to try to get a better rinse but all they are doing is wearing everything out alot quicker, and doing very little for rinsing. After about 800rpm the extraction rate tales off some what, the difference between 800rpm and 1000rpm is a thimble full of water! The difference between 1000rpm and 2000rpm is 4 table spoons full of water, so not worth the bother! The Bosch spins at 400rpm after the wash and between the rinses for about a minute, but uses alot of water so gives a perfect rinse on any load as it does 4 rinses 1/3 up the door, and it NEVER sudslocks, it would appear all modern machines do this.
All the best,
Oliver.
Well, I had 2 Hoover washing machines that, between the two of them, lasted over 27 years. No problem whatsoever with smell or grey slime. Didn’t even know it could be a problem.
My new machine is a Bosch and grey slime is a mega problem, though I haven’t changed my habits at all. I don’t use fabric conditioner, don’t add too much powder (I am mean if anything) and do the occasional 60 deg wash. I guess it must be the poor rinsing that is to blame.
So, does anyone know if the new Hoover machines have developed this problem? Have they sacrificed the rinse to be eco-friendly?
I would put up with the noise (if they are still noisy), anything to escape the grey slime. I only changed to Bosch because the Hoovers were noisy and my Bosch dishwasher lasted 20 years. I just hope this machine doesn’t last 20 years.
Hi Cath,
This sounds as if you are not using the correct amount of detergent. Are you using a bleach containing powder, eg. not a colour friendly type? Also are you doing alot of low temperature washing, as this will cause slime also.
To help remove the slime select a 90/95 wash with bleach containing powder, such as Ariel biological (using the correct amount of course). Do not use liquid or colour powder as none will contain bleach. This is called a maintainence wash and should be carried out monthly. If it is really bad using a specialist washer cleaner such as “Maytag Affresh” will also reduce the slime, it is avaliable at the 4washerhelp link in the left hand list at the top of the page.
The lower water level on the wash phase is not going to help with slime build up, and as you say the lack of water in the rinsing cycle does not flush the machine through properly. If this machine has “Aqua plus” it may be worth while having it constantly selected.
I also have a Bosch (15 year old) and have no trouble with slime but I always wash at 60 and regulally do a maintainence wash.
Sadly your Bosch may last a few years they are still built quite well, though not as well as they used to be. Also Hoover will have reduced water in the rinse to be eco-friendly, all manufacterers have. No modern machine will rinse like the old ones did!
HTH,
Oliver.
Our 21 year old Hotpoint 96700 Top Loader has just expired having given no previous trouble at any time in it’s long life. The repair man says the gearbox may have seized and of course these are now obsolete. In our opinion this is a superb machine of which this is the third we have purchased. They have all lasted into double figures. Nothing else washes as white or rinses as clean. My wife was a chronic eczema sufferer and these machines have played their part in her relief from allergies. Does anyone know where a replacement gearbox or machine may be found? Any of the original Hotpoint Top Loaders will be acceptable.
Hi David,
The gear box has been obsolete for sometime now, unless there are any kicking around in back street retailers, but I wouldn’t have thought so, but all is not lost…..
Try taking the gear box to a car garage and see if they can repair it. This is a shot in the dark but well worth a try! Another option is to get a specialist to make you a new one, it can be done but will be expensive, there isn’t that much inside so making a copy shouldn’t be too hard!
As regards buying a Hotpoint top loader, I haven’t seen one in 20 years! Nor have I seen a reconditioned one either, but if I come across one I will let you know via this site, but don’t hold too much hope out though!!
HTH,
Oliver.
There is a simple way to get more water into the drum for better rinsing.Every washing machine contains a water level transducer to which are connected tubes from the drum.When the water reaches a certain level in the drum,the pressure transducer activates and sends a signal to the electronics to close the water inlet valve.
However there are ‘adjustable tuning slugs’ on the pressure transducer so that the level of water can be adjusted.I experimented on a Hotpoint and manage to get the drum completely full of water!.So careful how you make adjustments.
I am a retired electronics engineer and would love to design a washing machine complete with PID temperature control,brushless motor, etc etc.but I’m afraid the cost would be prohibitive.
Sounds good Richard (comment 96). Most of us have no idea how to alter the “adjustable tuning slugs”. I would be too scared to take the lid off my washing machine!
Making a video on how to do this and uploading it to youtube might help, but explained in plain English.
One trick that most of us could try on modern washing machines is to take advantage of the pre-wash. Add your powder or liquid detergent directly in the drum and a tablespoon of soda crystals in the “main” compartment of the soap drawer (not the pre-wash compartment). The pre-wash will allow the clothes to soak up the detergent solution. After the pre-wash finishes, the machine will pump out the water and may perform a short spin. On the main cycle (at the temperature you chosen), the clothes will still have plenty of detergent absorbed and the main wash water will facilitate later rinsing. Pressing the “extra rinse” button or whatever it’s called on your machine will also help when you try this pre-wash experiment. I’ve only tried this once, so don’t know if it affects cleaning performance.
Note that on old washing machines the pre-wash would be followed by a boil wash, so check carefully that your machine won’t boil your laundry to death!
It’s a shame that we have to resort to drastic measures to achieve proper rinsing. If we don’t, our clothes will still contain detergent and this causes no end of trouble. I sometimes wonder, after reading these comments, if allergy sufferers have no idea their condition can be traced to the washing machine not rinsing properly?
Hi Richard and Whatmatters,
I’ve heard of this before and is a viable option, but if an incorrect adjustment is made it could cause a serious flood. Which may not be covered be home insurance as it would be the homeowners fault. So I would say extreme caution is needed.
However I do agree with what you both say, I am very tempted (and have been for a long time) to adjust the pressure switch on my Mums Siltal as rinsing is so bad.
In all fairness selecting a prewash and adding nothing or soda crystals to the main wash probably will affect cleaning drastically as the main wash will ineffect be the first rinse. There will be hardly anything in the main wash to facillitate cleaning, it may work on light soil only though? Never tried this but please do come back with your experience Whatmatters.
I have found when it comes to laundry soda crystals are just plain snake oil! They do not work as they say, plus prolonged use may damsge the aluminium drum spider in your washing machine.
All the best,
HTH,
Oliver.
Oliver
The pre-wash “trick” seems to work and during the main wash programme I still notice plenty of suds. If you put slightly too much detergent in or don’t put enough laundry in the drum my machine is prone to foaming too much. Not tried this with stained laundry, but you have to treat stains before washing anyway. If anyone copies this “trick” (comment 97) and finds it cleans well and improves rinsing (or not), I would be keen to find out.
I’ve noticed rinsing is better and I’ve not had to fill the machine with extra water during the rinses, but have enable the “extra rinse” option every time I use the machine.
I know some people who have used soda crystals for years and never had any problems. The packet would not say you could use them in washing machines if they were known to cause damage. I know they soften water and are well known for removing grease and oil stains. There is a page on this site about soda crystals and washing machines:
http://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/wordpress/soda-crystals-and-washing-machines/
Could you make a video on youtube on how to adjust pressure switches for higher water levels, in Plain English? It would be wise to warn viewers of the risks involved lol!!
Cheers.
Hi Folks,
Many of you will have seen my regular posts on the Hot Water Valve boards (both of them) and will know about my LG washer.
Not having actually read much on this board until Oliver pointed out to Michelle on the “I want a machine with a hot valve” board that her post on Rinsing should have been on here, I was unaware 3 days ago, when I fiddled with my LG’s pressure switch, of the post a bit further up this board about the “adjustable tuning slugs”.
That aside, I have made 2 interesting discoveries about my LG WM1444TDS washer, which may be of use to anyone else with thai machine and infuriated by it’s diabolical rinsing.
Discovery number 1 was that the “Duvet” cycle, which I always use to fill the machine up as it uses the pressure switch not the stupid and useless “fuzzy logic” sensors and controls to supposedly detect when the laundry is properly wet, has only TWO rinses if left to run right through.
Discovery number 2 was that, having adjusted the pressure switch, to get rinse water to come 1/4 up the door glass, I can now wash non-fast coloureds (40 degree wash) on “Duvet” and not only does it wash in water that comes 1/4 of the way up the glass, but it also rinses in the same level of water and, surprise surprise, it gets the washing pretty much soap free (almost as good as the 26 year old Hoover I used to have) in just TWO rinses.
The only down side to this is that I still have to switch back to cottons to get a 60 degree wash, which means that the rinses, although they now fill up to 1/4 up the door, are all interspersed by spins which take positively eons to start due to “balancing” so the cycle takes hours as always.
Interestingly the Duvet wash doesn’t seem to bother with “balancing” but just spins and be b*ggered to the noise.
I’m very pleased by this development, but must point out to anyone with this (or any other) machine and thinking of making the same adjustment that it will undoubtedly invalidate your warranty, so don’t do it unless you are prepared to accept that fact.
I forgot to mention something that’s really obvious… over 2/3′s of our planet Earth is WATER. In fact, 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water (look on Wikipedia for water, it currently says 71%). Also the oceans are miles deep! I’m sure many people know about the “water cycle” too. In plain English: water never disappears, it comes back!
So why are we being told off for using “too much” water? Really, why? Washing machines need LOTS of water to rinse all of the detergent out of fabrics, which they did fine before the do-gooders told the washing machine manufacturers to use less water.
You never heard of so many cases of allergies years ago, nowadays most people are allergic to something! It’s obvious there’s a correlation – less water in rinsing = more allergies!
Okay, the MAIN wash doesn’t need as much water because it’s being heated, obviously more water being heated uses more electricity. But during the rinse cycles the extra water uses no more energy because it doesn’t get heated.
I can keep mentioning obvious things forever, but the last one: I don’t remember old washing machines having an “extra rinse” button, because they rinsed properly anyway. Am I right in saying that old (1970′s and 1980′s) washing machines did not have options for rinsing better?
That is totally Correct!
Oliver.
Has anyone tried Amway SA8 laundry detergent and if so do they think it is good? I have found you need to wash at 50C to get stains out even stains like mud whereas Persil or Ariel get mus out at 30C or 40C.
Also I have noticed some of my clothes have shrunk in the wash lately but I do not why. They have been put on the appropriate programme and spin cycle. Could detergents cause shrinkage?
Simon: 50 degrees may well shrink some items. It’s temperatures that usually shrink things. I’ve not heard of anything other than too high a temperature shrinking things.
The allergy UK website has a tips page which suggests that you re-rinse your clothes when the machine finishes. Look on the page under the section about \”Windows mirrors and glass\” in the last paragraph of that part – yes that *is* typed properly and *is* under \”Windows mirrors and glass\” and it does indeed mention that new washing machines now use a lot less water than the older ones
http://www.allergyuk.org/fs_handyhints.aspx
lets hope that link works forever and always links to that page, if it changes please post an updated link.
If nobody likes the idea of filling their machine up with extra water or trying other ideas mentioned above such as tampering with the washing machines \”adjustable tuning slug\” whatever that is and so on and so on…… the simplest way is to follow the suggestion and run the rinse cycle a second time. Yes it means waiting longer but worth it!
It’s always the simplest solutions that work best. I would think every washing machine made in the past 10 years can be forced to re-rinse, whether it involves switching off and turning the dial back to the beginning of the rinse cycles or something else.
Anyway… I thought I’d try this “easy” method and re-rinse. I used the rinse-hold option on my machine, so the clothes are left in water until I’m ready to advance the programme: I turned the selector to “off”, added the fabric conditioner, turned the dial selector to the “rinse” position and choose the correct spin speed. Switched on and let it do the rinses again and perform the final spin.
So far so good :)
Clothes no longer feel like sandpaper, there’s no smell of detergent perfumes, no little white marks on the clothes and no traces of foam on the door seal or inner door glass. What a difference!!
You may want to forget my previous suggestions and other drastic ideas mentioned previously. Anyone can do this re-rinsing and it really works (preferably if you have “rinse hold” on your machine, it reminds you to re-rinse). Also you won’t need to press the “extra rinse” option (or whatever it’s called on your machine). Ironically, I found that by NOT pressing the “extra rinse” button, the machine spins faster between the rinses (without sudslocking), I have no idea why.
Only one thing to be careful with: if you have to select the spin speed when you re-run the rinse cycles, be careful not to spin your delicates too fast e.g. curtains or they won’t look nice afterwards!
Readers – please let me know if this works after trying it for a few weeks. One last thing: fabric conditioner can also chemical sensitivity, something to consider if you’re having allergic reactions to laundry and chemicals.
Thanks for reading and good luck. :D
Hi Whatmatters,
Glad that a simple solution works for you. The only downside will be time I guess. What make and model is your machine please. How many rinses does it perform in total with the re-rinsing?
My 15 year old Bosch spins slower between the rinses with “Higher water Level” selected, but still rinses better because it does 4 rinses 1/3 up the door, whereas it does 3 rinses with 2″ of water in the bottom of the drum if not. My feeling is the water is removing the detergent opposed to the spinning, so the machine does not have to work as hard.
Correct about fabric conditioner, I stopped using it and my skin did improve, there again it is only nicely scented grease!!
The intermediate spins do not play as much as a part in the rinsing as you think, if there is not enough water to remove the detergent in the first place, the spins will sudslock. The residue takes a hell of alot of diluting in order to remove properly, the spins then aid the process.
E.g.
4 Rinses 1/3 up the door with 300-400rpm spins rinses properly.
3 Rinses with 2″ of water and 800rpm spins is as close to not bothering to rinse as you will get.
On the synthetic cycles it does a Dilution rinse and then 4 rinse 1/4 up the door but seems to rinse as well as the 1/3 cotton cycles.
Anything past 800rpm is pointless as the water removed is negligable, the difference between 800rpm and 1000rpm is a thimble full. Difference between 1000rpm and 2000rpm is 4 table spoons all for full loads, basically not worth the wear and tear and expense.
All the best,
Oliver.
Oliver
My washing machine is a Zanussi/Electrolux, not sure of the exact model number. Like all newer washers, it won’t rinse properly unless YOU force it to rinse properly. Just pressing the “extra rinse” does NOT make it rinse properly. With extra rinse selected on the cottons cycle, it performs 2 extra rinses – 5 total – don’t get excited… there’s barely any water in each rinse and the stupid machine only starts spinning very slowly AFTER the 3rd rinse has drained (but no suds-locking occurs). Rinse 4 is followed by a very slow spin, rinse 5 has the softener added, followed by the final spin of 1600 rpm, unless you chose a lower speed.
I now follow my method on comment #106 every time. The rinse-hold option uses lots more water and pauses the machine, so that extra water probably helps enormously? Re-rinsing (without the extra-rinse option) gives me a total of SIX rinses with faster spinning between ALL the rinses. It doesn’t take that much longer to finish and most of today’s washing machines are larger capacity anyway, so you can get more washing done each time.
The synthetics cycle sudslocks on the rinses: for some unknown reason, it will spin briefly and the pump will stop before it’s had chance to pump away all the soapy water, then it refills and the soapy water gets transferred over to the next rinses!!!!! Another good reason to re-rinse.
One very important point I forgot to mention earlier… overloading the drum will prevent proper rinsing and impair cleaning performance. I doubt re-running the rinses will help if you put in too much washing. Bulkier items (e.g. washable coats) need lots more room to move about.
I believe the washing machine manufacturers will NEVER make washing machines rinse properly any more. The eco-friendly people would not allow them to use lots of water for rinses. If you require proper rinsing, it’s a do-it-yourself job unfortunately. Does anyone like the idea of wearing clothes saturated with left-over detergent chemicals, even if you’re not allergic?
Hi Whatmatters,
I agree about the “Extra Rinse” option making little difference, when I had the modern Hotpoint, it added one rinse so it did 3 in total and as it suslocked and as you say carries all the soapy water through the rinse cycle, it was pointless. I used to manually re-run the rinses as you do, letting it do 3 on the main cycle and then doing another 2 or 3 (depending what was in there) to clear the soap. And the damn thing STILL did not rinse properly. I also did half loads to help rinsing even with all the extra ones it still didn’t rinse properly. My skin was so bad the doctors wanted to put me in Hospital.
Thankfully it packed up and decided to buy the Reconditioned Bosch WFF2000. I guessed buying a new machine would be a daft idea so I took a punt on the Bosch and I have had it a few months and all seems well. It does rinse properly.
I also agree about washing machines never using sufficient amounts of water again. I know they say “what goes around comes around” but I fear this will not be the case with all these environmental do gooders, for which I have NO time for. Thanks to these idiots there is all the people here with SERVERE skin complaints. Its just not fair, there is no choice anymore, we are forced in to these stupid modern machines whether we like it or not. This is by far the biggest amount of sh1te I have come across in almost 21 years on this planet.
All the best,
Oliver.
Oliver, I’m sorry you nearly ended up in hospital because your previous washing machine was so useless at rinsing. I’m horrified that modern washing machines can be so appalling at rinsing the result is havoc for allergy sufferers like yourself. Even re-rinsing made no difference in your case! Maybe you could have sued Hotpoint?
I would have hoped that a rinse-hold followed by re-rinsing would be a “universal” solution to everyone reading these comments, but unfortunately it seems there is no “universal” solution! What else can be done? Legal action maybe? If enough people did go down the legal action route, it could be the turning point for the better?
I can think of one more thing only: wash a load as normal and use rinse-hold (if possible). Then you could run another wash programme (on the same wash load) that you know uses more water (e.g. a wool programme, if it uses more water) – run it WITHOUT detergent and that could work? Its final spin may be slower and the washing would need a faster spin again if you’re using a tumble dryer. Obviously that’s a *lot* of hassle and it would take a long time just to get one wash load done, but if it rinses better, it may be your only option, sadly!
About the “extra rinse” button (or whatever each manufacturer calls it), when they added this option it’s obvious the washing machine manufacturers knew their washing machines weren’t up to par on rinsing using the default options, so they came up with this “extra rinse” option. How long have they known about poor rinsing?
Just a note. Anyone experiencing “suds lock” where the water doesn’t pump out fully leaving soapy water inside for the next rinse should check the pump filter isn’t partially blocked, or that there isn’t a partial blockage inside the drain hose (small button or coin) or a partial blockage in the u-bend connector that the drain hose pumps into.
There shouldn’t be any water left in the drum after draining at the end of a rinse, and if there is, the number one suspect is that the pump just isn’t pumping out the water fast enough.
This was extremely common on Hotpoint washing machines where they had a stupid filter inside the sump hose which customers were unaware of and most couldn’t deal with even if they knew, which commonly got caked in lint reducing the pump flow rate adversely.
Another common cause of this is when a small button or a small piece of broken up bra underwire gets pumped through the drain hose but lodges in the end of the hose or in the tapered connector spiggot that it connects to at the u-bend (if connected to the sink). This traps lint and causes a partial blockage which reduces the water flow from the machine enough to just about cope without causing an error code but severely reducing the rinse efficiency.
I’m not saying these things account for poor rinsing, but someone experiencing poor rinsing, particularly if observing soapy water still left in the drum when it starts to fill up for another rinse could have this issue, which could be fixed.
Hi Whatmatters,
That was the doctors idea not mine, my felling it was a OTT (I refused to go). When they don’t know what they are talking about they will always come out with some bullsh1t!! At the time I also used non-biological powder (Fairy) and they ruled out that would be affecting my skin, luckily I am the suspicious type and did suspect it, that is why I re-ran the rinse cycle, which helped a bit, but still wasn’t curing the problem.
Whether I use bio or non-bio I am just as badly affected, as it happens I use either Ariel bio or Persil bio and am now not adversley affected, as it is rinsed out properly in the Bosch.
Re-rinsing should help most people as in my case there were other factors affecting me, particullaly hand soap etc. I now use special products and have “fairly” normal skin. But as soon as I use something I shouldn’t I will pay the price. It was by far the washing machine that was affecting me most though.
Regarding Hotpoint I did speak to the useless call centre giving them a piece of my mind, they were useless and did not give a damn about me as I am the minority and no-one has ever complained about rinsing before. See post 54 above for more info. I never thought of legal action, but its too late now and I am greatful to be feeling alot better.
Yes you are right about the “Extra Rinse”, “Super Rinse”, “Sensitive Care”, “Pure Rinse”, “Intensive Rinse”, “Deep Rinse”, “Medic Rinse”, “Rinse++” and “Aqua/Water Plus” options being evedence of manufactureres know their machines do not even come close to rinsing properly. They won’t admit it though. These options sound great, and they all deliver the same level of nothing, its amazing how many words can mean the same thing. Not one of those options can make a machine rinse as well as they used to, not even half as well. Pathetic isn’t it.
Like you say the hassle of getting a modern washer to rinse properly is unbelieveable, these are supposed to be labour saving devices. Its harder than getting out the dolly tub, rubbing board and soap (still have a rubbing board and posser knocking around in the loft!). At least you can rinse properly with that method!
Thanks for your concern,
All the Best,
Oliver.
Hi Andy,
Sudslocking……..
Both the IAR Siltal and Hotpoint are not blocked, they pumped fine. They just time-out before all the soapy water has had chance to drain. Bad programming and intermediate spinning. The Bosch will not sudslock and cannot due to programming etc.
They cannot be fixed as you put it, unless you fancy reprogramming them for me!!!
HTH,
Oliver.
Hello Oliver. Hopefully the advice may be useful for others as this is a potential issue in some cases of particularly poor rinsing.
Hi Andy,
I agree some machines could be partially blocked, I am as guilty for not cleaning the filter as often as I should too! Yes right about the Hotpoint filter, stupid place, nobody even knows it there as it says self cleaning pump!
All the best,
Oliver.
H. This is a really interesting website and I will try some of the suggestions above! I have just left the following message on thewhitegoodshelp.co.uk (many thanks for your reply,Andy -much appreciated) and it is reassuring to hear that I probably am not totally paranoid about laundry not being rinsed properly and being totally irritated by having to rinse clothes by hand in the sink…
“Hi,I hope you can help with possible suggestions as to why my laundry comes out of my washing m/c unrinsed,despite it going through the rinse cycles and even through ‘extra’ rinse cycles.
Over the last 2 years I have had 5 m/cs, 4 of these being brand new. The brands have been Bosch, Whirlpool, Zanussi and now another brand new m/c – Hotpoint – so all good reputable manufacturers. Each has had the same problem: The m/cs all wash well, but despite water going into the m/cs for rinsing and then expelling the water, I have to take the laundry out of the machine, rinse it in the sink 3-4 times (towels are particularly bad) and put it back into the m/c again to spin. (Just in case there was a problem with a possibly blocked outlet down-pipe, I have even put the outlet hose over the sink and the water that pours into the sink is soapy white with bubbles too. Also, the water valve for the inlet hose has been replaced, just in case that was faulty).
None of the manufacturers’ engineers who have been out to check out the m/cs cant suggest a reason as to why there is this problem. Although I live in a hard water area, there appears to be no furring up of the water pipes in my house, the external water pressure has been measure by my local water company who was if anything the water pressure is above the recommended/average water pressure rather than below.
Any suggestions? I don’t have the energy to return yet another washing m/c … but I can’t continue rinsing the laundry in the sink after every wash.”
My next step, if I have any energy left, is to write a similar message in a letter to all the manufacturers whose washing m/cs I have had to return because of this problem.
Good luck to all of you …
Marion
New discovery I made today (24th October 2009) that will horrify owners of modern washing machines…
I washed some towels and I did NOT use too much detergent. On the rinse-hold, I could see the water was cloudy and there were still soap bubbles. Remember, this is AFTER the washing machine had rinsed the towels. I know I didn’t press “extra rinse” but the DEFAULT setting is NO “extra rinse”. It makes no difference if you press “extra rinse” anyway.
Knowing that re-running the rinses was unlikely to work, I switched off the machine and found the instruction book, had a look at the wash cycles and saw that the “Duvet” cycle uses the most water (75 litres). (It’s a 7kg machine but can only just fit a single duvet!! The marketing rubbish didn’t mention the words “single duvet”, it just makes out it can wash “a” duvet.)
Anyway, after running the “Duvet” cycle (without detergent), followed by a separate “Spin” cycle at 1600 rpm (the duvet cycle won’t spin faster than 700 rpm), I did manage to get the towels rinsed properly and it took over 3 hours in total!!!!
My discovery… towels are very difficult to rinse. If you are trying to force your washing machine to rinse everything properly, washing a drum full of towels is a TRUE test. Don’t worry about overloading – a full drum of towels quickly becomes half full as the towels get wetter.
So my comment #110 is probably the only “universal” solution. If you follow that idea, it takes a long time to get through a wash load, so you probably won’t want to watch the clock. It’s total madness just to get your laundry rinsed properly, a luxury we had until about 15 years ago.
Don’t forget that if your own laundry is being rinsed fine doesn’t mean that when you stay at a friends, bed and breakfast, a hotel etc. that the bed sheets there will be rinsed properly. That alone clearly illustrates the magnitude of this problem!
Many thanks,Whatmatters … my m/c is part way through a laundry wash – using the pre-wash this time – so I’ll see how that does and then try your suggestion with the duvet option.
It’s no wonder that the number of asthma and exzema cases is soaring!
Perhaps I’ll send a copy of my letter to the washing m/c manufacturers to the asthma/ezema research people ..
Marion
Hi WhatMatters,
Towels are a pain to rinse, The Hotpoint would sudslock with a full load of towels, even after 6 rinses it would still sudslock, so it looks like your machine is far better.
The Duvet cycle sounds interesting, never had a machine with that on, I agree it would be a good idea to run that cycle as well, so you get another wash and extra set of rinses. I cannot believe the lengths people have to go to, to get washing properly rinsed these days. Wow 3 hours is a long time!
The Hotpoint would wash a Duvet (6/7KG), and surprisingly rinse it properly, so they must be very easy to rinse. The programme I used for duvets consisited of:
Wash at 70oC, a Dilution rinse, and then 3 rinses (with extra rinse) and a 1300rpm spin. It took over 2 hours to complete.
Yet I tried this programme for everything else (turned down to 60oC) and it would not rinse at all properly it sudslocked even with a half load in, so after all that I still had to do another 2 or 3 rinses. With all the extra rinses it took over 3 hours to complete, and would still not rinse properly.
Hotels and Bed and Breakfast will only have properly rinsed laundry if they use Commercial machines e.g JLA. But if they are using domestic jobs then I agree they will have poorly rinsed linen. If people are affected they won’t stay there again and it will be bad for business!!
Another option (this is stupid and should not have to do) is to got to the laundrette, most have JLA’s now these do rinse properly. But why should you have to do that when you can have a washer at home? By the way A JLA does all stages of the wash and rinse with water 1/3 up the door.
When will manufacturers wake and smell the coffee, people are not robots we each have INDIVIDUAL requirments and there should be the products out the to panda to our needs.
Oliver.
Quoting WhatMatters:
One of the possible causes of detergent residue being left after washing is actually not using enough detergent. I think it’s worth mentioning after your comment reminded me. I’m not saying it is necessarily relevant in your case but it’s definitely worth mentioning.
Detergent residues are left after washing -
Possible cause: “Insufficient detergent is being used”.
Prevention: “Some powder detergents react with the minerals in hard water, forming a whitish residue that can be mistaken for undissolved detergent. The film can be avoided by using the recommended amount of detergent”.
Your problem with washing a duvet in a 7 kg drum also reminds me of another issue I need to investigate, drum capacity sizes. I remember Miele once told me that their 6 kg drum had a larger capacity to many competitors 6 kg drums because there are different ways of measuring drum capacity and Miele used the more generous method resulting in a larger drum.
This has recently been proved to me when I tested a new washing machine for review which has a 6 kg drum. As we are used to using the Miele W3740 washing machine, which also has a 6 kg drum my wife complained that she couldn’t fit as much laundry inside this new washing machine, yet it supposedly had the same 6 kg drum size. It was so much smaller she refused to believe it was a 6 kg drum and I even had to double check in the manual. So I had two washing machines both claiming to have a 6 kg drum, yet the Miele washing machine accepted significantly more laundry inside.
Therefore it appears that all drum sizes are not necessarily equal.
Some years back I tested and reviewed the Dyson CR01 washing machine which had a 7 kg drum capacity, supposedly the same drum size as your washing machine, yet these pictures show it not only happily washing a double quilt, but with plenty to spare -
Dyson 7Kg drum compared with 5Kg drum
I too can confirm drum sizes differ. I had a Hotpoint 6KG machine and it was significantly larger than a friends White Knight 6KG machine. The Hotpoint would wash a thin summer duvet, but the White Knight wouldn’t. The Dyson had a bigger than average 7KG machines drum size as it rotated in both directions at the same time, they say so there is more room for the laundry to move.
Andy, how well did the Dyson rinse, did it sudslock, how many rinses did it do? Because their vacuums are absolute rubbish, I wondered about their washing machines, wern’t they over £1000? Also heard they were noisey.
All the best,
Oliver.
Hi Oliver. I did a full review of it, which you can access from the link on my last comment. They were way too expensive, which was a shame because I liked it.
To be honest I’ve never had any problems with poor rinsing and only wrote this article after noticing Which? were saying most of the washing machines they were testing were poor at rinsing.
Regarding my comment #117 …
I used the normal measure of detergent. If I don’t wash towels, the water on the rinse-hold is mostly clear (but not crystal clear, modern washing machines don’t rinse properly). Re-rinsing anything EXCEPT towels seems to work with my machine (as I put on my comment #106).
Rinsing towels, well that’s a major challenge for modern washing machines, the towels just soak up the pathetically small amount of water. Even when I re-rinsed the towels on the “Duvet” cycle (which uses more water), I saw the extra water quickly disappearing after a few drum rotations. Comment #1 says towels retain the most powder residue. It sounds like that will only be cured if the rinsing cycles literally “drowned” the towels!!! I remember about 20 years ago when washing machines used LOTS of water during the rinses and they did “drown” the washing and rinsed absolutely fine, nobody had skin allergies caused by laundry (unless they were allergic to fabric conditioners, which is just one thing to eliminate).
To Marion (comment #118), adding the liquid or powder detergent to the drum and running a cycle with a pre-wash seems to work best if you’re washing a small load or your machine is prone to excessive foaming when using the recommended amount of detergent. I found this to be a problem when washing curtains some time ago, as I’m a non-smoker and the curtains are dusty rather than dirty, maybe light soiling causes excessive foaming? On the other hand, if after the pre-wash you don’t see any bubbles at all during the main wash, your washing may not be washed properly (but likely to be rinsed a bit better!).
It’s definitely “tug of war” with the washing machine to make it rinse better, but I don’t expect absolutely perfect rinsing unless you can make the machine fill with LOTS of water for every rinse. 6 rinses with water at least 1/3 up the door, fast spinning between rinses (e.g. 800 rpm) and no suds-locking. I wish I could make washing machines that did that and were as well built as Mieles, just a thought.
Hi WhatMatters,
There are a few suds in the last rinse of my machine, the water is crystal clear though. The detregent cannot be present though as if it were I would see the effects on my skin. A theory is if you rinse alot, the foam inhibitor is rinsed out and then the minute amounts of detergent left over are free to sud like crazy! I do dose the powder properly for soil, water hardness and load size.
This is all with 4 rinses 1/3 up the door and a spin of 400rpm after each stage of the programme. If I use the synthetic cycles with 4 rinses and water 1/4 up the door there is also a “dilution rinse” which helps drain more off before the first spin. It would appear soap suds are not that good at indecating how well the machine rinses, you can hardly smell the Persil’s perfume on my laundry (Persil is very heavily perfumed), it is not hard and scratchy and it lovely and soft and I do not use softener. And my skin is better than it ever has been.
I have noticed with alot of machines the water all soaks up and does not refill, the pressure switch should kick in and tell it to fill up again, but this is only ever the case on wash, never rinses, God only knows why! No machine rinses away 100% of detergent, never has done either. The old ones did come very close though.
All the best,
Oliver.
Good points Oliver. Similar points were made early on in this discussion by a guy who appeared to know a bit about detergents, which some may have missed – Comment #11
Using white (clear/distilled) vinegar before re-rinsing might help. I will try it next time I use the washing machine. I will fill up the fabric conditioner part of the soap drawer with clear vinegar, then on the rinse-hold (i.e. final rinse), refill the fabric conditioner compartment with actual fabric conditioner and then re-rinse.
Doing a Google search for “vinegar laundry” (without the speech marks) returns a lot of results about the benefits of using vinegar on fabrics, not just for neutralising detergent, but for stain removal and so on.
It might work out cheaper to buy the vinegar in larger bottles or containers, if you use it a lot. Brown (malt) vinegar is likely to stain everything, so not a good idea to use that variety!!
This might be the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle, if it really works? I’ve read that some people actually use clear vinegar as a substitute for fabric conditioner – it’s claimed to work just as well. I wonder if it really does?
We have a Miele machine, and I have to say that with it’s standard 2 rinse cycle, it is the best rinsing machine that we have ever had since our Hoover many years ago. Before I start with anything else – 4 members of our family including a 1 year old have bad skin, and I can wash everything in biological powder without a single problem. This is before I even consider pressing extra rinse or water plus (our Miele machine has them as seperate options). I had skin problems a couple weeks ago myself, which I thought might be due to detergent – but after trying non bio detergent I found that it was actually linked to having switched fabric softener.
I collect washers (read: washer geek), and have used a number of different machines over the years. I used to have an AEG Oko Lavamat washing machine from 2004 (read Zanussi), which would only deliver similar (and not as good) rinsing results using the Sensitive button – 5 rinses halfway up the door, but with no interim spin until after the 3rd rinse, whereas both our Miele machines will do a 4 min spin at 1000rpm after the wash, after gently ramping up over a minute or so to max speed, a medium first rinse level (water anything between from the rim of the drum to 2 or 3 inches up the door, depending on the load’s absorbency), followed by another 1000rpm interim spin – this time at 2-3 minutes, then a final rinse of the same level and the final spin. I think what also helps with Miele machines especially is that the slower rinse tumbling plunges the load throuigh the water rather than beating them – which not only allows detegrent to soak out of the load better, but also prevents excessive suds from occuring. Additionally, the machine will also adjust rinsing depending on the size of the load – a heavier load will get longer and/or deeper rinses, and longer interim spins.
In terms of the sudslock issue – Miele machines – or at least the ones I have – seem to have a pause between the wash drain, and the interim spin which seems to allow the suds to die down after the wash, before spinning. In the rare occurence of a sudslock – it will slow the drum speed – but keep spinning at a slow speed, until the suds have cleared, and will then speed up again, and also add an extra rinse for preventative measure, as well as tell you to Check detergent once the machine has finished.
Our Bosch machine, on the other hand, could do 4 rinses, but only spun at 400-600rpm between the rinses, water never came up the door, and everybody would itch if we didn’t use Persil Non Bio. Even Fairy made us itch, go figure. Not just that, but our older Hotpoint machines we had before weren’t clever at rinsing either, and were nowhere near as good as either the Miele we have now, or the ancient Hoover Electronic 1100 we used to have that mum and dad bought when they were married – which lasted until 1996 without a single repair, only to be replaced with a (then fashionable) cream washer to match the kitchen.
I have a variety of old AEGs in the garage – the ones I frequently use are late 80s/early 90s models which employ “Sensortronic” rinse spinning – where the spin speed increases by what seems to be 100rpm steps until the maximum speed (1000rpm) between each rinse, and then maintaining maximum speed for a couple of minutes, before a rinse with a level about an inch up the window. Again, rinses clear with 3 rinses, and much better than our 2003 model Bosch, or our 90s Hotpoint machines.
One thing I do think that doesn’t help with rinsing is how a lot of modern washers don’t fill as the interim spin slows – as well as deeper rinse levels on older machines, I always felt this saturates the load better before the rinse tumbling even started… it’s about the only improvement I could suggest to Miele’s school of rinsing!
Oliver – my mum’s friend has a WFF2000 (this was a major reason as to why we bought our Bosch), and it’s still working to this day without a repair. A very different creed of machine from our old Bosch Exxcel! Although, from what I have heard, Bosch are supposed to have improved the rinsing of their machines, with the higher water level button having returned under the guise of “Aqua plus”, and also on the top of the range machines with the LCD displays you can choose to have higher water, and to have 1-4 additional rinses.
Jon
Forgot to mention – I’d be interested to know how many people who have rinsing issues use pre-measured tablets and liquitabs. In my experience, as novel as they are, and we do sometimes buy them on special offer, the one-size-fits-all approach is best left to selling some types of clothes rather than washing them! Have gone back to powder after a while of using tablets (yes – I know, slap me on the wrist), and it is much more economical to use. We live in a hard water area, and I don’t use much at all (I use 60-80ml for average soil, 80-100 for heavy soil) and still get a brilliantly clean wash. Using Bold at the moment, but have found Ariel and store brands to be just as good. I used to love Persil, but they’ve changed the smell and simply the smell coming from the box is enough to make me want to choke!
Although, to be honest, I have to say that it is rather pointless using 2in1 detergents in our machine as we can barely smell it – you get a faint waft as the clothes are on the horse, but smell nothing once they’re dry. When I used commercial machines when I was at uni, on the other hand, using the same amount of detergent my clothes would long smell of Bold or Ariel!
Jon
Hi Jon,
Yes the WFF2000 is built to last!
I have always used powder, like you I hate the “one size fits all” approach, particullally if you are not washing a full load. I find both Bio and Non-bio upset my skin, all brands. I am using Persil Biological powder and getting excellent results, It stinks in the box but my laundry hardly smells of it thanks to the Bosch.
Laundry coming out of my Mums machine (IAR Siltal) bites your nose off with the smell of Ariel powder! It is very strong and when things dry they are very hard and towels like sandpaper. Excellent machine though.
The WFF2000 has an intermediate spin speed of 400rpm and spins for only a minute after the wash and between all the rinses. This fills up while it is slowing down and has an inlet at the top of the door to wet the laundry as the water comes in. It fills to 1/3 up the door and tumbles normally, the same speed as wash.
Oh, the Hotpoint WF530T I used to have bought in 2005 was cream, nice colour!
All the best,
Oliver.
I tried the clear vinegar trick by putting vinegar in the compartment for fabric conditioner, to the “max” mark. Then on the rinse-hold, turned off the machine and added my “sensitive” fabric conditioner and turned the dial to “rinse” (in order to run the rinse cycles again), with the final spin speed set at 1600 rpm.
Clear vinegar seems to have done something… emptied the drum and had a job to smell *any* sort of fragrance. 3 towels that I included in the load felt much softer when they dried.
I hope this solution works and alleviates allergies after a few months. Please remember not to overload the drum and to only use clear vinegar, not brown vinegar or any other colour. Re-rinse and good luck :)
I don’t know exactly why vinegar improves rinsing, it could be that detergent is alkaline and vinegar is acidic, the vinegar probably lowers the alkali pH nearer to neutral (pH 7 I think?). Maybe the vinegar works in other ways when used in rinsing? I’ve seen plenty of tips on websites about using vinegar on fabrics for other purposes e.g. stain removal.
Hope it helps. :D
Hi Oliver,
Sounds like your Bosch had the same rinse spin patterns as ours, just ours never had water rise above the door seal – which probably explains why yours rinses and ours didn’t! Ours was so bad that it left pet hair over everything, and if we wanted properly rinsed laundry we had to use the Easy Care cycle which had a higher water level but only spun at 800 at the end, so things would take ages in the tumble dryer as the seperate spin programme was only limited to 800 revs. Our Miele has a similar water fill down the door to the one our Bosch had – which I think is why it probably manages to saturate the load well. All the benefits of Zanussi Jetsystem machines, but without the extra sudsing the recirculation pump creates.
I think the fast intermediate spins compared with deepish rinses on our Miele explains why it rinses so well with so little water – I was reluctant to believe at first that 2 rinses would do an excellent job and always used the extra rinse, but now I save 20 minutes and 15 litres of water and still have perfect results that our Bosch couldn’t deliver with 4 low water rinses. I certainly wouldn’t discount Miele for rinse performance.
My nana had a Hotpoint WF340 I think it was… 1400 spin Aquarius. Bear in mind that she washes three times a week, it didn’t last until it’s 2nd birthday until the bearings were shot. That had pretty decent rinse levels though, it filled a few inches up the door similar to Gary’s Hotpoint.
I’ve used a detergent called Ecos before, it’s a super concentrated washing powder which costs about 7 quid for 54 loads – you can order it online from the guardian eco store (at least that’s where I get it from), which rinses perfectly, but also cleans superbly. It’s just such a hassle to order it online once it’s run out, so the majority of the time we just go for what’s on offer in Asda or Sainsbury’s, but my preference is for Ariel or Bold. It’s very lightly fragranced too, it’s worth a try if you’re allergic to detergents and better (and significantly cheaper) than Ecover in my opinion.
Take care,
Jon
Hi Jon,
I have noticed alot of simalarities between the WFF2000 and Miele machines, I wonder which company stole the ideas!!!!
The Hotpoint I had lasted 2.5 years at 4 loads a week, the timer and computer packed up. It only just touched the bottom of the door on rinses though and did 3 with extra rinse selected. It was a useless machine not only was the rinsing bad but the wash performance was pathetic. It did not remove easy stains, such as tea, coffee etc. And it washed for 1 hour before rinsing. The only good thing was it looked nice.
I have also tried Ecover and am allergic to it, it washed as well as plain water too. Never heard of Ecos either, sounds good though.
The Zanussi Jetsystem machines were daft wern’t they, I bet there would be no difference in wash performance whether the recirculation pump worked or not. Plus have heard of alot of pump failures as it is in so much use, and pump fires. It seemed like a selling point to me rather than a useful idea, in my eyes it was just another point of failure. I like the Bosch, if it packs up I will be repairing it!
All the best,
Oliver.
It is sad that Zanussi no longer do the version of Jetsystem that they made back in the late 80′s as that was the best washer in its day. I bought after having a 2nd baby as our Servis Quartz died after so much use. The jetsystem was ace as it only used cold water and was economical and it did 3 deep rinses with water level going half way up the door, a great machine in my eyes. I bought another one years later it did not do the spin on wash but did during the rinse I have to say I have never used the extra rinse cycle as never needed it and I too have excema but use good powder like Ariel as cannot abide mucky whites… I guess its caused progress but like most on this forum agree the rinse is crap nowadays on modern machines. Pity really as its the rinsing that cleans the laundry. Just my 2 pennyworth.
Austin
One thing that is being overlooked is old detergent being left behind in the washing machine and the build up of grease, mould and bad smells. If you run the washing machine with no laundry and see some soap bubbles, then it’s a good idea to clean out the washing machine to remove the old detergent. I reckon bad rinsing is also leaving behind detergent in the washing machine itself, not just in your clothes!
There’s plenty of advice about cleaning out washing machines. It’s probably best to start off by pulling out the soap drawer and giving that a clean and also clean the recess where the drawer goes into (it can get very dirty in there!). Then clean the pump filter before we clean out the empty washing machine on a boil wash with vinegar or a suitable washing machine cleaner (before anyone recommends using a washing powder with bleaching properties, we’re trying to remove existing detergent and not add to it).
Having done all that, hopefully you can be one step closer to better rinsing by trying out the ideas mentioned earlier, like re-rinsing etc.
Has anyone tried Amway laundry detergents? How do you rate the cleaning performance compared with Ariel or Persil?
Even Which? Online don’t seem to have tested Amway products. I don’t know much about them to be honest except I have an impression they are expensive because of the way they are marketed by agents visiting homes individually, but probably decent stuff or the whole concept couldn’t survive.
(Formerly called “WhatMatters”).
Hi, I am writing another posting as I’ve discovered on the Which? website a washing machine rated “very poor” for rinsing on the cottons cycle is a “Best Buy”. Get this: Which? suggests using the “easy care” programme if you have sensitive skin, as there is no extra rinse option. However the cleaning is not as good on this washing machine’s “easy care” programme.
Due to copyright I can’t reveal the make/model.
It is alarming that a washing machine that is very poor at rinsing with no extra rinse can be awarded a “Best Buy”. At least Which? warn you about the very poor rinsing.
As I put earlier, if you own a modern washing machine, you have to force it to rinse better. Has anyone had any luck with this?
WMUser: (I wonder what happened to WhatMatters?) Yes, I wrote to Which? at least a year ago pointing out the issue you describe. I couldn’t understand how anyone could describe a washing machine that they think is very poor, or even just poor at rinsing as a Best Buy. I said in my opinion it undermines the credibility of the reviews.
Maybe the washing machine is still the best of the ones available but if it was me, I would just say we can’t nominate any washing machine as a best buy if it doesn’t rinse to a high enough standard, and if that means there aren’t any washing machines deserving a Which? Best Buy award where’s the problem with that?
Which? would get even more respect if they advised that they didn’t think any washing machine could justifiably get the award and they would probably influence manufacturers to address the problem.
The only way it makes sense is if Best Buy simply means it’s just the best tested – warts and all. To be fair, if all washing machines don’t rinse well you can still argue that one or more of them are much better than the others and deserve being pointed out.
However, according to Which? themselves the Best Buy “was launched to recognise excellence.”
I chose the new name “WMUser” as the name “WhatMatters” sounds a bit harsh, but I was really annoyed at the time I created that name. It is really annoying that today’s washing machines don’t rinse properly and it’s yet another annoying part of everyday life (I won’t make a long list of everyday annoyances, it would be miles long lol).
I agree with what you say Washerhelp: I can’t understand why such a washing machine is a “Best Buy”. I think all Which? members should complain to Which? and insist that only washing machines with “Good” rinsing or better should be awarded a “Best Buy”. That could force the washing machine manufacturers to improve rinsing, as they strive to achieve the “Best Buy” award.
Hi WMUser (I still like “WhatMatters”,it summed up this situation very well!)
I noticed this too, back in 2005 when we subscribed to their magazine, not one washing machine made it past “satisfactory” for rinsing. I too thought it diabolical that anyone of them should be awarded “Best Buy”, when obviously they are some what lacking in one VERY major area.
I am sceptical of Which?, I am not completely convinced that they are 100% unbiased, that cannot be proven. A good example is washing powders, they said Ariel cleans better then Persil, but in my Bosch Persil can p*ss all over Ariel, it is better by a long way. Did P&G drop them a back hander I wonder.
Another example is vacuum cleaners, they award countless Dysons “Best Buys” and also publish poor brand reliability, a bit contradictory is it not. I can tell you as a carpet cleaner Dysons are the worst performing cleaners you can buy, and do shorten the life of carpets etc. But thats a little of topic!!
Personally I take no notice of which, for a washing machine to be a “Best Buy” it should wash, rinse and spin to perfection. And also be built to last.
We no longer subscribe to Which? as we no longer give them any credability in what they publish.
All the best,
Oliver.
I used to praise Which? for their product testing, but now I’m not so happy with Which? I’ve noticed they are cutting corners on testing products and seem to be handing out “Best Buy” awards like sweets! For example, they test dishwashers on the “normal” programme for cleaning, drying etc., but (according to their website) Which? no longer tests the “economy” programme on dishwashers. However, Which? are quick to point the finger at a dishwasher model that has “poor energy efficiency”! I thought we were all being told to use less electricity, water and resources, hence use the “economy” programme more often?
To be fair on Which? you are less likely to waste your money on something, provided you read their review very carefully and also read the opinions of customers who’ve bought the product you’re interested in.
Yes I agree with you Oliver, Dysons are the worst cleaners you can buy – and the same goes for all bagless vacuums. Like poor rinsing, if you’re an allergy sufferer, you need a vacuum that does the job well. Why buy a bagless vacuum, then empty the dust container into a rubbish bin or carrier bag and release a cloud of dust everywhere? Most of the Which? Best Buys are bagged models.
Back to the rinsing topic, any method to improve rinsing on today’s machines involves faffing around and observing – you can’t just switch on the machine, walk away and come back later to perfectly rinsed laundry! Like comment #110, a slightly quicker way could be to switch off the machine after the main wash programme has pumped out the soapy water, select another programme that you know uses lots of water and run it without detergent, just use the fabric conditioner compartment. If the final spin is slower on this second programme and you need a faster spin e.g. for tumble drying, you will need to switch off and select the faster spin.
I know the previous paragraph sounds like a lot of fuss, but you soon get used to manually selecting extra cycles and I don’t think about it, I just follow this method and let the washing machine do the hard work. :)
If this topic was featured on prime time television, I wonder if a TV documentary, with interviews from allergy sufferers affected by washing machines, would cause a massive public response?
I feel sorry for people who have spent a fortune on a brand new washing machine and soon discover they are suffering allergy hell from clothing that is far from “rinsed”!!
I’m aware that many people just blame the detergent type/brand only, but the terrible truth is down to their washing machine not rinsing well, even if the “extra rinse” option is always enabled.
My eczema has cleared up completely since re-rinsing everything on a water-guzzling cycle (without detergent). It takes over an hour longer, but I don’t care. When my washing machine eventually dies, I will definitely buy an old second-hand “water-guzzling” replacement.
Hi WMUser,
That is a really good idea! Then the manufacturers will be aware of how big the problem is and how widespread skin problems from washing machines are then.
Its true people think that having an extra rinse option is going to solve the problem, but it won’t as you say. You just assume that any washing machine will rinse properly without any hassle of re running rinses and other cycles etc. Like they used to in times of old. Nobody will stop to think about rinse efficiency when they buy a washing machine, lets face it I didn’t.
The second hand machine is a top idea, it worked for me, there is no new machine that you can buy today that will even rinse half properly, which is absolutley DISGUSTING. Thank you very much environMENTAL do gooders, look what you have managed to achieve.
All the best, glad you have some relief from the eczema,
Oliver.
It’s around 2 years since I posted my thread about how disappointed I was and still am with the poor rinsing performance of ALL modern-day front loading washing machines. Someone made the comment about white vinegar being very good at helping to remove detergent left in clothing, particularly towels. I can confirm that it is absolutely brilliant. However, I have failed to find anywhere who sell it in bulk. You can buy brown malt vinegar in bulk from places like Daily Bread in Northampton, but not white vinegar. Does anyone know of anywhere? I found one website, but the delivery charges were prohibitive.
Hi Nikki Jenkins, I’m glad you find the white vinegar is absolutely brilliant. :)
I’m surprised white vinegar is not sold in bulk like brown vinegar. Maybe discount retailers like Aldi or Lidl sell it in larger containers? I’m sure it’s available somewhere because it’s so widely advocated, for example, I know they used lots of white vinegar on episodes of “How Clean is Your House”.
Further to the last paragraph on my comment #143, I follow my water-guzzling method every time and find it works the best. If anyone can copy a similar method on their poor-rinsing washing machine, in 3 easy steps…
1) Wash items in the usual manner (including adding the softener or white vinegar), no “extra rinse” option necessary.
2) After the main wash completes (before it starts ‘rinsing’), the machine is likely to perform a short spin. When this spin has finished, switch off and then select a water-guzzling cycle to run without detergent.
3) If the spin speed is too low at the end of 2), switch off and select a higher spin speed.
DON’T WORRY – you soon get used to following the 3-step method every time you use the washing machine. I imagine using white vinegar with that 3-step method would result in VERY good rinsing??!! If you don’t know which cycle on your washing machine is the most water-guzzling, if you can find its literature, it may tell you which cycle uses the most litres of water, that’s how I discovered which one to use for the rinses.
If I press the “extra rinse” on my washing machine, it stupidly doesn’t perform a spin after the main wash cycle, but if I don’t press “extra rinse” then it does that spin. Daft but true! Spinning the soapy water out does help enormously, but the manufacturers don’t seem to know how to rinse clothes, just how to market these “energy efficient” and “water saving” washing machines that are no good any more!
I have tried the “water guzzling” methods, I have tried absolutely everything and have formed the opinion that you cannot rinse properly in cold water. You need hot water to dissolve the detergent, surfactant, whatever you want to call it. I have tried washing the clothes through a complete cycle, just not adding any soap, but that is still not as effective as just simply having a washing machine that rinses with hot water. The rinse action is a very special action in any washing machine, it is designed to rinse not wash, but is not effective unless you use hot water. You can (as you have described) “fool” the machine by a judicious twiddling of knobs at the right time, such that the machine is rinsing with hot water … this will work actually … but we are on Economy 7, and so the washing machine has to run during the night when electricity is cheaper. I am not prepared to wake up in the middle of the night to twiddle a few knobs !!
So … I am left with the white vinegar option, which is a brilliant one if I were a millionaire! I have searched everywhere for bulk white vinegar – Aldi, Lidl, the internet – and you can only get malt (brown) vinegar in bulk, except on the internet, and then the delivery charges are prohibitive.
The most water guzzling cycle on my machine is the Wool setting by the way.
Thanks for your helpful suggestions. It is a shame that we are on Economy 7, although I suppose with the problem items like towels I could just wash these during the day and knob twiddle … hang the expense!
Reading your comment Nikki, I know that re-running “water-guzzling” cycles without detergent is not practical for everyone, however the first ‘wash’ on the second cycle you run will act as a warm rinse, if you can turn up the temperature high enough – that’s safe for the clothes, I hope that works.
Comment #47 from Oliver, who bought an older washing machine that uses lots of water, that seems to be the only permanent solution and what I’m considering doing when my washing machine dies one day.
For readers who run their washing machines on Economy 7, maybe running the main wash during Economy 7 hours and leaving the washing machine on rinse-hold could help, especially if washing hotter than 40 degrees. Then during the day, re-run a water-guzzling cycle without detergent (but not hotter than 30 or 40 degrees if you’re trying to save money).
Hope that helps. :)
PS I wonder if these “A” ratings only apply to the water-SAVING cycles, since most washing machines have a water-guzzling cycle e.g. “wool”, “duvet” etc.?
Hi
Re buying White Vinegar in bulk – I’ve found this on the web:
http://www.westmill.co.uk/pdf/3631b%20Pride%20TP.pdf
4 x 5 Litres can be bought from Westmill … I’ve no idea how much the delivery charge is. Someone else buys theirs from their local Chinese shop. Happy shopping!
BTW: Since I commented on this blog in October, I now have a Hotpoint Aqualtis AQ9F 49 U (9 Kg capacity) and the good news is that the ‘Bed & Bath’ cycle seems to work a treat – when using either 1 Persil capsule or 1 Tesco Colours tab! (Haven’t tried it with 2 or 3 capsules or tabs.) No soap left in the washed & rinsed laundry AND no sneezing when using the clothes or bedding when it’s dry. Also, the ‘Shirts’ cycle is good – and again no soap left in the clothes afterthey are washed & rinsed. SO … I’m going to use one of these cyles for most things. I’m sure both cycles are water guzzling, but that’s fine by me if the cycles rinse the clothes thoroughly!
Well done to Hotpoint for getting it right with at least 2 of their cycle options on this washing machine!
WELL DONE! I think we’ve managed to achieve something – better rinsing by NOT using the default settings alone (or just adding lots of extra rinsing water) and using clear vinegar in the last rinse if necessary – for towels I use it.
I think if enough people complained to BBC Watchdog during its next series, if enough people wrote letters of complaint to all washing machine manufacturers and so on, this rinsing problem could be permanently resolved. If just one manufacturer markets their washing machine as being capable of “proper rinsing” compared its competitors, the other manufacturers will follow suit.
I dont know if it’s relevant or not,but i just have to add praise for Zanussi. i have had a Zanussi washer for sixteen years and have never had any trouble with it, i have never had cause to have it repaired or anything. The washing machine i had before that was also a Zanussi, which i had for eighteen years, also with no trouble and no repairs.Then last week i had to call out the fire brigade as my machine caught fire, the machine has done a very good job, and owes me nothing, now i have the problem of buying another machine,I want another Zanussi, but i am wondering about the jet system.Can anyone comment on the jet system,if they are any good.
The Zanussi Jet system is old now, I think they were one of the first to introduce the idea, which was to use less water in the drum but compensate for it by showering the laundry with water pumped into the top of the drum.
I don’t think it improved wash or rinse efficiency so much as allowed the washing machine to use less water. However, it also added extra hoses and another pump which were extra things to go wrong.
I want to try and buy an older machine that uses plenty of water to rinse properly. Can anyone please tell me when the new generation of water rationed machines came on the market? In other words, how old does a machine have to be to wash properly with plenty of water?
Hi Rod,
My Bosch is about 16 years old, it does 4 rinses 1/3 up the door. Probably a minmum of 15 years old I would say.
HTH,
Oliver.
Thanks for your comment Oliver. I’m going to look at a Bosch this morning. Don’t know which model it is yet.
I’m currently in the middle of acrimonious communication with Hotpoint about my new Indesit. They keep denying that there is a problem. I have taken the liberty of refering to your communication with them last May. Saying I bet they will have “no record” of it. Hope you don’t mind.
Having just spent £330 on a new Indesit I am in the position of having to go out and buy an old machine to get a proper wash and will be considerably out of pocket. I have had so many conflicting replies and visits from Hotpoint that I would be interested to hear what dealing you have had with them. Any contact names etc.
My husband is a retired medical scientist and makes the following point: recent decades have seen a meteoric rise in the incidence of asthma which the scientists have struggled to explain. Naturally if clothes contain washing powder (including the additives such as enzymes) not only can this affect the skin by direct contact but also the wearer is constantly breathing in the powder into the lungs. Bed clothes contaminated with washing powder would of course have a similar effect. If you disturb dry, partially rinsed clothes in a shaft of sunlight you will see for yourself what you are breathing in. How do we know that this problem does not at least partly underpin the asthma epidemic? Washing powder enzymes are known to cause asthma. See here:
An outbreak of asthma in a modern detergent factory
DrP Cullinan MDa, , , JM Harris MSca, ProfAJ Newman Taylor FRCPa, AM Holea, M Jones PhDa, F Barnes PhDa and G Jolliffe MRCGPa
Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Imperial College School of Medicine, London SW3 6LR, UK
Summary
The striking decrease in the occurrence of protease-induced occupational asthma in the detergent industry has been attributed to enzyme encapsulation. We report an outbreak of asthma, at least equal in size to those reported in the 1960s, in a modem European factory which has exclusively used encapsulated enzymes. A survey revealed that enzyme sensitisation and work-related respiratory symptoms were positively correlated with airborne enzyme exposure. We suggest that encapsulation alone is insufficient to prevent enzyme-induced allergy and asthma.
It would be ironic if the environmental do-gooders have contributed to one of the biggest health issues in the world?
If a modern washing machine kicks the bucket, you really are better off replacing it with an old washing machine that looks at least 20 years old. If it’s been repaired, it will rinse properly and these old washing machines were made to be repairable.
If you’re waiting for your modern washing machine to self destruct, you could make it work harder – and rinse better – by running a water guzzling cycle without detergent, once the first spin after the main wash finishes. Alternatively, re-run the machine’s rinses when it’s finished. Use clear vinegar if necessary.
Hope that helps you Rod Fryatt and other readers too.
If it is any help to anyone. I have a new Indesit IWC6165 which gives a very poor wash. I have found that adding 4 or 5 litres of hot water with the washing does help. Of course it does nothing to help the rinsing. Hotpoint and the retailer deny any problem with the rinsing of course.
I have emailed BBC R4 “You & Yours” as well as the Watchdog programme, and would urge others to do the same. No reply as yet.
My repeated emails to Hotpoint may have got through to someone as they have just telephoned me to say they are sending an engineer for a third visit. Hope he is not like the others —– just programmed to say “No problem no problem” !
The repair men are given a stock set of answers to regurgitate in response to rinsing complaints so dont expect much. Our machine is a Miele and the engineer modified it to allow higher water levels. I am told that the level sensor works in this way: As the water level rises it compresses air in a tube. A pressure sensor at the end of the tube (above the drum) is then activated. I think he made the tube longer to allow higher water levels.
Firstly this did not help because you need warm or hot water to rinse effectively – not just more water. Secondly because the water level was often up to the centre of the drum over time it seems water got into the bearings destroying them making the machine uneconomic to repair.
Quote from Rod Fryatt:
Too old. There can hardly be any still running. It was the early 80s I think when washing machines filled half way up the door glass on rinses and a third of they way up on wash. It’s just not a viable answer.
Which? have tested and reviewed this machine and it’s one of the many that’s not good enough at rinsing (at least according to Which?) However, they were happy with it’s cottons wash results. They said the drum is on the small side though so make sure you aren’t overloading it which would degrade wash (and rinse) performance)
Quote from Nikki Jenkins
Miele washing machines can be reprogrammed by Miele engineers to take in more water. They are designed so that their engineers can modify the software running the machines in response to changing requirements.
Someone said warm water may be better for rinsing but virtually all washing machines rinse in cold water and always have even back in the days when they rinsed much better.
The bearings are protected by a special seal and the Miele seal should be one of the best. No water should be able to get past the seal even if the water level was up to the top of the door. Having said that clearly these seals can still fail, especially when old, and the lower the water level the less pressure would be put on the seal.
Well actually some machines made during the last 20 years did work pretty well. My Indesit 1263 worked from April 96 till Oct 09. and gave a satisfactory wash and rinsed well. We only scrapped it because the bearings were noisy. Oh how I wish I had them replaced or even done them myself!
Washing machines in the 90s used more water on rinses than today so might still be better at rinsing but by then they’d started reducing water levels. The 70s and early to mid 80s were the days when they filled half way up the door glass.
I just think buying a 15 year old washing machine to get better rinsing will only ever be a very temporary solution as you just wont be able to keep one running long. Parts will be obsolete.
Oh dear, if buying an old washing machine is not the long term answer, we’re stuck with new ones that use too little water for rinsing.
Until the public complain like mad to the washing machine manufacturers, BBC Watchdog etc. then rinsing will never improve and people’s health will continue to suffer as a result!!
Simply pressing the “extra rinse” or similar button every time does not work on its own. I’ve tried that.
Please don’t put up with bad rinsing, do something about it.
I have to say for me buying a 15 year old machine was the only solution I could think of at the time and am still none the wiser today. I do have to disagree and say there are plenty of parts still available for my Bosch, even though some at a price, £256.00 for a motor for example. But can you put a price on your health?
Plus my Bosch can do a 60oC cotton wash in about 1 hour 15 minutes, it takes a modern machine anywhere between 2-3 hours to do a 60oC and then all the extra re-rinsing of the load and extra final spin, this could take you up to 4 hours, I haven’t the time or inclination to put up with stupid wash times like that, and some will still not rinse properly. Also could damage your clothing.
To Nikki Jenkins, my Bosch uses cold water to rinse (4 rinses 1/3 up the door) and does rinse properly. I suffer from servere dermatitis and eczema and react to the smallest amount of detergent residue. However there could be something in the hot rinsing theory, my dishwasher is on a hot water supply so does rinse in hot water and the pots do not smell of detergent but when it was on a cold supply the pots smelt very strongly, so it does rinse better in hot water. Personally I would feel rinsing in hot water in a washing machine could cause the soap to sud back up, whereas cold water seems to kill it more, I could be wrong, it is my own theory. What about connecting your washing machine to a hot only supply so it rinses in hot water? This would only be acceptable if your water temperature is not above 35/40oC though, or it could damage your laundry or possibly the machine. Plus you would not beable to do low temperature washes if the incoming supply is too hot, again could be wrong only my own thoughts.
Also never heard of a high water level damaging bearings, overloading may do as you also have the weight of the extra water to damage the water seal.
All the best,
Oliver.
I don’t give a fig what anyone says … you cannot rinse properly with cold water. This is a basic scientific fact. You need at least warm water to rinse effectively, end of.
In the old days, washing machines rinsed properly. ALL the machines I have ever had had a hot and cold rinse … from memory, you could choose. I think that was an Indesit I had that you could choose hot or cold rinse.
I will not ever in a million years accept that you can rinse clothes effectively with cold water. Try it for yourself – plunge a soapy cotton garment into cold water, rinse it until the water runs clear. Then plunge that same garment into hot water – it will be soapy.
I would have thought water is water regarding flushing detergent out of laundry. I would guess laundry is rinsed by flushing away anything loosely attatched and I’m not sure how the temperature of the water affects it significantly. It’s the physical action of the water pushing through the laundry and the dilution effect that presumably does the rinsing.
If the water is hot or warm it’s more likely to create suds by activating the remaining detergent, which may give the impression it’s getting more detergent out. It’s possible that cold water is just as effective but it doesn’t cause excessive sudsing so you don’t get the “evidence” of detergent being removed, it’s just quietly removed.
All I can say is in the UK I’m not aware of any washing machine ever using anything but cold water to rinse and find it hard to imagine that if warm water was better we would have had nearly 70 years of washing machines all rinsing in cold water without at least one of the major manufacturers claiming their washing machine is better at rinsing than all the others because it rinses in warm water.
I know if I wash my hands with liquid soap and then rinse it off with warm water it throths up more and seems harder to remove yet if I rinse under cold water it seems to be more effective. However, I’ve no way of testing if either method is actually more effective.
I expect all these new machines have a small microprocessor to control the washing cycle
and water level etc. Mine has a USB plug at the back for communicating with it. It cannot
be beyond the wit of some of the very clever people out there to modify the program.
If I knew how to do it I would throw out a challenge to the hackers of the world to hack
into these things and write a program to make them to wash properly with plenty of water.
Any suggestions anyone? — After all if they can do it with cars, why not washing machines?
Why do modern detergents create so much foam if you use a little bit too much for the load size? If I use the recommended amount and I don’t have a full load, my washing machine will create lots of foam in the last 20 – 30 minutes of the main wash programme. This is particularly a problem if I’m washing towels and also a major problem if I wash hotter than 40 degrees. The hotter water does in fact create more foam, maybe that explains why Nikki Jenkins can see more foam when warmer water is used (comment #166)?
Why don’t the manufacturers install a foam sensor in every washing machine, so if excess foaming occurs then the appropriate action can be taken? Excess foaming is solved by allowing the suds to slowly settle for about 30 minutes, then spinning the laundry and starting again.
I live in a hard water area; I can imagine people living in soft water areas have a major problem with foaming? I’m sure too much foam seriously impairs rinsing?
Warm or hot water is required to rinse clothes effectively. My husband explained it to me in a scientific way, which tbh I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something about the molecules in the water when heated up become agitated and start jiggling about, thus rinsing in warm or hot water is far far more effective than rinsing in cold.
You don’t have to take my word for it. You can try it for yourself. Take a cotton tea towel, wash it by hand in the correct amount of detergent, then rinse it in cold water and keep rinsing until the water runs completely clear – it will take you some time because the water is cold. Then plunge that tea towel, well rung out, into a bowl of hot water, and you will see for yourself what is scientific fact !!
These days you cannot find a washing machine, except a very old second hand, that will rinse in hot water. The only way to do this is to run your machine for a second time on a warm or hot wash with no detergent. But if you are on Economy 7, as I am, this is impractical. However, it is what I am going to have to do once my husband has repaired my Miele – he has taken the drum out, and bits are lying all over my kitchen floor whilst we wait for some bearing or other to be delivered!
Rod : a Miele engineer reprogrammed the electronics on my machine in an attempt to bring in more water, but it didn’t bring in enough, so he then cut something – I think it was a pipe – which brings in more, but still not enough.
Maybe the advice for washing in hot programmes – 60 degrees or higher, is to use a little less detergent if the excess foaming is a problem. It sure is for me. Avoid washing small loads if possible, I find that creates too much foam at any temperature.
One of the advantages of re-running programmes without detergent (after the first spin) is the first ‘wash’ of the second programme without detergent acts as a warm rinse. However, I can imagine if a washing machine performed, say, 4 rinses with the water temperature at 40 degrees and using lots of water every time, your electric bill would be very high! It would also take ages from start to finish!! Unless it was filling from the hot water supply?
If warm rinsing is a must, one risky method could be to pour a kettle full of hot (not boiling!) water into the rinsing water, once the machine has filled with cold water, if you can.
Does anyone find that premium brands i.e. Persil are worth the price? I have found Sainsburys own brand laundry products as good. Also washing powder contains plastic ‘fillers’ and bulking agents (sodium sulfate) and that can’t be good for the clothes or the machine? Always have used a liquid as it rinses better but do a maintenance wash once a month with powder containing oxygen bleach.
Hi all, is me again, I feel so rude about forgetting about this whole thread, just found it again after sorting out my Hotmail!
I still have to say that, despite being a water efficient machine, our Miele rinses superbly compared to our other older machines – we very rarely use water plus or the extra rinse as often I’m far too much in a rush to wait an extra 15 minutes. We use Ariel or Persil (whichever is on offer really), and we have no skin problems even though 3 of us, myself included, have severe eczema, which can be heavily aggravated by perfumed shower gels, softeners etc. However, my sister suffers from extreme eczema, yet she uses Fairy in a modern Zanussi Essential. Curiously, I noticed the other day when she had the Extra Rinse option selected, that even though adding 2 or 3 rinses, it won’t spin after the rinse cycles AT ALL (this is on cottons 40, which should spin after each rinse), and only does a brief, very slow spin before the softener rinse, before doing the normal 1200rpm spin at the end – thus, giving no better results than if she didn’t press extra rinse, as this would mean at least the washer will spin between rinses to get excess detergent out.
I think I mentioned before, but I’ll say it again, and I firmly believe it’s not just the water level which is a major factor during rinsing, but the interim spins too. One of the reasons why I personally think our Miele rinses so well is that it spins at 1000rpm for about 3 or 4 minutes after the wash (yes, I’ve been sad enough to fiddle with the spin selector mid cycle to see how fast it spins at!), and will spin at 1000rpm between the first rinse and the softener rinse. It makes sense if you think about it that most of the detergent is being spun out after the wash, hence less water and rinses being needed. I’ve noticed with Hotpoints and our old Bosch Exxcel in operation that the spins are quite brief and slow between the wash and the rinses – the Hotpoints/Indesits I’ve seen just do a series of bursts and a short spin rather than a full on spin after the wash – which in turn would hinder rinsing as more sudsy water is remaining in the load by the time the rinse cycle has started – this being even more exagerrated in my sisters Zanussi with the extra rinse being selected, as excess detergent and suds aren’t being removed at all before the rinse phase begins.
I think if more machines did a decent, long, fast spin after the wash and between the rinses, like our Miele, then the lower water levels wouldn’t matter, however it seems some manufacturers like Hotpoint, Indesit and Zanussi have cut down the water level, but not altered the interim spins accordingly.
Simon – we’ve used Sainsbury’s and Asda’s own before, and they are fair. However, we’ve always noticed that if we’ve been using own brand stuff and switch back to the main 3, i.e. Persil/Ariel/Bold, that stuff seems so much cleaner and whiter! BTW using liquid all the time will result in dingy whites, as optical brighteners alone don’t do as good a job as when they are in tandem with oxygen bleach in powders and tablets.
Jon
Hi Nikki,
I can see where you are coming from with warm rinsing due to my dishwasher rinsing alot better. I see your Miele engineer increased the water level to 1/2 way up the door, you say this is not enough and to my knowledge no machine not even in the 70′s and 80′s has put water any higher. They did do more rinse cycles though usually 4 or 5. Did you think of connecting it to a hot supply as per comment 165?
However my Bosch does rinse properly in cold water, we used to have a Servis Quartz which also rinsed properly in cold. I have never come across a machine that will rinse with warm water except for some American top loaders, you can buy them over here as well so this may also be a consideration for better rinsing.
Oliver.
Hi WMUser,
I have just thought of something about rerunning a high water use cycle, they all tend to be delicate cycles, so there will not be proper agitaion and it may not spin between the rinses, or if it does it will be reduced. So may rinse no better than the normal cycle. Your original idea of rerunning the rinse cycle only could be better, just an idea but it has only just occured to me after seeing my Mums Siltal on a delicate cycle, it uses more water, alot less agitation and NO intermediate spins.
Its funny you should mention the foam in washing powders, I was also thinking washing powders were producing alot more foam than they used to. They do seem to foam more on hotter washes as you say, they do wash longer though, so that could be why? Again in My Mums Siltal it will sud half way up the door on a 70oC cycle (washes for 40 minutes before rinsing) with a properly measured dose, she uses Ariel Powder by the way. My Bosch tends not to foam up at all, a little bit runs down the door, I have also used Ariel and have not seen my machine froth like that not even on “Whites Economy” (40 minute 60oC wash, before rinsing). I use Persil at the moment and it seems to froth less than Ariel, perhaps trying different brand may be a consideration.
Oliver.
Hi Simon,
Personally I find the premium brand washing powders to work alot better. It probably depends on what you are washing, if everything you wash is lightly soiled you would probably see no difference at all. My overalls and work clothes will not come clean with own brand detergents, they come up spotless in Ariel or Persil bio powders, even on Cotton 60oC and “Short wash” selected.
I too have found liquids to rinse out better but they do not kill germs in either the laundry or the machine, call me old fashioned but the idea of wearing second hand sweat is slightly off putting, so for me the bio powders win hands down! At least you do your monthly maintainence wash!
My Mum has also said she would never use the own brands as she too says they do not clean properly, they cannot shift grease etc. out of my Dads overalls but Ariel can (70oC wash). So for me the own brands are rubbish in comparison. Certain detergents work better in certain machines.
Ariel works better in the Siltal.
Persil works better in the Bosch.
You are correct about washing powders having plastic “fillers” in, this is why Ariel and Persil have recently concentrated their formulas to reduce the amount of plastic in their formulations. Also some of the packers are builders or water softeners which help protect the machine from limescale build up. Liquids contain these as well but alot of the filling in a liquid is water. They will not harm the machine in the least, only if you overdose on a permanant basis or never do a maintainence wash. But if used correctly and a monthly 90/95oC you will be fine! Its detergent abuse that damages your machine and the laundry. But most folk will not read the package or get the scoop out!
HTH,
Oliver.
Hi again,
I think that my Hotpoint is brilliant the way is rinses the laundry, especially with the 1000rpm intermediate spin in between EVERY rinse (even with Extra Rinse which I use nearly all the time) I just hate the fact people put Hotpoint down all the time, when I couldn’t care as it washes, rinses and spins just fine :D
~The Miele is still in bits, although at last hubby has all the parts needed to replace the bearing and fit the two drums back into the machine and put everything back together – hopefully! If it works, I have decided that what I will do is set the machine up to wash in the middle of the night, when our electricity is at its cheapest, and then leave it standing in the machine all day, and then set it up to wash again the following night, but this time with no detergent. It will then “test” one or two bits of laundry by rinsing them by hand, and if they are reasonably soap free, then that will do. If not, the machine will be set up again to do a third soap free wash.
We can’t rig our washing machine up to the hot water fill – because our hot water is heated by our Coalbrookdale wood burner, as well as by the oil boiler and an immersion too if we want, the water would often be far too hot – although it has to be said all our clothes and laundry are cotton or linen, I hate artificial stuff, but I do have some delicate wool jerseys and underwear that needs to be washed on cool. So that, sadly, is not an option. I shall just have to stick with the method as described above, or rinse by hand. I am looking into the white vinegar route if I can find a supermarket or chinese shop that will sell me white vinegar in bulk.
Hi Nikki,
You can still connect the miele to a hot water supply using a Thermostatic Mixing Valve. It uses a hot and cold supply and mixes it to the valves manually set temperature, even if your hot water is 80oC the valve will happily mix it to 35/40oC. They work instantly too, so there will be no damage to the washing machine or your delicate woollens.
TMV Valves are available from companies such as Screwfix and are not overly expensive, just make sure it has the correct threaded ends for the hoses you intend to use.
HTH,
Oliver.
Don’t keep it to your self Gary. What model is your Hotpoint?
My Hotpoint is an Aquarius WML540G (hotpoint parts)
There are some videos on YouTube at HooverAC110, this will help show the model
A reply to Oliver’s comment #176 and for anyone trying to re-run programmes without detergent…
Re-running programmes/cycles without detergent or re-running rinses (if the washing machine has a separate rinse-only programme) is a matter of trial and error. In my case, re-running a water guzzling cycle without detergent after the first spin works fine. It spins between rinses, uses extra water and only takes about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The only thing I have to do after this second programme is select the “Spin” cycle with the highest spin speed, as the second programme without detergent doesn’t spin fast enough at the end.
Provided the delicate programmes spin between rinses, use more water than the standard cotton programme and don’t take too long, re-running cycles without detergent may (or may not) work for everyone. You have to try several methods until you find what method works best on your washing machine.
I think gentler agitation is an advantage when rinsing, as too vigorous agitation will create more foam.
Finally, I think I will try the pre-wash idea (that is, adding detergent for the pre-wash only and none for the main wash) if I’m washing a small load or towels, as this may prevent or reduce the excessive foaming. It will mean waiting even longer for the washing machine to finish!!
This didn’t happen before these eco/green stipulationsIn came about. Why have manufacturers sacrificed performance in order to meet this criteria – thus making machines unfit for purpose, and then blatantly denying this by making comments like “All things coming out of a Washing Machine have to be ironed” Well how does one iron a ribbed jumper with deep seated creases which was washed following manufacturers instructions. Incidentally this garment which has had many perfect crease free washes in my previous machine is now ruined and the makers still insist there is no problem. How does one get redress?
I have read through this thread with great dismay. As a busy mum of 11 month old triplets I need a relaible machine that is good at EVERYTHING you would expect of a washing machine – and to me that includes the fundamentals of washing and rinsing!! And with the volume of washing that I’m now doing, it must be reliable.
One of the kids is starting to show signs of developing eczema so I’m even more interested in rinse capability (I have always used non-bio gel).
I’m currently used liquitabs as my drawer no longer empties – I have given it a good scrubbing on several occasions to no avail.
We inherited the machine with the house so I have no idea how old it is (am even unsure as to model as it’s integrated and just has a stylised ‘A’ on the front). In addition to the drawer problems one of the progams is now also broken, so I think it’s just slowly disintegrating under the strain!
I don’t have the time to do many of the suggestions listed above, and feel quite indignant that I should have to – but is the consensus that these are the only options?
I’m a subscriber to Which so started my search there, but in view of the above, I’m now not going to spend neary 700 quid on the bosch. Looks like I may have to get ripped off with the nearly as expensive AEG Electrolux or Neff.
Depending on how I get on, I won’t hesitate to try and raise the profile of this via Watchdog.
In the meantime, fingers crossed. Wish me luck with my purchase….
Hi everyone
I’ve had my Bosch for over 6 months now, and I still don’t like it. It doesn’t rinse enough, and I can’t bear the whining noise of the motor. I keep looking on ebay at second hand machines, and wanting to buy one, but there are 2 things stopping me which I hope someone can help me with…
Firstly, I want to have an induction motor, like my old Zanussi had, but I don’t know how to find out if a machine has one or not. I have been checking model numbers on espares to see if they have carbon brushes listed, and was wondering if I can rely on this to indicate what type of motor a machine has? I know that my old Zanussi doesn’t have brushes listed, and my new Bosch does. However, Oliver – you said your WFF2000 has a brushed motor, and yet espares doesn’t list carbon brushes for it… so that makes me think I can’t be sure even if no brushes are listed.
Secondly I will need to transport the machine myself in my car, and I don’t know the best way to do this. I will need to lay it down on its side to get it to fit in the car. Is it OK to transport a machine like this, and which is the best way to do it?
Sorry to hear of everyone else’s problems with this rinsing too… hlking I am wishing you good luck…
Michelle
Michelle, you can’t rely on spares listings although I can understand your logic.
Transporting a washing machine
Hi Michelle,
I can confirm that a WFF2000 has a brushed motor. If you put in the the 4Washerhelp spares part of this site wff2000 in this exact format you will find out a lot about the machine, about 9 pages to be exact!!
eSpares arn’t perfect at supplying parts by any length, so in my opinion it could be a waste of time, 4Washerhelp seems to be more accurate.
It is not a noisey machine, it is in a third story bedroom and does not disturb the house or anyone in it. My Mum has an IAR Siltal which also has a brushed motor and is quiet as well. A well built brushed motor should bequiet as should an induction one.
HTH,
Oliver.
Thanks for that Oliver. I can confirm that as Oliver says, a motor with carbon brushes doesn’t have to be noisy, even Miele washing machines sometimes have brushes and are very quiet. Cheap motors are more likely to be noisy though and Bosch are unfortunately quite cheap these days .
I can understand the frustration from hlking, comment #184. Re-running programmes without detergent does take longer and now I’ve got used to doing this without thinking about it (and getting on with 101 things that need doing everyday, whilst leaving the washing machine running).
I wish you good luck in getting a Which? recommended washing machine that washes and rinses properly. Fortunately, Which? tell you BEFORE buying whether a washing machine washes and rinses properly. Maybe the washing machines that Which? say are “good” at rinsing have an “extra rinsing” feature to enhance rinsing that bit more?
I’m hoping the next serious of Watchdog will cover this topic and make the manufacturer’s wake up to the problem.
Watchdog: http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog
Thanks WMUser. Which? have a trial offer available (and I’m one of their affiliates) which means anyone can trial their service for 30 days for only £1 –
Which?
Find the best washing machine for your budget with Which? reviews. We test washing machines from brands including Bosch, Indesit, Zanussi, Hoover, Miele and Hotpoint to help you find the best washing machine for tackling your family’s laundry pile.
Washing machines put to the test (includes top 41 washing machines and each washing machine reviewed has a rating for rinsing efficiency)
Hello Oliver Shaw:
Thanks for the info about the Thermostatic Mixing Valve. I will mention it to hubby and see if he can fix one. He has just restored my Miele washing machine to full working order, with a new bearing, and it is working as good as ever … but still rinsing as bad as ever. I have just accepted that this is a fact of life about which I cannot do much until we rig up a Thermostatic Mixing Valve so that we can do hot water rinses.
One thing I have noticed is that actually by running each load for a couple of extra woolens washes on 30 degrees with no soap, this does rinse all the non “thick” items. This works satisfactorily on my egyptian cotton sheets, cotton underwear, nylon tights, anything that is not too thick. But my egyptian towels are thick with soap, as are denim jeans. These need to be rinsed by hand in the bath, and then run on a couple of 30 degree washes without soap to at least get rid of some of the soap. All extra expense and time, neither of which I have a surfeit of.
Now all I have to do is to nag hubby sufficiently to fit that valve !!
Thanks for the links guys. The spare parts site is easier to use than the one I was looking at.
I have yet to ask a Bosch engineer to look at my machine, which I suppose I should do before giving up with it. I’ve been putting it off because I’m worried they won’t take my concerns very seriously. However I read somewhere recently that Bosch are going to use induction motors in their new washers, so maybe other customers have objected to the whistling noise as well. I don’t know if any manufacturers are re-thinking their attitude to rinsing yet though.
I’ve realised that I can live with any replacement washer having a brushed motor as long as it also has a timer so I can run it overnight. I run this one overnight and I don’t hear it. I would prefer to be able to use it anytime, but I can manage with just running it overnight. As long as it rinses better, it will still be an improvement, and at the end of the day it’s the quality of the washing and rinsing that matters most.
Michelle
I’m STILL having problems with excess foaming when washing towels or small loads and it’s driving me mad!! Even adding the detergent to the pre-wash only (no extra detergent added for the main wash) DOESN’T solve the problem. It’s a nightmare to rinse off the foam!!
From now on, when I have to wash small loads or towels, I will be using just under HALF the recommended amount of detergent, contrary to the advice about less detergent being bad for washing machines. I will only use the recommended amount for full loads. Any stains I will pre-treat with a stain remover spray.
I’ve tried several detergents and I can now conclude that modern laundry detergents create too much foam, even when the correct measure is used. As mentioned further up on comment #59, dishwasher detergents don’t create excessive foam (or if they do, it’s very rare and I’ve never had that problem), so why don’t they use the same anti-foaming ingredients in laundry detergent?
I know that net curtains are a pain for creating too much foam. I think I will use something else when washing the nets next time, not any kind of laundry detergent. Maybe soak them in a bucket of lukewarm water with a few denture cleaning tablets, at least there won’t be masses of foam to deal with.
WMUser: I’m wondering if adding detergent to the pre wash compartment in some washing machines could result in the detergent being taken in on rinses, which wouldn’t help rinsing. I know in the past (with hot and cold fill washing machines) the pre wash compartment was just the cold fill side. Pre wash programmes filled only with cold water so if doing a pre wash you put the detergent in the opposite side to the wash section. If you put detergent in the pre wash side but don’t do a pre wash I’m wondering when the detergent gets taken out.
Also, using half the recommended amount of detergent may cause poor wash and rinsing results as described here White streaks or residual washing powder after washing.
Hi. There are no problems with detergent being taken in during the rinses.
The problem with too much foam always happens if I’m washing towels alone or if I must wash a small load of other items. It can sometimes happen if the items are so-called “lightly soiled”.
Washing a FULL load of mixed items is fine, with no excess foam created.
I believe you must use just under half the recommended amount of detergent if washing a small load or about half a drum of towels. I could wash a full drum of towels, but the washing machine has trouble rinsing them all, as the water gets absorbed by the towels and the stupid thing won’t add any more water, even if I run cycles without detergent.
Today’s “eco friendly” and “water saving” washing machines don’t compensate for “real world” conditions. For example, wash a full load of towels and the washing machine still uses the bare minimum amount of water during washing and rinsing cycles. Towels need more water in order to rinse properly, not just soak it all up until you have barely an inch of rinsing water in the drum. I’ve seen it myself – a few drum rotations and the water disappears into the towels!
The other problem is about today’s laundry detergents. They don’t use enough foam inhibiting ingredients. If they invented a laundry detergent that was “suds free” and it was marketed as non-foaming, I’m sure the public would be happier never too see masses of white foam again!
Does anyone else have this excessive foaming problem that hampers rinsing? Does this happen more often in areas of the UK where the water is soft?
As you say half loads usually require less detergent. You should only need to use the recommended amount according to the size of the load and the soiling and the hardness of your water. Do you use fabric conditioner on towels btw?
I used fabric conditioner on towels in the past, but now I use clear vinegar on towels to be sure any remaining detergent has been neutralised. They don’t come out stinking of vinegar and dry without any smell.
The label on laundry detergents should recommend using half the recommended amount for half loads (obviously taking into account the recommended dosage for water hardness and level of soiling, and using half of that). I try to wash full loads all the time, but sometimes you can’t avoid having to wash less than a full load.
If you can avoid using too much detergent in the first place then there’s less to be rinsed away, however you need to use the right amount to avoid limescale and a whole load of other problems like a smelly washing machine! I wonder if using less water for rinsing is leaving detergent in the outer tub and causing the smells and grease etc. – especially above the drum?
Hi WMUser,
I too have noticed excess foam on towel only loads, but heres the strange bit, only in a modern Hotpoint and My Mums Siltal. In my Bosch, whether it is set to wash at high (touching the door seal) or low water level (2″ in the bottom of the drum)there is hardly any foam at all, in fact nothing foams that much, well not in the wash phase anyway. Rinses 1 and 2 are usually very soapy, but by 3 it is nearly clear and 4 is as close as you get to propely rinsed. The Bosch still does not sudslock. However in the Siltal the wash phase is very soapy, all 3 rinses are still soapy and it sudslocks thorugh both intermediate spins, The Hotpoint was the same.
However in a couple of weeks we are replacing the bearings, brushes and belt on the Siltal, so at the same time I am going to adjust the pressure switch so the rinse water goes from 3-4″ in the bottom of the drum to about 2″ up the door glass on the rinse phase of the cycle, also this will inadvertantly increase the wool cycle to the same level as it washes at the same level as rinses. I shall be leaving the cotton and synthetic wash level where it is, thats fine. This should increase rinsing efficiency and reduce sudslocking drastically, hopefully.
Up here in West Yorkshire the water is softish, Ariel is quite soapy, but Persil is not as bad. Liquids don’t foam so much, but they don’t clean clothing properly either, so we won’t use them. I still do think that all laundry detergents are getting soapier, when I were a lad I don’t remember them foaming to the excess level they do now. This will reduce rinse efficiency only if it causes the machine to sudslock, from what I gather it is quite a common thing for them to do this now, but NONE of the old machines used to do it. Even with modern powders, so it shows its down to machine design and initial spin speeds.
Spot on about modern machines not compensating for “real world” situstions, the Siltal will not refill if the load soaks up all the water, it will on wash but not on the rinses, hence the little adjustment I intend to make.
Fabric conditioner hides detergent residue by killing the foam, if you use it when you look at the rinse water you can think all the detergent has been removed, which is obviuosly not the case at all. I have not used conditioner for some time as it affects my skin and makes a mess of the washer (nicely scented grease, you wouldn’t put motor oil in the washer, so why animal fats etc.?). So a true test is not to use any them observe the rinse water. It also reduces absorbency of towels as they have been coated in fat and oil, which repells water. As you can see I utterly despise the stuff. Ecover is different they use vegitable fats etc. Still not very nice when you know what these products contain!!
All the best,
Oliver.
@WMUser I know exactly what you mean about laundry detergents causing too much foam. It can only be down to very few anti foaming ingredients put in modern laundry products. Ariel Excel is the worst culprit for over foaming even if you do follow the correct dosage. The only liquid that does not over foam is Regular Daz liquid which comes in 1.5 litre bottles, it says 20 washes but you could get more out as I think they recommend too much. I believe the ingredient they use is Diemethicone to stop too much foam forming. You can buy it at Savers, Sainsburys and Waitrose. The concentrated version foams too much so I don’t recommend it. Failing that Simply Active, Surcare?, Ecover or Amway Sa8 (www.amway.com). Hope that helps.
Fabric conditioner reduces the absorbency of towels and is also unnecessary if tumble drying Environmental tip: Save on fabric conditioner
Thank you for the replies.
I know many people reading these comments probably don’t have the time to make today’s washing machines rinse ‘better’. I’m wondering if using the “rinse hold” function, found on many washing machines, would help? Basically, the “rinse hold” will hold the laundry in the final rinse water until you manually advance the washing machine onto the final spin, to reduce creasing, which would occur if you leave the clothes in the washing machine for hours after the final spin has finished.
Maybe leaving the washing machine on “rinse hold” overnight might help? If the clothes are left soaking for a long time in the rinsing water, maybe the water will absorb into the clothing fibres better? I’m not a scientist lol.
When you are ready to dry the clothes, re-rinse and spin. The clothes should hopefully be rinsed much better and not irritate skin and cause other health problems.
I SAY BRING BACK THE TWIN TUBS . I HAVE JUST GOT A HOTPOINT TWIN TUB FROM THE HEART FOUNDATION. AND GET ALL THE WASHING DONE IN ONE DAY. AND RINSE IN HOT WATER.
AND BOIL ALL THE WHITES..
Hi WMUser,
I don’t think Rinse Hold will help, to remove the detergent from the clothing you need agitation to force it out, it does not just soak out without any movement.
It could also cause bacteria to breed in the laundry and the machine, say if a load of towels were washed at 40oC with liquid detergent (no bleach, no sanitisation effect) the germs in towels will not be killed so could fester and stink to high heaven in the morning after an overnight soak.
To rinse properly you need:
1-A few water changes.
2-Good agitation.
3-High water levels.
4-Intermediate spins that do not sudslock.
Take one away and the results will be serverely compermised.
HTH,
Oliver.
Problem solved for me !
We have bought a refurbished Creda W100FW for £100. It is in everyway opposite to our £330 Indesit.
Firstly everything comes out CLEAN. Secondly there is no detergent residue or ever smell of it. Thirdly there is none of the bad creasing that the Indesit caused. And last of all, the powder drawer flushes out properly because it fills with HOT water.
I’m not sure when the old Creda was made, but compared to it the new Indesit is a total failure. If in the Lowestoft area and want a machine that works I cannot recommend Guys Domestics highly enough. Call him on 01502 565474 he understands what people want.
Hi Oliver.
I’m aware that there’s no way to make a modern washing machine rinse properly by either using its default settings or just selecting the “extra rinse” option. Improved rinsing requires manual intervention and valuable time, unfortunately – some people simply don’t have the time to wait longer or the patience to fiddle around with the controls. If I knew of a simple “no fuss” method to improve rinsing, I would have mentioned it by now.
Unless people don’t mind leaving the washing in the drum when the final spin is over and allow the clothes to crease up, the rinse-hold option may help, until the user is ready to re-rinse (and WAIT again until it’s finished).
The quickest method is to add extra water during the rinses, but again that requires manual intervention and it can spill water over the floor, but at least it doesn’t take hours. However, if the washing machine “sudslocks” (to those who don’t know, that term “sudslock” describes the situation where the pump switches off before all of the soapy water is pumped away, then this soapy water is used in the next rinse!) – then adding extra water will not be helpful.
There’s NO simple solution!! Unless you replace your washing machine with one that rinses better: the older refurbished models, that guzzle water, seem to be the best option. Provided the spare parts will be available should it need repairing.
What a bad situation we have with new things. They don’t make ‘em like they used to! :(
I can’t see rinse hold helping because even if suspending them in water somehow removed more detergent from the laundry as soon as you start up the machine and the drum turns the laundry will swish around in the mucky water.
If a particular machine just drains the water when you advance it on though and doesn’t turn the drum until the water has drained away this wouldn’t be an issue. However, I’m not sure how just soaking would remove anything as rinsing is presumably effected by forcing clean water through the fabric. Maybe if they were soaking in a large amount of water but not the small amounts currently used.
The only way you can efficiently rinse laundry is with HOT or at worst WARM water. That is the bottom line as far as I am concerned. A cold rinse will never ever ever rinse clothes, it is a scientific fact.
I am having some fairly good results with my newly restored Miele using the pre-wash option, so that the clothes are at least semi-rinsed in hot water – by virtue of the fact that at least some of the detergent has been dispensed during the pre-wash.
None of this would be necessary if modern washing machine were not restricted by ridiculously low water levels, and cold rinses. Yet again, I will reiterate that it is SCIENTIFIC FACT THAT YOU CANNOT RINSE LAUNDRY EFFECTIVELY IN COLD WATER. You need warm or hot water, and plenty of it. That is the bottom line.
@Nikki Jenkins. I think you could tell every washing machine manufacturer what you know about hot or warm rinsing.
One problem I have is the hot water pressure is low, so that could be a problem if I connected the hot water to the washing machine’s cold inlet (it’s cold-fill only). I could fill a large jug or the kettle with water from the hot tap and keep adding it to the rinsing water, if I have time, otherwise it’s a case of re-rinsing on a cycle without detergent, where the first “wash” of the second cycle acts as a warm rinse.
Delicate fabrics like silk can only be washed at about 30 degrees, so warm rinsing water for these delicates can only be that temperature or lower.
Warm or hot rinsing could be similar to steam ironing: the steam and heat “opens up” the clothing fibres. Spraying cottons with water and ironing will have a similar effect, as the hot moisture does something, compared to just dry ironing that won’t give you the same nice finish.
Hello Nikki. If what you say is true then no washing machine has ever rinsed to a decent standard in the UK since they were invented as they’ve always rinsed in cold water. When they used a lot more water though there didn’t seem to be any issues.
I don’t see how the temperature of water is critical for diluting and washing out detergent. Clearly you can’t rinse in hot water as it would damage and excessively crease and even shrink certain laundry items but if it was the case that warm water is a bit better at it than cold presumably it’s not sufficiently better to justify the extra energy costs involved in rinsing in warm water.
It would be nice to point us in the direction of the scientific evidence so we can make an informed view.
On the subject of water temperature and rinsing you have probably noticed that if you want to clean something then hot water is better. This is because its easier to dissolve something (the dirt) in hot water. In fact of couse this is why washing machines warm the water for wash cycles. For most solids the higher the temperature of the solvent (water) the more material is dissolved. Heres a link explaining the principle : http://preparatorychemistry.com/Bishop_solubility_temperature.htm
Some modern detergents are made to try to overcome this to some extent but even these only really start to dissolve at about 32 degrees. The temperature of a cold rinse will be as cold as the water from the cold tap which is much colder than this.
If you want to see this for yourself then take one of those towels you have got which are stiff as a board because of the detergent residue and rinse it in cold water by hand. Then after this rinse it in hot water – you will be shocked at the difference.
This of course is why many people on this thread complain of foaming in their washing machine when they have got towels in there!
We used to have a hot and cold fill hoover keymatic years ago which would do a hot or warm rinse and I used hoses from the hot and cold taps to fill our old twin tub with warm water for rinsing.
Of course I accept that the reduced water volumes in modern washing machines are a factor but in my experience temperature is even more important.
Thanks Nikki: I’m not sure that rinsing is about dissolving detergent, dissolving it would increase its quantity and activate it which is good for the wash cycle. I’d have thought rinsing is more about removing detergent by flushing it away with water. I wouldn’t have thought it needs dissolving to be removed, only to be dislodged from the fibres and flushed away by the sheer volume of water added during all the rinses.
I used to work on the old Hoover keymatics but can’t remember if they had a warm rinse or not as it was a very long time ago :-)
If warm water rinsing was superior I’d have expected manufacturers who are all desperate for anything to let them claim that their washing machine is better than all the competition to have long since jumped on this and created washing machines with “superior rinsing” to sell to the consumer. I would have expected this to have long since been exploited by at least one of the major washing machine manufacturers.
@Nikki Jenkins – I have come across a patent application regarding warm rinsing: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080271262
Hopefully that link will not break.
For those who want to try warm rinsing, I would be very careful if washing delicates like silks, net curtains etc. A water temperature higher than about 30 degrees is likely to shrink delicate items. It’s cottons and towels that seem to be harder to rinse compared to other types of fabric.
On a note about detergents, do tablets contain less ‘filler’ material than powders? Forget to ask that when I mentioned liquid detergents.
I think that rinsing is mainly about dissolving the remaining detergent. People on this thread have remarked that if they have a cold feed on their detergent draw it progressively clogs up. Thats because cold water doesnt dissolve the detergent properly. You can imagine that if detergent sticks firmly to a smooth plastic surface it wont be possible to remove the stuff from being tied up in the fibres of a towel. I have demonstrated to myself that It doesnt seem to matter how many times you do a cold machine rinse a warm manual rinse will release loads of undissolved detergent. I have done this with Bosch & Miele machines.
It was possible to buy loads of different keys for doing pretty much any pattern of washing and rinsing on the Hoover Keymatic. There were 4 different programs on each plate and I had about a dozen plates (48 permutations!). Unfortunately the plastic keys worked some metal “fingers” which used to break off so after numerous repairs it was reluctantly dumped.
Presumably the manufacturers avoid giving the option of a warm rinse in order to meet certain energy efficiency targets and also because of the cost of electricity, energy efficiency is more of a selling point than rinsing efficiency.
To anyone interested,
I have adjusted the pressure switch on the IAR Siltal and it now takes in a sensible amount of water to both wash and rinse. I did not want to adjust the wash, but had no choice as level 2 is made up of level 1 and a timed 20 second fill. So for wash it fills up to the bottom edge of the door glass and about 2″ up the door on rinses and wool wash.
Towels are not hard, and although it does not rinse quite as well as my 16 year old Bosch, it is not bad at all. My Mum and Dad are very pleased with my little “adjustment”, they have both remarked that it also washes better and the rinsing is 1000 times better. If I had known about this when the machine was new it would have been changed then. The rinse used to be 3-4″ in the bottom of the drum, hardly enough to properly wet the load let alone remove detergent and muck very well. It has been increased by over 150% and the difference is amazing.
It has 2 adjusters, one for level one and the other tells it when to start distrubting and when to reduce spin speed due to sudslocking etc. I assumed one would be level 1 and the other level 2. It took me an hour and a half to get it just right, I even had it filling half way up the door at one point, but that was too high for wash, so had to strike a balance, which I think I did.
I still sudslocks some times but is a hell of alot less than before, more clear evedence modern washing machines use too little water to rinse, and wash in this case as well. The only down side is increased water and power consumption, but at least it now works properly.
I however would not recommend attempting this if you are unsure as it would be VERY easy to flood the house or damage the machine, also would invalidate any warranty your machine may have. The IAR Siltal is nearly 9 years old now so I was fine. This weekend we shall be replacing the bearings, brushes and belt as well. It has done way over 5500 loads since new, a fair few of which have been overloaded as well. They have been told off for that as well!!
Oliver.
Hi Simon,
Tablets are just a normal dose of powder very tightly compressed, nothing special, it should be the same.
HTH,
Oliver.
Apart from connecting your washing machine to the hot water supply alone (risky on delicates), the only to achieve more than one warm rinse is as follows:
1. Pre-wash (only washes at 30 or 40 degrees)
2. Main Wash (30 degrees or higher)
3. Spin after main wash
4. Run an entire programme without detergent, the main ‘wash’ being a warm rinse.
Which effectively means that 2 and 4 above are your warm rinses, which only gives you 2 warm rinses out of the total number.
I remember on some old washing machines, the first cycle on the list was a pre-wash followed by a boil wash ~95 degrees. Not what your delicates need!
I don’t think many people would turn their hot water down to 30 degrees and connect the washing machine to the hot water supply only. I certainly would not. How much extra electricity and time would it take enable warm rinses with plenty of water? Probably too much, so that’s why warm or hot rinses are not used on washing machines, even if it does rinse much better than cold water, especially in the winter when cold water from the mains supply is much colder. I’m sure they could invent a method to enable warm rinses on domestic washing machines without using too much electricity or waiting 3 hours or longer??
For anyone who is tempted to try warm rinsing: I was amazed at the results of warm rinsing when I done my 40 degrees cottons wash.
Having first performed the pre-wash, using detergent for the pre-wash only, then running another cycle without detergent, I decided to do a bit more. I run the hot tap and added the hot water for the cold rinses. With all that extra water and it being slightly warmer, I couldn’t believe the amount of soap bubbles I could see!! Clothes that you think are rinsed properly STILL contain detergent!!
It seems that warmer water does help rinsing, as Nikki Jenkins says in several comments above. I did have a towel on the floor below the detergent drawer, as you may spill some water.
Yes it’s a bit of hassle, but it doesn’t take long to pour in jugfuls of hot water. I’d rather spend just a few minutes adding hot water and fiddling with the controls, it’s much better than paying the price with angry skin allergies!! Also, I’d rather be at home when the washing machine is running, having read the section of this site on “Appliance safety warnings & recalls”. I don’t trust appliances and it’s better to be around and deal with a bad situation (which will hopefully never happen), than come home and find the kitchen flooded or worse! Not trying to go off-topic.
I’ve yet to try this warm rinsing on towels and I’m wary about delicates. If anyone else has luck with warm rinsing, please post a comment, as I’m very pleased. There is light at the end of the tunnel. :)
I’m aware some people have their washing machine in a location away from a hot tap. I don’t know if you can make a washing machine fill with water at 30 degrees every time without turning down the hot water for the whole house? If you only wash cottons, maybe the hot water connection is fine, if you don’t mind things coming out creased?
Hi WMUser,
For hot rinsing permanently you will need a Themostatic mixing valve, they use hot and cold water and feed the mixed water to the machine, tap etc. They can mix 80oC hot water down to 30oC if you set it correctly and they work instantly so no damage to the machine or laundry. They are available from the likes of Screwfix and are not too expensive. This way you will not need to set the domestic hot water supply to 30oC permanantly.
HTH,
Oliver.
Hi Nikki,
I have tried your trick, took a clean flanel that has been washed in my old Bosch with a full load of towels (the hardest thing to rinse known to man!), it had a correct dose of detergent (persil bio powder), not underdosed, it was washed on 60oC. When immersed in hot water absolutley nothing came out of it, not even one bubble. I do not use fabric conditioner either, cannot stand the stuff!
So my machine must rinse properly with cold water.
Have you fit the TMV valve yet?
Oliver.
Presumably something like this:
http://www.tapshop.net/hydromix/
could be used to warm fill at 30C – presuming it will go that low. However using water constantly filling at 30C will make washing relatively expensive.
Hi Steve,
Thats exactly what I mean. Yes it will also increase the cost of the wash, by how much depends on where your hot water comes from eg. solar or gas etc.
Oliver.
Thanks for the info. Water going into the machine at 30C would help enourmously and could help with rinsing too, if hot or warm rinsing does work better than cold?
@Nikki Jenkins, when you say you can immerse something like a towel into hot water after rinsing it in cold water several times, could the residue that you see in the hot water actually be fabric conditioner? Have you tried doing this on towels and other items which have no fabric conditioner? Maybe Oliver’s comment #221 proves that having a water guzzling washing machine, with cold rinsing only, is fine?
I’m perfectly happy to run a water-guzzling cycle after the first spin that follows the main wash, without detergent, then select the final faster spin manually. I don’t care if this makes using the washing machine more expensive – you can’t put a price on health!! It’s better than wasting money on junk food, cigarrettes, too much alcohol and other things that are known to be bad for you. I’d rather not itch when I wear my clothes, use my towels, sleep in my bedding etc.
For anyone wondering: how do you “know” if the washing is properly rinsed when you take it out? If you use an unperfumed fabric conditioner like Surcare or don’t use conditioner at all, the washing should NOT smell of *anything*. “Proper” rinsing is good enough to remove the perfumes that are added to detergents (which are marketed as helping to make the clothes smell nice), but these extra perfumes irritate skin!
I believe that detergent left behind in the washing machine is causing the bad smells, grease, gunge mould and bacteria that requires monthly maintenance washes at ~95 degrees! I’m sure if a washing machine can rinse properly, it would also stop the machine from becoming filthy inside?
Interestingly, newer LG machines offer not only a Rinse+ and Rinse++ option, but also a Medic Rinse, which is an extra, deep level rinse heated to 40*C. Follow this link F1403FD – then click on Features.
“Medic Rinse
Washes away detergent residue with an extra, 40-degree rinse at the end of the cycle, making it ideal for a baby’s sensitive skin.”
I still have no problems rinsing in cold water, but perhaps this LG machine would be good for those who would prefer the option. Certainly saves a lot of hassle.
Jon
I think the fact that LG have taken the trouble to add a warm rinse is confirmation that temperature is a key factor in rinsing efficiency. In the numerous tests that I have done in the past I am absolutely certain that conditioner was not involved since I was not using the stuff. I have even conducted serial tests on new towels which shows that the more they are washed the more detergent they seem to accumulate. The amount of detergent retained in clothes depends on the material. Natural fibres such as cotton are the worst. Try the test again Oliver but do it with the towels themselves. The idea of using a thermostatic valve is attractive – I will look into this but my next washing machine will be an LG!
Hi WMUser,
I can say when I was a child my Mum had a Servis Quartz 1000 (bought in 1981), which rinsed properly as did all machines of the era. She used liquid detergent on a permanant basis and 40oc washes and alot of quick washes. The machine was DISGUSTING so much so my Dad stripped at down to the last nut and bolt and scraped 3″ of slime and bacteria of the back of the drum. But it came back pretty quickly as she carried on with liquid and low temperature washes. Its only recently I have managed to change her on to bleach containg powder, and funnily enough her washing is properly clean too. I have also managed to get her to wash most things at 60oC or 75oC where applicable.
I only do a maintainence wash once a year or so, because 1-I will only use bleach containg powder Ariel or Persil (as I want clothes clean, to hell with the fading, colour detergent and liquid does not remove sweat properly) and 2- I WILL NOT wash anything below 60oC, having said that none of my clothes, even 10 year old items are that badly faded, but my machine does not wash for eons! My washing machine is spotless and does not hum at all, neither does my Mums and with the new higher water levels the machine is cleaner too, so a yearly maintainence wash for hers too will be fine. The nasty smell from washing machines is not detergent resdue it is one tough biofilm, and once there bloody hard to get rid of, the only way if it is really bad is to strip the machine down, which with some modern machines will be a challenge as they have sealled tanks. Peoples machines are only becoming filthy inside these days because we are being encouraged to wash at low temperatures and even cold water and people use liquids, liquid tabs and the inferior colour powder. Oh and just a note Ariel Excel Gel (tells you to wash at 15oC) contains NO bleach so it won’t take long to rot the washer with that stuff.
If people washed how they used to in the 70′s and 80′s with boil washes for whites and 60oC for just about everything else the maintainence wash would never have been dream’t up. If washing at 40oC does not keep the machine properly clean the it sure as hell ain’t washing you clothing properly either. Who wants to wear second hand sweat and bacteria or have a bath and dry theself on a bacteria infested towel!
Also fabric conditioner makes a strange looking type of foam, sort of thin whispy bubbles.
I can smell detergent faintly on my clothing but to say how srong it smells in the box you would think things would positivley stink of it. Now my Mums machine uses more water things do not smell strongly with detergent like they used to.
All the best,
Oliver.
Hi Oliver. It goes to show that anyone being “environmentally friendly” will actually send their washing machine to its death much sooner and require more and more washing machines to be manufactured. Not to mention the sheer amount of landfill on parts that can’t be recycled. I’m not going off topic here, but using so little water in the first place requires adding more and/or running extra cycles without detergent, the latter defeats the purpose of being environmentally friendly. Not washing hot enough will allow slime to build up – if not removed by stripping down the machine, it will rot the machine to death. The permanent bad smell will probably make people chuck the washing machine prematurely.
The health effects on allergy sufferers are not very nice, but unfortunately it’s becoming more common with “environmentally friendly” washing machines.
So I will continue using water guzzling cycles and/or adding extra rinsing water. I will be washing things at 60C or higher most of the time, unless items are too delicate. Why should my skin suffer and why should my washing machine turn into a breeding ground for bacteria through being environmentally friendly? Would these do-gooders rather see more washing machines scrapped and watch people scratch themselves bleeding, suffer more asthma attacks and so on? I would encourage everyone reading this and other messages to use plenty of water on the rinses and try to wash hot whenever possible. Your health won’t suffer and your washing machine won’t become filthy inside.
Don’t forget to complain like mad to the manufacturers of washing machines and BBC watchdog. Let’s hope Watchdog discusses this rinsing problem and its adverse health effects on television, during the next series. :)
Nikki:
I hope you don’t think I’m arguing with you :-) but I think rinsing is about removing the detergent. Dissolving it may or may not assist in that process, I don’t profess to be an expert at that level, I’m just not sure it’s essential to dissolve detergent to remove it from laundry during rinsing. Undissolved detergent is just like a bit of grit which should be removed by flushing with water.
Detergent has to be dissolved to activate and do its job of washing, but when that’s all done and rinses are being done if there’s any undissolved detergent it shouldn’t need dissolving in order to flush it out with a proper amount of cold water. I would have thought that agitation, and water being forced through the fabric should dislodge any undissolved detergent into the water solution to be pumped away as long as there’s enough water being used.
Detergent in the dispenser drawer doesn’t need to be dissolved in order to be moved from one place to another. Detergent clogs up in dispenser drawers when the cold water pressure isn’t good enough to flush it all into the drum. The same thing used to happen when detergent was placed in the hot water side of hot and cold fill washing machines if the hot water pressure wasn’t strong enough. Detergent gets wetted and pushed to the front and sides of the dispenser where it later dries and becomes firmly attached.
During the washing process detergent in laundry won’t behave in the same way because it doesn’t dry out.
If there is any detergent left in fabrics then hot water is likely to exaggerate this presence by making it foam up more, whereas cold water won’t. Foaming up any residue detergent still present in the fabric with hot or warm water doesn’t necessarily prove it’s getting the detergent out of the laundry better than cold would, it could be just highlighting it’s presence in a way that cold water doesn’t.
You may be right, I’m not saying I know one way or the other which is best for rinsing but virtually all washing machines have rinsed in cold water since they were invented and it’s only now that they are being accused of not rinsing properly since they drastically reduced the amount of water they use during the process.
The fact that a few manufacturers produced washing machines with warm rinses doesn’t convince me that warm rinsing is better because manufacturers have a long track record of conning the public with pseudo science and all sorts of claims. I think if any manufacturer comes up with anything that’s genuinely better then all other manufacturers follow suit and it becomes standard.
I still think it’s possible warm water rinsing may offer some benefits but using a lot more hot water during the wash process is the polar opposite of what most manufacturers and customers currently want, and if warm water rinsing is substantially better than cold water rinsing it’s amazing that after nearly 100 years of washing machine advancement and one-upmanship amongst competing manufacturers they virtually all stuck with cold water rinsing.
Oliver:
As far as I’m aware you are supposed to. The detergent is purposely perfumed because a lot of people apparently like the laundry to have a light perfumed smell after washing.
Maybe that’s the problem? I wonder if manufacturers are in cahoots with detergent manufacturers to deliberately not rinse too thoroughly to allow the laundry to retain the detergent manufacturers “pleasant” smell? ;-P
Hi Nikki,
I have repeated the test with a towel, washed using a normal dose of Persil powder (not underdosed) on a 60oC cycle and part of a FULL load of towels, no fabric conditioner. Once again nothing came out, no bubbles and the water was crystal clear. I used hot water for the test and still it remained free from any detergent.
Oliver.
Hi Andy,
Laundry detergent smells stronger now than they ever has done.
On the side of a box of Ariel it says……..”For an extra burst of freshness on your favorite items add an extra 70ml and smell the difference”.
So by adding extra Ariel rinsing will be done to a worse standard, it could block up the machine as there will be far too much powder in there in the first place and sensitive skin will suffer. The extra 70ml is not for cleaning just for smell, what a down right waste.
Back when I was born in the late 1980′s laundry detergents just smelt of a clean soft smell, todays detergents are just awful, the perfume is far too strong, it almost bits your nose off. My laundry only smells a little of Persil as the Bosch rinses very well, that proves it rinses well when you smell whats in the box as it were.
I don’t know if this is just me but when you walk down the street or at work some people positivley stink of laundry detergent/fabric conditioner, everywhere you go you can smell soap powder, so people are either adding too much or they have modern washing machines that do not rinse properly. Must be the new trend to smell like Persil! Who wants to be coated in the ingredients of soap powder on a permanent basis?
I personally do not like the smell at all and would happily use a stink free washing powder if it cleaned as well as Ariel or Persil and kept the machine clean of course.
Oliver.
Hi WMUser,
You got the environmental bit spot on.
There are environmental issues out there, but washing in cold/cool water will only make things worse as we both know a hell of alot more landfill for a start, washing machines are not small appliances.
But consider the following,
1-If washing is not cleaned properly in cool/cold water the clothing will be rewashed. Unnessarcary waste of water, detergent etc.
2- The clothing you are wearing is not properly clean, wearing second hand sweat ond dirt, not pleasent.
3-More landfill, not just from machines but all the drum spiders and everything else that have to be changed unnessercerily. More waste.
4-Towels smell after one use, some so bad just getting them wet will make them smell, more washing as people believe they are dirty, washed correctly they should do 3-4 days or so without smelling. More unnessercary laundry.
Just a few reasons why washing at low temperatures is only a short term energy saving and does not out weigh the serious consiquesces that will follow after a few months of trying to be “environmentally friendly”.
Washing at high temperatures, the machine will last a lot longer, will not be breeding or smelling, clothing will last longer as it is not being discarded as stains supposably will not come out etc.
If anyone wants to help the environment washing at 30oC or what ever is just a plain con as are alot of environmental issues. Somethings are an excellent idea such as recycling. But what we as a country are doing to supposably help the environment is not out weighing the fact things don’t last very long, nobody repairs anything and we a a throw away society. The amount of landfill these days is absoulutley outragious, quite a big percentage of what goes in still works, people are either bored of it or want the latest in the way of gadgets and gizmos etc.
Oliver.
Hi Washerhelp
I believe the main ingredient in most modern detergents is a negatively charged (anionic) surfactant. This works by reducing the surface tension of the water so it penetrates the clothes better but also it acts by binding to the fabrics and the dirt particles at the same time and by doing this neutralising the electrical attraction between them and allowing the dirt to be released and dissloved. So the detergent molecules are actually it seems designed to cling to the fibres in the fabrics. The only way of getting rid of them is to dissolve them in the water (release them from the fabric) and then take the water away (rinse cycle).
The formulation of detergents has changed a great deal over the years to improve washing efficiency but perhaps these changes have actually made the rinsing problem worse?
Putting technicalities aside the only way I found I could solve the problem was by using warm or hot hand rinsing. Even multiple cold rinses just didnt work. Using the pre-wash as a main wash cycle (omitting detergent for the main wash therefore using it as a warm rinse) works pretty well except if the clothes are really dirty – then they stay pretty dirty.
I have had engineers out numerous times to challenge them to fix the rinsing problem. I have actually demonstrated to them how detergent remains in the clothes (using new towels so they cant use the excuse that the detergent was from past washes etc). I have returned a Bosch to John Lewis for not rinsing properly (to their credit they didnt argue) and they replaced it with a Miele with extra (cold) rinse and high water level button. This was just as bad as the Bosch.
As I mentioned before the new LG machine with warm rinse will be my next choice!
It seems that the Nordic countries, and in particular Sweden, where I live, have traditionally demanded better rinsing. Test-winning machines here often have one or several programmes with extra rinsing cycles.
Yours,
F
Oliver: it is extraordinary that you are getting good rinse performance from your machine, and I am not.
We have moderately hard water here – hard enough for the kettle to get that brown scale on it – do you have soft water? Maybe this might be at least part of the answer?
I agree with you Oliver, these fancy fragrances in detergents, softeners etc. It seems that everything must have perfumes/fragrances, whatever it’s called. Laundry detergent, fabric conditioner, spray perfumes and aftershaves. Let’s not forget bottles of ironing water which claim to make the ironing smell nice. I’m sure all these things don’t do the skin much good and adding these perfumes to detergents and other things also increases the price. I notice that even dishwasher tablets have perfumes, bizarre really when the stuff gets rinsed off thoroughly (if only modern washing machines rinsed that well!!). I know that proper rinsing should rinse away the smell of detergent from the clothing.
@Francis Thyresson. As the Nordic countries demand better rinsing, I hope other countries like Britain will follow suit and only buy washing machines that rinse better. Then manufacturers will be forced to make washing machines that customers demand.
@Nikki Jenkins. I’m also doing the pre-wash and omitting the detergent for the main wash. If things are stained, I give these items a good coat of “Shout” fabric stain remover spray, rub it slightly and leave to soak into the stains for about 10 minutes before washing. I agree with your sentence about the formulation of detergents changing and affecting rinsing. If I use the recommended amount I still see lots of suds towards the end of the main wash.
Would rinsing improve if detergent is added directly to the drum and not the soap drawer? I’m wondering because bits of detergent often get left behind in the soap drawer and maybe end up being flushed down during the rinses? What’s the point in using the soap drawer when it ends up in the drum anyway?
Hi Nikki,
Our water is according to Yorkshire water “soft”, but we get the brown limescale in the water and as you say the kettle and a hell of alot of it around taps and shower heads. So my feeling it is “moderately soft”. I cannot be certain of this as I am no scientist, but we are the end of the line and get no end of crap coming through the pipes. I changed the fill hoses on the Siltal about a year ago and when doing so also cleaned the inlet filters and the cold one was almost solid with white chalky limescale. So thats a yearly job from now on, especially as it now uses alot more water. Same for my Bosch. The dishwasher is not as badly affected as it is on a hot water supply but I’ll clean that as well. I think water quality depends up on its source, it does not all come from as locally as you would imagine.
I have being observing the Bosch and in the final rinse there is always some foam in the water, not alot so it shows 4 rinses is perfect and anymore would be a waste as even towels are coming out completely residue free.
Oliver.
Hi WMUser,
Its funny you should mention dishwasher detergent, we use Finish powder, and that to has a perfume additive. We were having this conversation the other night about why dishwasher powder has any fragrance, as like you say it all gets rinsed away, ours does 3 rinses, 2 at incoming water temperature (about 50oC)and the last heated to 70oC. I will not use rinse aid of any kind as it goes in the last rinse and I feel it taints the pots so you are eating and drinking it. It doesn’t work anyway, its as useful as fabric conditioner. If machines worked proprerly in the first place there would be no need for the likes of rinse aid and fabric conditioner.
I too add the powder to the drum, as like yourself I feel it should get flushed in with the rinses, plus if it doesn’t all go in the wash things won’t be proplerly clean. It also makes a mess of the machines dispenser, I do not use the drawer on my machine at all. The theory on soap drawers is, if powder gets damp on your clothing and stays there it can remove the colour, never had it happen, sound like the usual level of bo11ocks from the manufacturers as usual!
Ironing water is just pure snake oil, its only distilled water with a smell, utterly pointless!
Shout stain removing spray is good too, works very well, been using it for years.
Oliver.
Hi Oliver,
You say you use Bleach containing powder on all your clothes as opposed to using coloured powder too? Do you not find it fades any of your coloured items? I used to used Persil Colour care powder as it had no bleach but whether I fell for a marketing gimmick I don’t know lol. Surely the bleach in powders is oxygen based and not chlorine so that would surely mean that is a colour safe bleach? I do not bother with stain removers as they are a waste of money in my oppinion. I find a half a tsp of washing up liquid on difficult stains works! I wouldn’t use enzymes on wool anymore but used to though they never fell to bits.
Hi Simon,
Firstly the main reason I use bleach containing powder for everything is it cleans and kills bacteria effectivley. To me no bleach equals substandard results. Also permanent use of liquid/colour detergent damages the machine, if it is not keeping the machine clean it is not keeping your clothes clean either.
The oxygen based bleaching agents are colour safe. It is just recommended people use 2 or 3 different types of detergent for different fabrics. Whether colour powder is a scam I really don’t know, the only difference is the lack of bleach and brightening agents (which do not effect colour anyway). None of my clothing and household linen is that badly faded, considering I wash EVERYTHING on 60oC with biological bleach powder. Clothing must fade whist being worn, hung on the line in bright sunlight and just generally being stored. Most washing machine engineers recommend you use colour powder for coloureds and bleach powder for whites.
No bleachless detergent will remove sweat properly, this is why I will not use them, putting on a clean T-shirt covered in secondhand sweat is a disgusting thought. Liquids and colour powder offer very limited stain removal in general, I am far from happy with the results they provide.
Non-biological detergents fair about the same although the powdered varieties contain bleach their stain removal is very bad also. To remove biological staining (sweat, skin grease and skin flakes etc.) you need enzymes to break them up and to remove the bacteria from sweat etc. you need bleach to neutralise it. Enzymes and bleach work in tandem to produce excellent results, remove one and you are left with second rate cleaning performance. Brightening agents are just pure rubbish they make virtually no difference at all, they make a permanent bond with the clothing and will not come out even after only one wash with them in!
Going back a good 20 years ago there were just laundry powders there was no such thing as coloured detergents, so they may be a gimmick.
My own theory is why clothes fade so badly today is washing machines wash for far too long, up to an hour and a half in some cases. Such repeated beating even with a colour powder will remove colour anyway. My washing machine washes for about half an hour on a normal 60oC wash and about 45 minutes on whites economy. Thats probably why nothing of mine is so badly faded even very old items (10 years old plus). This could be another reason why we are all being talked into washing at very low temperatures, because modern washing machines are actually ruining our clothing with such excessive wash times.
Tried the washing up liquid trick many years ago, it created alot of foam, there are very few stains my Bosch cannot shift on its own, the ones that won’t shift get “Shouted” at! Its is an excellent product, the best stain removing spray by along way.
Oliver.
Thanks for the info Oliver. Think I will go back to using a bleach containing powder for all washing then. Much simpler and will save money too.
Simon
Oliver. I agree with your everything you say in your comment (#241). My washing machine takes way too long to finish the main wash. As I use a pre-wash to help with the later rinsing, that adds about another 20 minutes to the time. On the other extreme, the “quick” cycles are too short to be effective.
Excessive washing and repetitive agitation just shortens the life of clothes. Long wash times are fine for REALLY dirty clothes. If someone has bought a new washing machine because the old one didn’t wash things properly, then long wash times are fine for a few months, by which time the clothes should be thoroughly clean.
This may be another reason why rinsing is so poor on modern washing machines? The long wash times create more foam – I notice it every time I wash the towels – I’m now considering using just HALF the MINIMUM dose of powder for towels, as slightly more just creates foam which hinders rinsing. During the first hour or so (whenever I get a chance to look), there’s the usual small amount of bubbles, but towards the end of the wash, there’s always too much foam.
Yes, the “Shout” fabric stain remover is excellent. I shake the bottle, spray onto the stains and rub gently. Leave for just 10 minutes and wash. It works better than adding more detergent – which makes rinsing more of a challenge!
If wash times were
shorter“normal” instead of aeons, then oxygen-bleach powder would probably not cause any noticeable colour fading. Biological detergents always score better in “Which?” tests and people who are sensitive to them wouldn’t have a problem using biological detergents if washing machines rinsed PROPERLY.Hi WMUser,
You are right about the agitation, it would seem now that water has been so drastically reduced not only is washing taking forever but the agitation is near constant. A Miele tumbles for 13 seconds with only a 2 second gap between tumbles, doing that for an hour should do some damage to clothing! I have justed watched the Bosch, 10 seconds clockwise, 10 seconds off, 5 seconds anti-clockwise and 5 seconds off then it repeats, it does this for the wash and rinses on cotton and synthetic cycles. No idea what it does on delicate and wool washes as I have never tried any of them!
I have just washed my work clothes on “Whites Economy” it washed for 45 minutes before rinsing (the whole programme takes about 90-95 minutes) and they are spotless. Bearing in mind that is has both fill hoses connected to the cold supply that is not bad at all. So even very dirty washing dosen’t seem to need the stupid wash times of todays machines. This is with no prewash either. I have never tried the prewash, but will be doing shortly as I have one of those Hi-Vis jackets to wash and they are a real bugger to get clean and they tell you to use non-bio, nothing like a challenge, says 40oC on the label just to add insult to injury, it will be getting a 60oC and I will have to buy a box of Non-bio especially, what a pain.
On the quick wash front, yesterday we changed the bearings on my Mums Siltal (9 years old), that all went well, it turns out it has a sealled metal tank, the bearings are held in a rear cross piece and through the hole where the shaft of the drum spider leaves the tank you could see about an inch of the spider its self. My Mum has being using quick wash a little too often as the spider is half an inch thick in soap powder and badly corroded, which now as I have discovered the sealled tank the machine will be written off as and when it breaks, looking at the state of it probably will not take too long! I have been telling her the perils of the quick wash for years but she couldn’t be told and as the powder has not being disolving properly it is now rotting the machine away. I have done 4 maintainence washes but how much it has helped nobody will ever know. It may have given the machine a little more life.
I have noticed Persil powder foams a lot less than Ariel powder, don’t know if thats just in my machine though. Another option is (if you have hard water) to use calgon and then you can use a soft water dose of soap powder. Still means the Calgon has to be rinsed out too I suppose, I don’t know if it will make any difference just a guess. Our water is not hard enough to try it.
Oliver.
Quote WMUser:
Yes it would for some, if they have low water pressure. It’s a known issue that with low water pressure not all the detergent is flushed into the drum on the wash. Then on the rinse cycle it’s possible for small amounts of detergent to get into the rinse water.
Regarding the different types of detergent and colour friendly detergent verses detergent using bleach I have an article on this subject here – You don’t just use one detergent do you?
Basically bleach makes whites whiter but also fades coloureds. Colour friendly detergent doesn’t fade colours but eventually leads to dingy looking whites.
Oliver Shaw – you are a very lucky man. You have a modern washing machine that rinses effectively! I am madly jealous. I am continuing to resort to hand rinsing, in combination with using the cold water wool wash cycle on the Miele to rinse the clothes as well. This actually works quite well, the clothes are still soapy, but nowhere near as bad as they used to be.
I will continue to stick to my mantra that you cannot rinse clothes in anything but hot water … cold water will not rinse soap out of clothes, only hot or maybe warm water will. Hence my hot hand rinses.
@Oliver Shaw
Softer water versus hard water for rinsing, I don’t know if there’s any difference. I live in a hard water area.
Calgon would soften the water, but doing so would create more foam. I know soda crystals (washing soda) also softens water, about 1 tablespoon. Soda crystals are also well known for removing grease. I don’t know how much less detergent you could get away with using, when you try water softening products. Perhaps just the minimum recommended dose stated for “soft” water? If that still makes too much foam, maybe 2/3 of the minimum dose? It would help if you could use less detergent in the first place, to help rinsing later, without harming the inside of the washing machine by doing so.
I know too well that even using the minimum dose of detergent when washing towels-only, causes a lot of foam during the last 20 – 30 minutes of the main wash. Next time I will be using half the minimum recommended dose for towels. If that means the towels don’t get cleaned properly, maybe soda crystals or calgon might help with this lower dosage?
I wonder if people living in “soft” water areas have better or worse rinsing?
Reading through these comments, I feel that in 20 years of changes to washing machines and detergents, it isn’t just less water that’s responsible for useless rinsing with modern washing machines. Rather than sticking with tried and trusted methods, manufacturers of washing machines and detergents are constantly pushing new ideas and gimmicks in place of “old” technology.
Hi Nikki,
I wouldn’t have said its that modern, the Bosch is 16 years old now, how time flies! Its only 5 years younger than me! If you want to try and find one its a WFF2000. I have seen modern Bosch rinsing and they will only fill to the bottom of the door and only do 3 rinses (with Aqua Plus), 16 years is not that long ago, its amazing how they can cock up a tried and tested design. Modern Bosch are crap in comparison, everything is plasic and flimsy. But if you do find a WFF2000 the parts are very expensive, although they last a repair bill can be frightening. A motor is £256.00 + VAT. A drum spider is nearly £200.
Oliver.
Has anyone tried using chlorine bleach instead of powder bleach in the machine to bleach whites? Wondered if it would damage the machine? Also is it safe to use soda crystals in washing machines? Mine is a Hotpoint WMA30 model so think its got an aluminium drum?
Also i am looking to replace it though with a Hotpoint 9506 model or that series so if anyone knows whereabouts is best to look would be most helpful. Im in Sudbury, Suffolk. Hotpoint also used to make a washing machine that had a purple door, control dial, buttons and dispenser and think it was called Super de Luxe but wanted one of those in particular as they were very reliable. Not sure if they are about any more though.
Hi WMUser,
I just mean’t you could use less detergent if using Calgon without limescale damaging your washing machine in anyway, water hardness has very little to do with rinsing, in hard water detergent struggles to work as well, thats why you need more, as well as to protect the machine from limescale formation, hard water kills detergent residue better. This is why you need less for soft water. Our water is classed as “soft” by Yorkshire water so I cannot try my theory, using less should make rinsing results improve whist the Calgon looks after the washing machine.
If you use a water softener such as Calgon you use a “soft” water detergent dose or you get over foaming. As far as I know hard water doesn’t exist in West Yorkshire, we just get the crap from being the end of the line!
Oliver.
You shouldn’t need Calgon if you use the right amount of detergent as detergent should soften hard water perfectly adequately, it’s part of its job to soften hard water.
I recently bought a new Bosch Classixx washing machine and it is causing me so much stress. When my clothes are drying the whole room smells of the washing powder I use, it’s extremely strong and disgusting. I have tried using several different brands of washing powder, with the same outcome. I have had an engineer out and he said it was working perfectly!! I often wash one load of washing 3 times, but I can still smell the detergent. When I wear my clothes I can still smell the detergent and unfortunately it’s not a particulary fresh smell, so making me a bit paranoid now!!
I live in Scotland, so have soft water.
I have read this thread with interest and will try running a pre-wash to see if that helps. Any other advice would be gratefully received.
Ceejay108: Detergent manufacturers deliberately add a perfume to their detergent which is meant to survive rinsing somehow and leave the laundry smelling (as they like to think) pleasant. I don’t know how it survives rinsing but if you don’t like it I would try to find some unperfumed detergent.
Hi Andy,
Yes Calgon is normally as useful as a snooze button on a smoke alarm. My thoughts were if you add Calgon you can add less detergent, alot less in some cases. This in turn may improve rinsing results without and consequental damage being caused to the washing machine. The only problem is if you use too little it will not keep bacteria at bay and will still rot the machine with a bio-film. So if anyone wishes to try it use the amount recommended for a soft water area and no less.
Oliver.
Hi Oliver. Yes that’s a bit of lateral thinking :-) If you use Calgon you can use less detergent so it’s possible it could be relevant in this rinsing issue as long as Calgon causes less irritation than the detergent or if it rinses away easier (I don’t know the answer to either of them). Not sure about how you get the right balance though. It might be worth experimenting with.
Soft water and less detergent… If you live in a “hard water” area, I think soda crystals are your best option and the packet says it can be used in washing machines. It will soften hard water and if you can use the amount of detergent recommended for “soft” water, you could possibly help with the rinsing as there’s less detergent in the first place? If you notice lots of foam the first few times, you could use a bit less detergent than recommended until you only see a few bubbles instead of too many.
Here’s a page on the maker’s site, amongst their other products. It claims to remove stains and soften water, so you can use less detergent:
http://www.dri-pak.co.uk/laundry.html
Maybe worth trying, along with the re-rinsing tricks suggested above? Hope that helps anyone who doesn’t live in a “soft” water area.
Has anyone had success with warm or hot rinses?
Does fabric conditioner help with rinsing? If people don’t have time to re-run entire programmes without detergent and instead they try running a “rinse and spin” cycle (on machines that have that option) after the washing machine has finished, I wonder if you use fabric conditioner first time round and then re-rinse, could it help rinsing?
I know fabric conditioner permeates deep into the clothing fibres, more so than water alone. If we try re-rinsing clothes after the softener has been added, would this help remove more detergent? Just a thought.
I also have a Bosch Classixx, Ceejay, which I bought last July, and I’ve also noticed the slightly strange smell that the washing has, so I’m glad you mentioned it. It’s really irritating, and even hand rinsing clothes numerous times in lots of water doesn’t entirely get rid of it. I was wondering if it was something to do with the machine itself. However, today I was hit with a bit of inspiration, and I think I may have finally found out what it is. So this is what I did:
I found 3 old flannels that have never been washed in the Bosch, therefore they could not have any remnants of the odd smell from previous washings. Then I hand washed each flannel the same way, changing only one thing – the amount of water. The constants were 30 degrees temp for the wash, cold water for rinsing, and exactly the same amount of powder in each wash – a very small dose appropriate for the size of item. I squeezed out the flannel a bit after the wash and each rinse, and then as much as I could after the final rinse to simulate a good spin.
First, I attempted to simulate the Bosch style of washing – low water in wash, 3 rinses in low water. The result was a lot of foam in the wash phase, and still lots of foam on the third rinse, crackling on top of the water.
Second, I used lots of water in the wash phase, and lots in the 3 rinses. The result was no foam in the wash phase, just a few bubbles which would quickly dissipate. The final rinse had no bubbles at all.
Third, I used a small amount of water in the wash phase, followed by lots in the 3 rinses. There was lots of foam as before, which did NOT rinse out despite three deep rinses! I have to say I was a bit surprised by this.
The flannels are now all hanging up drying. Flannel 1 has the icky smell. Flannel 2 has no smell. Flannel 3 also has the icky smell, but maybe a bit less than flannel 1.
I have to conclude from this that the wash phase needs to have more water, and that if it did, the washing would smell fresher, and rinsing would be much easier.
Can anyone help with problem of very hard towels etc. I have a Miele W3240 and ever since it was installed my towels and other articles feel like stiff cardboard when they dry. As I was sure the conditioner section could not have been working I called out the Miele engineer he stated the machine was perfect and gave no help or explanation as to why the clothes are so hard.
Ian: Don’t use fabric conditioner on towels as it coats them with a waxy substance which makes them less absorbent. Stiff towels can be caused by over drying including leaving them on the line for too long.
If you dry them in a tumble dryer they should come out pretty soft unless you over dry them. If you dry them some other way, 10 mins in a dryer can soften them up nicely.
Ian : this is how I first discovered that modern washing machines don’t rinse properly – my towels were drying as stiff as boards. It is the detergent residue left in them that is causing them to be stiff and horrid. If you plunge one of your stiff towels into a sink full of hot water, you will discover that the water becomes white with detergent residue from the towel.
Tumble drying does indeed fluff the towels up, and will remove some of the detergent too I guess, but the best way to have lovely soft fluffy towels is to rinse them by hand in lots of lovely hot water – and then perhaps tumble dry them as well. I am at last getting rid of the detergent residue left in my towels – I rinse them in the bath (we have “free” hot water in the winter courtesy of our Coalbrookdale multi-fuel stove which heats the hot water as well as the sitting room) and spin them out in the washing machine, hang them up to dry and then put them in the tumble dryer for a few minutes when almost dry to fluff them up nicely.
Hi WMUser,
Fabric conditioner will have the opposite effect, it will coat the fibres making them water repellant and thus “sealling” in any detergent residue, making further rinse cycles pointless anyway. Fabric conditioner may appear to help rinsing as it turns the water crystal clear but in effect it is locking in dirt and detergent into the fabric. Water alone will not shift fabric conditoner it takes multiple hot washes with a good bio powder.
Quite a few people are allergic to the conditioner anyway as it is never removed from the clothing when added to the last rinse or those nasty tumble dryer sheets.
Oliver.
Hi Michelle,
The problem with the low water washes you tried is the detergent didn’t dissolve properly, it will be hiding invisible to the naked eye in the fibres and resoaping in all the rinses as cold water will not dissolve it. If you retry your experiment with a low wash water phase and 3 higher level rinses, with a hot wash phase of 60/70oC (wearing rubber gloves of course) my money is on you will find it doesn’t get the “icky” smell once dried. Another option is to do the hot wash phase and just before you pull the plug add double the amount of cold water to the wash solution (a dilution rinse or cold top-up) and try your 3 rinses and you should still have no smell at the end.
This is why cooler washes on the washing machine sometimes wash longer than hot ones as dirt removal is much slower and detergent doesn’t readily dissolve in cold/cool water, even liquid.
Another problem could be the type of detergent you are using, are you using the correct amount for water hardness and soiling, also remembering a 6kg machine will need just a touch more than a 5 kg machine. Detergents like Ecover are famous for funny smells etc. Has your washing machine developed the mouldy smell from constant low temperature washings and no maintainence washes?
I’ll admit its an odd one that the modern Bosch machines are giving off funny smells, it definatley has to be something going through them as nothing inside a washing machine can smell on its own. The only thing would be a new door seal they can smell abit rubbery for a few weeks but other than I can’t think of anything else.
Oliver.
Hi Ian,
Have you tried selecting “Water Plus”? If the clothing is still hard running a couple of extra rinses with water plus after the wash has finished may help. As Andy pointed out tumble drying for the correct amount of time does naturally soften fabrics without fabric conditioner of any kind. Even modern Miele machines are not great at rinsing, as are no modern machine.
Oliver.