My attention was drawn to rinsing efficiency after noticing that out of dozens of washing machines reviewed by Which? most of them had a poor rating for rinsing. Even those singled out as Best Buys were “poor” at rinsing. Believe it or not, at least one Best Buy was “very poor”. I found that pretty shocking.
From studying the figures it is clear that if “good”, or “very good” rinsing was one of the prerequisites for a 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 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.
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Why aren’t they rinsing properly and does it really matter?
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.
Eco LabelsThe 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 a lot of people are. There were 581 comments added on this topic from such people before I had to close comments to prevent it being endless.
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 check out the latest to be sure.
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 we 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. However, neither of us have any reactions to washing machine detergent. 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 directly 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. However, my understanding is that the do charge for companies to display their “Best Buy” logo!
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. The 581 comments added to this article below show that many people do find this a big issue.
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 ”
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
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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
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.
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 noisy.
All the best,
Oliver.
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.
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.