Day Fourteen - Shades of Grey

No More Hot Water Wash Cycles (And no Bleach, either)

Mom always taught me to wash my colored clothes in cold water, but to wash my whites in hot water. Why? I don't know, but that's the way she did it, so that's the way I do it. I guess maybe it was to disinfect the undies (am I really that germy?) or maybe to ensure sparkly-white underthingies. Who knows? All I know is, it's time to find out what would happen if I didn't anymore.

Will I suffer the fate of ending up in an emergency room with dingy underpants? If so, should I consider switching doctors if/when that is their biggest concern there?!?! Who knows? But this daring suburbanite is willing to find out.

Normally, it takes me a week to work up a small load of whites in our house (mainly a couple pair of my undies, some bras and our washcloths) which I then wash in hot water with bleach. Instead, I'll be tossing all those bright whites in with my other garments and washing it all in cold water -- no bleach. It's like a double-bonus. Let's see what that saves....

Savings:

Doing a load of hot cycle washing uses 3.966 kWh, compared to 0.264 kWh for a cold wash cycle. By nixing the weekly "hot whites" load, I can save over 3.7 kWh per week, or 192 KWh a year! That also equates to about $16 annual savings on my electric bill. WOOHOO! I love being Green!

Difficulity Level: 0 out of 5

If I could give this one a negative difficulty level rating, I would. This means the end of sorting laundry into whites / non-whites (which seems so discriminatory anyhow), it means the end of having to buy bleach, it means no more having to switch that little knob (and remembering to switch it back). It just makes life easier. And I think I'll just start phasing the whites out of my wardrobe anyhow. Afterall, I have two messy toddlers and a black dog at home, why on EARTH would I wear white?