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.
Little update for you on the LG hot water fill situation.
Andy’s remarks about the amount of hassle needed to fit a 22mm pipe for the cold suppply got me thinking: the washer is in the workshop. There is a “sluice” type sink out there with hot and cold taps over it which have hose unions and 22mm supply pipes.
So, I connected the washer cold hose to the *hot* sink tap, meaning that now both the hot and cold supplies to the machine are from the same header tank (and indeed the same cylinder of hot water temporarily, though via different draw off connections) and I tried a 60 degree wash again.
Interestingly the washer *did* try to draw a little “hot” (i.e. through the hot valve) this time. It drew in several short burts of “cold” then attempted some “hot”. It kept doing this, alternating two or three burts of cold with a single burst of hot. After a short while it drew enough “cold” to pull warm water through the sluice sink tap, even though there is a considerable pipe run on that one, so it’s clearly biased to draw far more cold than hot, even when it’s using the hot connection.
Probably more significantly though, using the lower water pressure the soap washed in much better and the machine seemed to draw water in slightly longer bursts than with the high pressure mains cold connected, so I’m going to go ahead and fit the reduced pressure cold connection in the hope that it makes a big difference.
I’m not dead impressed by teh thermostat though: my 60 degree wash started at about 54 degrees according to the display, quickly cooled to only 36 whe the circulating pump started to spray the water over the washing and then heated up to 73 degrees. For a 60 degree wash this seems rather a big “margin of error” to me.
Washing came out very clean though, and even though it was a double sheet, king size duvet cover, 2 pillow cases, 2 bath towels, a face cloth and 3 dishcloths, which contrived to form a huge football with evertyhing else insod ethe duvet cover, it still spun OK (if a little noisily) and came out quite dry.
Will keep you posted!
Cheers Dave: It will be interesting to see how much genuinely hot water gets into the machine when you have it back connected to the cold suply at reduced pressure. Your experiment shows that with a lower cold water pressure the hot valve gets more of a look in but it will be interesting to see how much actual hot water will get drawn in after the cooled water in the pipe run has got through. I wouldn’t be surprised if you only get a token amount of genuinely hot water in although maybe even a pint or so is better than none.
I still feel that for most people, it’s not worth bothering with a hot water valve until they improve the way washing machines use a hot valve.
A bit more of an update on the LGWM14440TDS washer that I bought recently.
I’ve now got hot and cold water supplies from the same header tank and so at the same pressure.
No more banging pipes. That’s the first good point.
The washer still makes as good a s zero effort to allow any hot water in; the software is very obviously programmed (whther intentionally or in error) to allow about 95% cold water and maybe, if I am generous, up to 5% hot water in on a 95 or 69 degree wash, and non at all on cooler washes.
HOwever….. the cottons cycle has this stupid business of weighing the load and then allowing in what it thinks is the right amount of water for the load. Some cycles, such as delicates, duvet, woollens, hand wash and so on don’t use this mad-cap system and just fill up a straight forward fixed amount of water, and on the ones of these that allow a water temp of 60 or 95 to be selected, the hot fill is very successful.
Accordingly cottons cycles take around 2 and a half hours (the display says 1:51 at the start, but in reality you can add at least 30 minutes to that for the extensive load balancing before each spin) but duvet, for example, starts at about 1:45 but with hot fill takes about 1:10 (the display counts down from 1:45 until about 1:20, then suddenly jumps to 40 minutes and the rinses start) (it doesn’t load balance – it just gets on with the job).
Experimentation with the cottons programme has revealed that if I fill the machine with a hose pipe from the hot tap into the soap drawer the countdown starts at once (rather than sticking on 1:51 for at least 5 minutes whilst the machine takes in water a drip at a time, and fails to wash all the soap in because there is not enough water in any one burst) and the wash lasts about 20 minutes (rather than over 50 minutes) before the rinses kick in and the clock jumps from around 1:30 to 52. The load balancing still means that 52 mins for the 3 rinses and intermediate spins and the final spin is rather a conservative estimate, but it’s a vast improvement on letting it do it’s own thing.
One thing that does interest me though; this machine gets A++ for energy and A for everything else, it’s energy saving trust recommended, but it doesn’t half use a lot of water!!! A cottons wash with 6 bath towels in, left entirely to it’s own devices to weigh the load and fill as it thinks fit, dispatches more than 2 and a half 2 gallon buckets worth of water out of the drain after the main wash – that’s a whole bucket more than my old Hoover, yet the water level in the LG is not visible through the door and on the Hoover it came up to the bottom of the door glass. I’m not complaining; I prefer more water rather than less in the wash, I have plentiful hot water from solar and I don’t have a water meter, but I’m intrigued as to the rating achieved with this consumption.
So there’s the negatives, here’s some positives:
The machine washes VERY well once you’ve persuaded the soap to wash in to the drum.
The noise level is so low that it’s as good as silent.
The rinses, even on “normal” seem to be pretty effective (which surprised me given how little water appears to be in the drum) and on “medic rinse” it’s really good.
The spin is almost silent on the cycles that prat about balancing (so if you have endless time but want a quiet spin, this machine is highly recommended) and even when it’s very out of balance on cycles that don’t spend ages balancing it’s no noisier than the old Hoover Electron 1100. (I would note, though, that for a 1400 spin that takes 9 minutes the washing isn’t noticeably drier than the 1100 spin that took 6 minutes on the Hoover.)
The water temperature gets considerably higher than the setting chosen (which is really a fault I guess, but I’m quite happy that a 60 degree whites wash is actually about 66 degrees – much nearer the 70 degrees I’ve had for 25 years on the old machine!)
The build quality is really super; much better than I expected form anyone except Miele.
I’d certainly recommend this machine to anyone who *isn’t* mad keen to use the hot feed (i.e. doesn’t have cheap or free hot water) but for anyone wanting to use “green” hot water I suggest you continue to lobby Miele to import the AllWasser model.
If anyone knows about changing the software (firmware) of an LG washer, do tell – I’d love to get this set up so that it really does use the hot supply properly, but in the meantime I’ll stick with my hose from the hot tap!
Just started to look for a new washing machine, dismayed at not being able to get a hot/cold fill. Having read all the advice, comments, pros and cons etc., it looks as though I shall have to compromise. I remember when I bought my first automatic when my Hotpoint twin tub eventually died, and was told not to economise by buying a cold fill only as it would be less efficient than a hot/cold fill………..!!!!! However I am glad I still have my Baby Burco boiler I used for nappies over 40 years ago. It will give me an excellent boil wash, admittedly with a bit of extra work, but I have the time. I can put in already hot water from my combi boiler and it will REALLY BOIL. Bliss.
Dinosaur: back in the day, a cold fill washing machine would have been much less economical because washing machines used a lot more water and most people washed at 60 Deg centigrade. Cotton nappies were very common too and were routinely washed at 90 Deg C.
These days most people wash at 40 or even 30 Deg, and washing machines take in so little water that most people won’t get hot water into their machine before it’s finished filling. Also these days washing machines need to pass certain tests on washing efficiency to be able to be “A” rated for washing efficiency. Filling with cold water and heating it slowly helps them to wash more efficiently, particularly when using biological detergent.
However, as discussed at length on this article and these comments the time has now come for washing machines to be able to utilise hot water more effectively especially for people with solar powered heating. The cold fill option was probably a reasonable progression several to 10 years ago that has now outgrown its usefulness due to the fundamental change in the way people view energy efficiency. It makes no sense to have a free environmentally friendly supply of hot water and not be able to use it inside washing machines and even dishwashers. Particularly when most washing machine manufacturers now say you should do a boil wash once a week to help keep the washing machine free from gunge and black mould.
Dave: Thanks for that update. You’ve certainly gone into this with dogged determination.
Filling on cottons
I think the cotton cycle has the strange filling routine because cottons are the absorbent fabric. Everything else doesn’t tend to soak up too much water. The machine will be filling to a certain level, allowing a little time to soak up water and then topping it up. Either that or it fills incrementally in order to be able to sense the amount of water accurately. If it filled up the same as a normal wash it would end up with too little water in when after 30 seconds or so much of the water may have been absorbed by thick towels or sheets. This behaviour is likely to be replicated on many other modern washing machines where they have more sophisticated water level sensors.
Time display
Again with the display showing one-time Port ending up washing faster or slower is par for the course for modern washing machines in general. The display is always approximate and subject to change. Like you say one thing that can add a fair bit of time is if the washing machine has difficulty balancing the load. This can be particularly problematic with large 7 kg drums because it takes much more laundry to balance the drum and many people carry on putting the same amount of laundry they did in 5 kg drum.
[Related: Loading washing machine. How do I avoid out of balanced loads?]
Adding hot water manually
Filling the washing machine with a hose pipe from the hot tap will reduce the wash time. The chances are that the initial one hour 30 minute display is simply the pre-programmed time for that wash. Factors such as water pressure and temperature of water as well as the time spent attempting to balance the loads before spins will all affect this time. The main problem with doing this, apart from the obvious messing about involved is that wash results can be adversely affected, particularly with heavily soiled laundry. At the end of the day the machine (and detergent) need to take a certain amount of time washing for best results, but adding too much hot water can speed it up too much.
Energy trust recommendation
This is presumably based purely on its energy use and A++ is currently the highest award. They won’t care how much water it uses as long as the energy use is low. A cottons wash with six Bath towels in will need a hell of a lot of water for rinsing. All modern washing machines are supposed to use a lot less water than the old washing machines. However, they also sometimes have the ability to sense how clear the water is on rinses. I don’t know if yours does are not but if it did it would use as much water as needed until the rinse water became clear. You can hardly get a more absorbent wash load and six bath towels so it’s not surprising it would use a lot of water there.
I’m glad you like the build quality of the LG, which is pretty decent. However your experience has shown that a hot water valve on the LG is not utilised anywhere near as much as you would expect and hope.
Hi Andy / all,
Good to get your professional feedback (above).
The incemental filling happens on Cottons, Synthetics, Baby Care and one other cycle – I forget which – according to the instruction books. These are all cycles on which the weighing of the load happens at the start of the programme and are also the ones that you can choose the steam wash option on. I’ve not used the steam option at all yet and I’ve not used baby care (posh name for a 95 degree boil wash with 15 minutes holding temp at 95 degrees and 5 rinses, last one in warm water). I started synthetics once but when the time display started at 3h15m I aborted and used “duvet” instead. What you say about the absorbency of cotton is of course a very good point (even the Hoover used to take in 3 or 4 extra bursts of water after it started a whites economy, but on that you heard the pressure switch clunk and the timer stopped whilst water was drawn, so it was clearly making up for absorbed water and nothing fancy).
I didn’t realise that the ratings took no account of water consumption; I assumed that with everyone banging on about saving water (whilst Yorkshire Water merrily leave burst mains and leaking fire hydrants for 6 weeks plus round here – apparently they are “not high priority”) the ratings would also look at this.
Does anyone know exactly what the ratings mean in real terms? Does the energy rating, for example, actually relate to specific amounts of electricity consumed, or it is purely comparantive? Can an appliance get an A wash rating just because it is 10% better than one with a B, or is there a defined standard to be reached? Frankly I take not the slightest bit of notice of these ratings; I read the actual rating plate of the appliance (and think of it in terms of how many 3 bar fires for how long it is!!!!!) and look for the estimated number of kW used per cycle then make my own judgement. For Wash rating and spin rating I just go for A on the grounds that I assume it’s the best there is.
Is there a web site or reference document that actually details the specifics of these ratings at all?
Lastly, on the water issue again, the amount it spits out after the wash part of the cycle was what really astounded me: 5 gallons plus (before it’s spun out the water in the fabric) seemed like a hell of a lot even for a load of towels and it’s far more than the rinses appear to use (around 4 gallons each as far as I can see). That makes a whites wash something like 17 gallons with te default 3 rinses, or 25 gallons with the “rinse ++” option that adds an extra rinse and a dilution rinse (i.e. what the Hoover used to do). Still, as I said before, I have no complaints over water use and if anything would happily see it use more in some instances.
One other good point: the badly translated instruction book (it’s a real comedy actually!!) fails to mention that the motor carries a 10 year parts and labour warranty – but a small and insignificant sticker on the back of the machine points this out. How long the rest of the machine will last is anyone’s guess, but a ten year motor warranty doesn’t seem too bad to me. Any thoughts anyone?
One thing that has surprised me when reading the comments is the inference that is is somehow difficult or complex for manufacturers to fit some kind of metering arrangement to their machines to allow hot, cold or mixed water as required. But no complex engineering is needed and a simple thermostatic demand valve would to the trick.
As I have solar water heating the temperature of my hot supply varies hugely and therefore I have a Mira thermostatic shower. The control is simply a helical element which takes in as much hot or cold water as is needed to keep the output temperature constant. The choice of temperature is determined by a control wheel that simply changes the effective length of the helix and this adjustment allows for a constant output temperature of between cold and scalding.
It would be a simply thing to have such a valve in a washing machine, acccepting hot and cold water which would be mixed to the temperature required. Different temperatures needed at different times could be selected by a simple servo motor whose position was set by the programme controller (as it sets all the other parameters as and when it needs them).
Of course, this is quite old technology and I am sure that modern computer-controlled machines could do better than a servo-motor – but the job could be done, quickly and easily. No need for special mixing chambers, just a valve and a control unit.
DAVE: The old washing machines always had a set level of water which was determined by the pressure switch that you mention. When washing cottons you would often get several extra burst of water when the water soaked up by the laundry would cause a drop in air pressure. The difference between this system and modern systems is that the old washing machines filled up to a predefined level that was exactly the same regardless of the size of the Lord and the type of load whereas many sophisticated modern washing machines adjust the amount of water according to the size and type of load.
I speculated that the energy saving website would not care how much water the washing machine used, only how much energy it used. I don’t know this for a fact but if they are recommending washing machines based on the least energy usage I doubt they would be overly bothered if it used more water as long as the water didn’t affect the energy used, which on rinsing it wouldn’t. Likewise I would expect a website listing washing machines that use the least amount of water to not be overly concerned if such a washing machine used a bit more energy. They are claiming to list washing machines with specific criteria as opposed to listing the most over all efficient washing machine.
Energy ratings
I’ve written extensively about appliance energy labels ratings and have criticised how poor they are at helping people make informed decisions. One of the points I make is that as you point out, they do not specify what the difference is between something rated A something rated B or even C. We all naturally know that an A is better than a B but we need to know how much better it is to decide if it’s worth paying (for example) £30 more for. I hate any figures or tables quoted that have no proper context.
By the way, what size drum does this LG washing machine have? Many of them are 6 or 7 kg. Your old Hoover was probably only 4 and a half kilograms so naturally there is going to be a big difference in the amount of water used even accounting for the fact that modern washing machines use less. The only way a 7 kg drum is more economical is if you use it to wash bigger loads than before.
Richard: It is difficult for manufacturers to fit an arrangement to their machines to allow hot, cold or mixed water only in the sense that it will add costs when things are so competitive that they even cut down the length of the mains cable and the size of the fill hoses is in order to shave pennies off the price.
Clearly if someone designs a washing machine that can properly utilise all forms of hot water you could argue they would have a competitive edge. However, the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of people do not need a hot water valve and it is unlikely that a washing machine manufacturer would increase the cost of all their washing machines in order that they can boast they are better if you have solar powered heating. There are simply nowhere near enough people with solar powered hot water supplies at this current time.
At the end of the day it is relatively complex to utilise hot water supplies because if they just simply fitted thermostatic valve and energised it on wash it would not receive enough quality hot water in time to be able to mix it with the cold to get a required temperature.
As I’ve pointed out many times in this discussion and on the original articles, it is the fact that hot water cools rapidly in the household pipework combined with the fact that modern washing machines take in very little water for the initial wash that means when you first switch a washing machine on, regardless of the source of the hot water, the majority of people will not get hot water into the washing machine. By the time the hot water actually runs through the washing machine it has stopped filling.
This means in order to utilise any hot water on a 40 degree wash, the only possible way is to allow the washing machine to fill with hot water, monitor the temperature of this water and to stop filling when it starts to run properly hot. The washing machine is now ready to mix hot water with cold using a thermostatic valve. The problem is that the washing machine detergent has just been washed into the machine and there is likely to be virtually enough water inside the washing machine to begin washing although most of this water will be just cold or at best slightly lukewarm. In this situation you will need to pump away all this water and start again with a properly controlled fill. This will waste this water and more importantly waste the detergent. Therefore a method would also have to be designed to stop the detergent going into the machine on this initial fill.
The ideal solution would be to draw this initial water into a separate chamber and then release it later in the wash when it comes to rinsing so as not to waste it. The problem there is there isn’t room for a separate chamber, or if room could be found it would need a separate chamber, hoses to run into it, hoses to run out of it and a valve to control when the water is released plus changes to the software to control the release.
The upshot is that although it is perfectly possible to design a washing machine to run at maximum efficiency using all sources of hot water it is relatively complex. Not complex in the sense that it’s difficult to do but it will add a lot of cost. So far virtually every manufacturer in the world has taken the decision that it is more efficient to use cold water and heat it up as required.
I do believe (and have said so before) that the time has come for them to start looking into this issue as clearly more and more people are going to be using solar powered heating and the cold fill option is a blunt instrument in that it works for the majority of people but there will be significant exceptions where people have very short pipe runs, pretty instant hot water or very cheap hot water and people who do not use biological detergents as well as people will do quite a lot of hot washes. A domestic appliance manufacturer needs to believe they will get a competitive advantage by making their washing machines more sophisticated in this area before anything is likely to change.