I still get people asking if I know of any washing machines with a hot water valve. This article gives a few suggestions – but you should read on first to fully understand the issue. It is not as simple as you might think. It could be a complete waste of your time looking for one.
Most washing machines now only have a cold water valve but many people instinctively don’t like this. We all know washing machines wash with hot water, so it seems crazy not to use the hot water we already have in our homes. Heating it all up from cold seems wasteful and unnecessary.
This apparent madness is even more annoying for people who have an environmentally friendly and economic source of hot water such as solar powered.
However, there is a good argument that because modern washing machines use so little water on wash – there is no need for a hot valve. It’s in fact more economical to use cold fill only on 40 ° washes for most (but not all) people as explained here – is a hot & cold fill washing machine more economical?.
What is the science behind cold fill only washing machines?
All this is explained fully in my article Should I buy a cold fill washing machine?
So are there any washing machines with a hot valve?
At the time of writing there are some LG & Statesman models with a hot valve. However, they don’t take in hot water at all unless you use a very hot wash cycle. There is alternatively a British made washing machine with a hot water valve. Ebac’s hot & cold fill washing machine is advertised as using, “Intelligent hot fill technology”.
Some Hotpoint washing machines appear to be hot and cold fill, but they are designed for cold fill because there’s only a cold fill hose supplied and a y-piece adaptor supplies both valves.
I suspect this is a temporary measure, and that subsequent models will just have the cold valve.
So hot and cold fill washing machines are currently very rare. But even if you find one, you need to know that the few I’ve seen rarely even use the hot water valve.
If most of your wash cycles are done at 40 degrees or less it will most likely never use the hot valve at all.
Related:
Several people have asked me if you can connect an environmentally friendly and economic hot supply to the cold valve to utilise it. The short answer is no, for more details read Don’t connect the hot water supply to the cold valve on cold fill washing machine
New comments on this topic have been closed. There were over 600 comments now trimmed down (below) to 233. There are very interesting discussions there.
Spares
Spares4Appliances is a spares company run by repair engineers who understand all about spare parts for appliances.
G. Bruce: (21. January 4th, 2008)
I remember such a washing machine in the 1980s (I think it was by a German company like Bekay Bauknecht). They used to have a sensor on the hot water intake side which allowed a controlled mix of hot and cold water. It never caught on though.
The reason such a system is impractical now is the same reason washing machine manufacturers give for abandoning the hot valve. In the majority of cases, it takes too long for proper hot water to start running into a washing machine (due to long pipe runs and the ubiquitous hot water cylinder in most UK homes which causes rapid cooling of the water and low water pressure) By the time proper hot water starts to run (in most cases) the washer has stopped filling because there’s enough water already in.
They would say it’s too complex a system for something that in most cases would not utilise any hot water. They could design a system to work optimally in any situation but they currently see it as too complex for little gain. They all seem to have decided that it’s much simpler to just fill with cold and heat up only the exact amount required. They would say that overall, cold water fill washing machines save more energy when all energy used is taken as a whole throughout the country – even if there are a minority of people who would be better off with a hot valve fitted. The reasons for this are (hopefully) explained in my articles.
Hi,
Interesting and enlightening reading.
I have a new Hotpoint machine, and on reading the above am a little concerned about how it will perform!
Anyway, it is a cold fill only machine according to the manual, but has both hot and cold inlets on the back. It’s been supplied with a Y-connector hose to connect to a cold supply.
The question I have is the hose is not long enough, and the old hoses I have (which are long enough) are separate for my old hot and cold inlet machine. Can I connect these two to the hot and cold inlets on the new machine despite it being a ‘cold only’.
Will this damage the machine/thermostat in any way?
Many thanks
Asian:
Thanks. I haven’t seen under the lid of a Hotpoint washer with the y-piece arrangement so I’m not sure how they’ve done it. The whole system is strange. I can only assume they have both valves connected together inside otherwise it wouldn’t be cold fill. If this is the case and you connected both hoses up it would waste gallons of hot water on each wash and affect rinsing efficiency by allowing hot water to go in on rinses.
You can use the y-connector to connect your old hoses instead as long as they are both in good condition and the y-piece is connected to the cold supply. Just fit your longer hoses to the y-piece and connect the y-piece to the cold tap. Then cap off the old hot tap (try a DIY store for a screw cap to close off the hot tap) to prevent leaks or even floods in the future if the hot tap starts to let water seep past or even gets accidentally knocked.
Alternatively if you bought a separate connector you could keep your original cold hose connected to the cold tap and connect the base of the y-piece to it using the small connector. Then connect the two new hoses to the Y bit and connect to the washing machine. This would work OK and extend the length of the hose reach much further. However, I wouldn’t do it unless you really need the extra length because it makes the hoses awkward to fit behind the washer neatly and without kinking. It also introduces an extra potential source of leaks because of the extra hose and connections.
when we purchased a service washing for my mum she was very worried that it took 3 hours to do a 40 degree wash. If the instruction book had explained all of what you have said then my mum, who has had to phone service for them to explain all this would not have been worried. And I would not have needed to look on the this sight about the cold water fill but glad I did explains everything
Cheryl:
3 hours is still very long. The cheaper the washing machine the more likely they will make their washes last for a ridiculous amount of time in order to get the “A” wash efficiency award. More sophisticated washing machines can achieve better results by better design. This could explain the 3 hour 40 degree wash.
Not having a hot valve shouldn’t increase wash times that much. “A” wash efficiency ratings and more economical energy and water usage account for most of the extra wash times that modern washing machines take.
Related: Wash Times Too Long? (Reasons why)
You mention the fact that given a low-pressure hot water feed and mains-pressure cold feed very litle hot water gets into the machine. However This would imply that machines are designed for the UK only, as most European countries have mains hot water and have had for a long time. Also mains hot water is becoming much more common over here, usually via mains pressure hot water tanks, but also via thermal stores/heat abnks where people are combining heat sources (wood-burner, solar, boilers).
I am in the process of fitting solar, will have mains hot water and have a short pipe run. It is madness that a machine can get an ‘A’ efficiency rating whilst heating up stone-cold water with expensive high-carbon electricity when there is a big tank full of low-carbon hot water available.
It seems odd that so much effort has gone into reducing water use, whilst these opportunities for energy-use reduction have been ignored. The market for solar-friendy machines is growing rapidly. I wonder which manufacturer will do something about it first?
Wookey:
You make some good points. When UK washing machines went over to cold fill I was told it was to bring them inline with European washing machines which had been cold fill for many years.
At the end of the day, even a free hot water supply would not be used in a modern washing machine for most people. The main argument that washing machines don’t need hot water valves any more is based on the very small amount that they take in these days and the fact that most people only use 40 and 30 degree washes.
I agree with many of the comments here that washing machines could be a bit more sophisticated in this area. As washing machines are trying to be as environmentally friendly as possible, heating water from cold when free hot water is available doesn’t seem to achieve that. The problem is that this scenario (at least for now) is relatively very rare so it’s unlikely they will develop the machines to deal with it until it starts becoming much more common. However, as environmental issues are very popular and sells products these days it might not be a bad idea for at least one pioneering manufacturer look into it.
As you say, combination boilers are becoming very common which reduces the argument about gravity fed supplies from water tanks but cooling in the pipes is still a potential problem (this brings up another question – why aren’t hot water pipes inside our houses properly insulated to reduce the effects of hot water cooling and being wasted? )
I do believe that the very small amount of water used in modern machines makes it mostly pointless trying to get hot water in even if there is a free supply. However, if doing 60 degree and 90 degree washes a free supply of hot water should be used even if it meant pumping some of the first lot of cool water away and wasting it (I’m assuming the energy savings on hot washes would cancel out the water wastage).
This lack of hot fill is crazy. My old Bosch H & C fill uses the hot water on a 40C wash – the pipes and soap dispenser are hot. I plugged in a kwh meter and a 40 and 60C wash only used 0.25kwh – a fifth of the power quoted in the showrooms for a 60C wash. It has nothing to do with the detergents – the manufacturers just want to save money by eliminating components. H & C fill machines can always be used as cold fill – perhaps even with a switch for low temp/bio powders. People on boast who get hot water from the engine, or those with solar panels have masses of hot water. I do not need to pay to heat up more. Where is the address of the wm manufacturers association.
Hi. I have a machine with hot and cold fill but I rarely, if ever, use a cycle hotter than 40 degrees. I usually turn off the red and blue taps after a washing session but I would like to know if I need to turn the red one on at all as I probably don’t use any hot water fill, just cold?
Suzie: If you have a hot and cold fill machine you should leave the hot valve turned on as most programmes fill with hot and cold at the same time. Some programmes may not work without the hot water supply.