A Day in the Life - Does your clothes washer drink too much?

Seattle City Light's Jim Kirkland came to our home with a history of water and electric bills in hand.  He did a thorough inspection of the house checking windows, insulation, appliances, etc. Overall things were in decent shape with the exception of our water usage being about 4 cubic units a month above the average family our size.  This really surprised us because we don’t take long showers, we don’t water the lawn much, and we have an energy efficient dishwasher.

The one area that the audit highlighted was the clothes washer. It was a Whirlpool Super Capacity Top Loader that was only a few years old so we thought it was fairly efficient.  Even so, it was worth exploring.  My husband, Barry, plugged the laundry wash basin and let the rinse water fill it up so he could get an idea of how much water was being used per load.  The result was astounding!!  A normal size load was using 61-63 gallons per load.  Through the process we also realized the washer was defaulting to an extra rinse cycle and even when that was turned off, the washer was using approximately 41 gallons per load. 

After doing quite a bit of research, we decided to purchase an Electrolux Front Loading Washer that has the largest capacity on the market. With a family of five, you can imagine the amount of laundry generated, so this large capacity washer allowed for maximum loading. The result, less loads, less water and less energy!  The average water used now is approximately 12 gallons!  This is a dramatic reduction in water usage and because we were averaging about 13 loads per week in the old washer, the new washer should pay for itself in a little over 2 years while greatly reducing our carbon footprint!