Re: The water miser washing machine

 >From: Gerhard Fiedler <lists@...>


 >Someone mentioned California. Horizontals are still quite common in
 >SoCal, for some strange reason.

 >Besides, it's not only about water. Heating up water is expensive in
 >terms of electrical energy, too: the more water, the more electrical
 >energy for heating it up.

Hi Gerhard,
all the top loaders I know of in the US do NOT have a built-in
electric water heater
contrary to the European front loaders. They are connected
directly to the house's hot water line and the house hot water
is typically generated by a gas fired hot water heater.

Point being: using gas to heat water is much cheaper (as gas costs less than
electricity for the same amount of energy/heat produced) and more efficient
than using electricity, consequently even if those machines use more
hot water, you actually pay ***less*** for energy than
with a machine with built-in electric heater.

In addition a top loader finishes a standard wash cycle in 20...30 mins;
a front loader takes close to an hour - so more electricity to run
the motor of a front loader.

The built-in heater (or lack thereof) is, btw, one of the reasons
why the top loaders are cheaper. The other is a much simpler
motor and motor control (on- off versus variable speed).

Of course the end result of the front-lader's longer wash cycle is
cleaner cloths
- which may or may not matter depending on how often you replace the
stuff in your closet
with new one. ;-)

Along with the  much lower price to buy a top loader, being done quicker
is actually considered a benefit in a country where time is money.
These factors  seems to outweigh to most people (in US) the drawbacks of
the top loader approach .

--- sarcasm on ----
Who cares that we don't have enough water, as long as you
still only pay pennies for it.  There can't be a water shortage as
long as water still comes
out of the faucet, right ? ;-)

Heck ~45% of the total US ***domestic*** water usage is
used to water the lawn, what's a few gallons  more  to wash your cloths?
---sarcasm off -----

This will only change once the price of a gallon of water
approaches that of a gallon of gasoline. The market will eventually
regulate it
via the price of the resource (water, gas, electricity, whatever).
Just look what a few years of rising gasoline prices did to those car companies
that built their entire future on selling SUVs and pickup trucks.

P.S. don't get me wrong on above - I'm a big fan of the front loaders,
I have one myself, but as usual there are many sides to the story and
no easy solution.
The easy solution would be to just outlaw top loaders ;-), along with
gas guzzling SUVs and having
1/4...1/2 acre lawns in font of every house in the desert (Las Vegas,
Palm Springs, etc..) -
but hey,  then we wouldn't be the land of the free.

P.S2: You are expecting too much from the average consumer to go through
a cost-benefits analysis as you did and consider long-term cost
versus short-term cost
- not to mention impact on the environment - in their buying decision.

Most people only see the upfront price, that's why people buy inkjet printers
and then pay through the nose for new ink. The same principle is
successfully applied to entry level laser printers, Razor blades,
cell phones (IPone for $100
& $2000 for a 2 year cell contract), etc, etc.

It can even get more subtle than this: The other week a Costco:
energy saving light fixture including fluorescent light for only $9.9
-what a deal right?
You do something good for the environment and you save "lots" of money both
in buying the fixture and in your electricity bill.

The catch: The energy saving fluorescent fixture uses a
***circular*** fluorescent tube:
replacement cost $17 (!) versus $1...1.50 if the light fixture would
actually use
a fluorescent  **bulb*** (that is just as energy efficient and bright) .

How do you stop deceptive marketing like this?

best regards
Volker

--
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist