Is it OK to plug a washing machine into an extension lead?

[ban-all-sheds]

It's a serious and germane point.

Really - if you behave like a victim you will actually become one. The way to deal with manufacturers and/or retailers who lie to you and tell you that you may not remove a moulded plug is to tell them to ESAD, and that if they try to pursue that shameful approach you'll see them in court where they will have to swear on oath that removing the plug, or flex, caused the motor to fail, or the seal to give way, or whatever. The way not to deal with them is to say "OK then".

 

[PBC_1966]

What did they do in the not-so-long-ago days when appliances in Britain were generally supplied without a plug and you had to fit your own? Did they try to claim that by fitting a plug you'd modified the appliance, and thus voided the warranty? Of course not - It would have been absurd. How is removing the supplied molded plug in order to hardwire or fit a different type of plug any different in basic principle?

 

[ericmark]

I have not looked into how washing machines get their efficiency rating. I have however looked at fridges and freezers and it is to be frank daft. For example if the manufacturer says the fridge/freezer is designed for climate class T it can use more power and get same rating as climate class SN even though in UK we will never need a climate class T. Also allowed to use more power if built in or frost free and ratings for freezer, and fridge/freezer change and chest and upright freezer change. With the fridge/freezer the smaller the freezer is the easier to hit the A+ rating so today you can't buy a fridge/freezer where the freezer is larger than the fridge.

It would seem something similar with washing machines. We wanted a hot fill to use water heated by the wood burning stove and reduce the load on the inverter. Except for specials with very small drum size designed for boats just could not buy one.

As to extension lead unless you swap plugs this means two fuses and a fuse to work has some resistance and it must also produce some heat. So one should not use an extension lead where volt drop is critical or where one of the plugs is not in free air to cool it. Most fridge/freezer actually warn against using an extension lead because of the volt drop when motor starts. Never seen this with washing machines, clearly having a plug and socket on the floor where there may be water would be an issue but in general no reason not to use an extension lead.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Hot fill fell out of use for good reasons. If you have a combi boiler or hot water store very close to the washing machine it might make sense, but given the reduction in how much water machines use, commonly the machine has substantially filled before the intake has got hot, and what you've done is to fire up a combi and/or fill pipes with hot water which you don't use, and you still need a heater in the machine.

 

[Millennium_Boy]

Only very special washing machines designed for boats will have hot fill today. To get the Efficiency rating all washers are now cold fill.

I don't see how cold fill is supposed to do anything overall to improve efficiency, and certainly not of the washer taken alone. Either way the water has to be heated somewhere, anyway.

It was a money saving scheme dreamt up by the washing machine manufacturers around ten years ago - let's drop the hot fill components in order to cut corners and save money.
The cold fill only rule makes no difference to efficiency at all, it probably shortens the life of the washing machine, as the heating system places greater stress on the machine!

 

[JohnW2]

It was a money saving scheme dreamt up by the washing machine manufacturers around ten years ago - let's drop the hot fill components in order to cut corners and save money.

As BAS said, when the fill volume dropped to its current low level, there ceased to be much point (for many/most people) in having hot fill - so avoiding the additional complexity/cost of having hot fill components probably made sense.

The cold fill only rule makes no difference to efficiency at all, it probably shortens the life of the washing machine, as the heating system places greater stress on the machine!

Again, it will usually have little/no effect on the machine (in terms of life or anything else), since the 'hot fill' will usually be cold. If one considers the totality of the situation, hot fill can reduce overall efficiency, since it fills pipework with heated water, the energy used to heat which will be 'wasted', at least in summer.

A few years back, since there was already plumbing in place for both hot and cold filling, I tried swapping our WM to the 'hot' supply. By the time the machine had taken in "enough water", the supply pipe to the machine had not even got vaguely warm. In my case, therefore, so-called 'hot fill' achieves absolutely nothing.

As BAS says, the exception is if there is a combi boiler or hot water store very close to the machine, but that is not all that common.

Kind Regards, John

 

[PBC_1966]

All of which is rather the point I'm making: Without knowledge of how the existing hot-water supply is arranged in the house and how the washer is installed in relation to that supply, I don't see it's possible to claim that using cold fill only can be more efficient. I know that quite a few of the hot & cold fill machines (in the U.K.) still don't draw water from the hot supply except on the hottest wash programs anyway, and still fill with cold and then heat that water internally for the medium temperatures.

By contrast, here in the U.S. by far the majority of domestic washers don't have any integral heating elements and draw a mix of hot & cold from the supplies for the warm wash/rinse programs. But then I don't believe that in the average home we have so much of a problem with running cold water out of the hot pipes before the hot reaches the machine. Washers are mostly in a dedicated utility area and close to the water heater, the latter being either in the utility area as well, or often in an attached garage, which tends to be right next to the utility area. The latter is the arrangement in our house, and it's usually only about 3 to 4 seconds from starting a hot fill before the water is running hot.

 

[DetlefSchmitz]

We probably need a citation here. The European efficiency standards are presumably defined, and the justification given somewhere or other. Without this information it's all just guesswork. Anyone know? (I couldn't find it.)

 

[EFLImpudence]

How much water does the modern machine let in for the wash?

 

[JohnW2]

How much water does the modern machine let in for the wash?

Very little, it seems. Without some research, I couldn't give you a figure, but it seems that (presumably in the name of 'efficiency') they try to wash in a small puddle of (probably dirty) water these days.

As I wrote, with my current machine, the volume of water used is not enough for the 'hot' supply being delivered to the machine to get even remotely hot - but mileage will obviously vary, depending on the pipe length between hot water source and WM.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

By contrast, here in the U.S. by far the majority of domestic washers don't have any integral heating elements and draw a mix of hot & cold from the supplies for the warm wash/rinse programs.

Interesting - so what do they do if they encounter a plumbing system like many of those in the UK, in which, for a good while after starting the flow, the 'hot' water is at a temperature below that which they are trying to achieve by mixing 'hot' and cold? Do they 'discard' the 'hot' water until it becomes hot enough to serve the purpose, or what?

Kind Regards, John

 

[PBC_1966]

Interesting - so what do they do if they encounter a plumbing system like many of those in the UK, in which, for a good while after starting the flow, the 'hot' water is at a temperature below that which they are trying to achieve by mixing 'hot' and cold?

The top loader is still very much the norm here - No trying to wash in a tiny puddle of water, as you put it!
With up to 40 gallons or so of water for a full fill, I doubt even a relatively long pipe run would make a huge amount of difference.

 

[JohnD]

I have a hot-fill machine. I run the hot tap in the futility room for long enough to run hot before pressing the start button.

It dissolves the soap powder better without leaving sludge, and knocks a bit of time off the wash cycle.

I pay 10.5p per kWh of electricity, and 3p per kWh for gas. What do you pay?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

The top loader is still very much the norm here - No trying to wash in a tiny puddle of water, as you put it!
With up to 40 gallons or so of water for a full fill, I doubt even a relatively long pipe run would make a huge amount of difference.

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[winston1]

Interesting - so what do they do if they encounter a plumbing system like many of those in the UK, in which, for a good while after starting the flow, the 'hot' water is at a temperature below that which they are trying to achieve by mixing 'hot' and cold?

The top loader is still very much the norm here - No trying to wash in a tiny puddle of water, as you put it!
With up to 40 gallons or so of water for a full fill, I doubt even a relatively long pipe run would make a huge amount of difference.

Sounds like the typical selfish, wasteful, Yankee attitude to me. Do they ever think of the environment?