5 ms·

> it’s vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten I am very skeptical: Washing machine has two functions:

> it’s vastly more wasteful and energy intensive to run them for 20 years than to replace them at ten I am very skeptical: Washing machine has two functions: Spinning and heating water. heating is 99% efficient, and electric motors are like 95% efficient - where is the improvement coming from? Is is smart features? What do they do, instead of spinning left it spins right? What about an oven or a kettle, there is no possible improvement, and I bet the shoddily made ones are actualyl less efficient and worse insulated.

WillPostForFood 5y ago
Washing machines continue to evolve—they're gentler on clothes and more efficient than ever, and they use 70 percent less energy than they did in 1990 The most water-efficient models in our ratings use an average of 10 gallons of water, 75 percent less than older models. https://www.consumerreports.org/washing-machines/best-eco-friendly-washing-machines-consumer-reports-tests-a5430738463/ https://www.consumerreports.org/washing-machines/best-eco-fr...
- zarzavat 5y ago
  This is just the amount of power the washing machine uses while it is on. You need to know the energy required to manufacture all of the components and the duty cycle, to know if it makes sense to replace an appliance for a more efficient one or not. For example even if my phone charger were to get twice as efficient, it’s drawing very little power, given that it spends most of its time unplugged: it uses a fraction of a watt. That means that I would have to use it for an extremely long time to get near to the amount of energy used to manufacture a new one.
  - Xylakant 5y ago
    Washing machines pull considerable power and the power scales with the water usage: They use warm water, either from a tap or using a heating element. Heating water is energy intensive, and the hot water quite literally goes down the drain. Current machines use about 50liter per cycle, heating that from 10 to 30 degrees consumes around 1.2kWh, to 60 it’s ~3 kWh. Doubling the amount of water obviously doubles the energy needed. A machine for a small family may see around 100 cycles per year, so the savings are substantial. This doesn’t take into account the savings in drinkable water which has most likely been through an energy-intensive process as well.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Yet your washing machine does not need drinkable water specifically (can use rainwater), and your stats do not mention the energy/resource cost of manufacturing and shipping a new washing machine. If you have collective washing machines as a public service running 24/7, the tradeoff may be worth it, but as a general rule it's certainly not the case. Extracting and refining materials for industrial processes consumes millions and millions of m³ of water and a lot of energy. Our perception as consumers is skewed because the price we pay for electricity/water makes it economically more affordable to us to get newer devices, but from a resource usage perspective, that's certainly not a good deal for the planet. If we paid water/electricity the price that big industries do, we wouldn't even think getting a new device was a reasonable choice.
      - Xylakant 5y ago
        Washing machines consist mainly of materials that are easily recycled and very economical to do so. Metals, mainly, in a large package. Pure copper in the motor. All of which can be recycled to build a new washing machine.
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  These are generally firmware updates, no? One could imagine the same chassis, hardware and drive system with only a few modifications to sensors and the control hardware (perhaps even just an update to the microcontroller's firmware) achieving the same output.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  What stops a washing machine made in year 2010 from using same amount of water as one made in 2025? Was that water never needed at all? Did we discover new phisics of washing? Do we have any reason to believe further improvement is possible? This is a physical process, you can't have infinite improvement - there is a certain minimum amount of water required to dissolve detergent, and it can be easilly calculated. They don't do much, does anyone have a real explanation without any handwaving?
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Have you watched the cycle of a modern front loader versus an old top loader? The old top loader basically filled up a big tub with hot water and sloshed it around a bit. Modern front loaders just incrementally add the amount of water needed as determined by weight. Presumably wouldn’t have worked nearly as well with the available detergents of 50 years ago.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      First, we should be talking about the next 20 years - after all we are talking about a law we will introduce today, not in the past, and noone it talking about appliances lasting a century. Secondly, while I never used a top loader, from everything I've read, they are worse in every dimention, so the comparison seems inappropriate - you are introducing extra variables. Also I am not clear why 'incrementally adding water' was not possible previously, People built a 'smart' toaster 70 years ago, that could sence how cooked your bread is, and it was purely mechanical: https://www.theverge.com/22801890/sunbeam-radiant-control-toaster-t20-t35-vista?msclkid=1655e724b3a611ec8bedfd4ac1e857c9 https://www.theverge.com/22801890/sunbeam-radiant-control-to...
      - ghaff 5y ago
        Top loaders are basically an automated version of doing laundry but by hand. A 40-50 year old top loader which is probably what mine would have been today if it had kept working is much much simpler in many respects than a modern front loader. The spin cycle and it’s control is very different. I doubt you could build a modern washing machine with 1970 technology even if you knew what the end goal should be. And you need the right detergent too. Added: And toasters still do a crap job of figuring out done-ness.
- ghaff 5y ago
  And front loaders at least spin out more water so drying is more efficient. I suspect there’s less of a difference with dryers.
mindslight 5y ago
Previous improvements are brushless DC motors with VFD, and using less water thus less heat required. Although one can argue that water usage has been similarly MBAified, either across the board, or at least for many crappy models that fail to get the job done. A possible future improvement could be delayed start that communicates with time of use metering or something, although this would have to be implemented in such a way that the software itself wouldn't turn the machine into a piece of junk in 3 short years (eg libre software). I suspect there are also many sensor-based improvements that could give machines more intelligent processing, but anyone who has repaired appliances knows that BOM cost rules all. So those would seemingly rely on less time-based manifest-destiny "innovation" and more on designing machines with more value in the first place.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Of course more sensors also equals more parts equals more complexity equals more failure modes. My furnace went mostly out this winter because of what turned out to be an outside temperature sensor which it used to optimize boiler temperature.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    Most of this can be tamed with competent software, which libre software can converge on in a way that throwaway proprietary embedded stuff generally does not. For example, failure of your outside temperature sensor should have just resulted in your furnace acting like it was very cold, using a bit more energy and creating a bit larger temperature swing. Furthermore, an alert of the failure through open protocols would allow for lightweight notifications through software you already use, as contrasted with the currently common commercial surveillance rigmarole.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Except the outside sensor was reporting that it was something like 75 degrees F rather than the 20 degrees F it actually was. And the microcontroller was basically going “Why doesn’t the idiot just open a window?” Not sure what the failure mode of a completely dead sensor would be. Certainly there not necessarily anything wrong with open source controller software but it’s no Panacea either. And what surveillance? My heating system isn’t networked at all.
nessguy 5y ago
While I don't know of any washers/dryers with them, heat pumps can be more than 200% efficient, so there's still potential for improvements there in theory. Though to be honest I agree with your point. A lot of the low hanging fruit for massive gains in efficiency are gone. It's like cars, going from 10 mpg to 20 mpg is a huge difference. Going from 50 mpg to 60 mpg is a much smaller difference.
- coryrc 5y ago
  Heat pump dryers are common in some places. Don't believe heart pumps are ever used in washers though.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "While I don't know of any washers/dryers with them, heat pumps can be more than 200% efficient" But then the washer is stealing heat from your house? That seems questionable? Seems like the right way to solve the problem is to provide hot water inlet, and that should provide it is whatever most efficient way you can?
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    Heat pump dryers don't exhaust air to the outside, which saves a lot of energy relative to what is pulled from the house. (The water is either collected in a container or goes down a drain) For modern top loading washers, the final temperature of the water is restricted by limiting the hot water let in, they don't have a heater.

WillPostForFood 5y ago

Washing machines continue to evolve—they're gentler on clothes and more efficient than ever, and they use 70 percent less energy than they did in 1990 The most water-efficient models in our ratings use an average of 10 gallons of water, 75 percent less than older models. https://www.consumerreports.org/washing-machines/best-eco-friendly-washing-machines-consumer-reports-tests-a5430738463/ https://www.consumerreports.org/washing-machines/best-eco-fr...

zarzavat 5y ago
This is just the amount of power the washing machine uses while it is on. You need to know the energy required to manufacture all of the components and the duty cycle, to know if it makes sense to replace an appliance for a more efficient one or not. For example even if my phone charger were to get twice as efficient, it’s drawing very little power, given that it spends most of its time unplugged: it uses a fraction of a watt. That means that I would have to use it for an extremely long time to get near to the amount of energy used to manufacture a new one.
- Xylakant 5y ago
  Washing machines pull considerable power and the power scales with the water usage: They use warm water, either from a tap or using a heating element. Heating water is energy intensive, and the hot water quite literally goes down the drain. Current machines use about 50liter per cycle, heating that from 10 to 30 degrees consumes around 1.2kWh, to 60 it’s ~3 kWh. Doubling the amount of water obviously doubles the energy needed. A machine for a small family may see around 100 cycles per year, so the savings are substantial. This doesn’t take into account the savings in drinkable water which has most likely been through an energy-intensive process as well.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Yet your washing machine does not need drinkable water specifically (can use rainwater), and your stats do not mention the energy/resource cost of manufacturing and shipping a new washing machine. If you have collective washing machines as a public service running 24/7, the tradeoff may be worth it, but as a general rule it's certainly not the case. Extracting and refining materials for industrial processes consumes millions and millions of m³ of water and a lot of energy. Our perception as consumers is skewed because the price we pay for electricity/water makes it economically more affordable to us to get newer devices, but from a resource usage perspective, that's certainly not a good deal for the planet. If we paid water/electricity the price that big industries do, we wouldn't even think getting a new device was a reasonable choice.
    - Xylakant 5y ago
      Washing machines consist mainly of materials that are easily recycled and very economical to do so. Metals, mainly, in a large package. Pure copper in the motor. All of which can be recycled to build a new washing machine.
nanomonkey 5y ago
These are generally firmware updates, no? One could imagine the same chassis, hardware and drive system with only a few modifications to sensors and the control hardware (perhaps even just an update to the microcontroller's firmware) achieving the same output.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
What stops a washing machine made in year 2010 from using same amount of water as one made in 2025? Was that water never needed at all? Did we discover new phisics of washing? Do we have any reason to believe further improvement is possible? This is a physical process, you can't have infinite improvement - there is a certain minimum amount of water required to dissolve detergent, and it can be easilly calculated. They don't do much, does anyone have a real explanation without any handwaving?
- ghaff 5y ago
  Have you watched the cycle of a modern front loader versus an old top loader? The old top loader basically filled up a big tub with hot water and sloshed it around a bit. Modern front loaders just incrementally add the amount of water needed as determined by weight. Presumably wouldn’t have worked nearly as well with the available detergents of 50 years ago.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    First, we should be talking about the next 20 years - after all we are talking about a law we will introduce today, not in the past, and noone it talking about appliances lasting a century. Secondly, while I never used a top loader, from everything I've read, they are worse in every dimention, so the comparison seems inappropriate - you are introducing extra variables. Also I am not clear why 'incrementally adding water' was not possible previously, People built a 'smart' toaster 70 years ago, that could sence how cooked your bread is, and it was purely mechanical: https://www.theverge.com/22801890/sunbeam-radiant-control-toaster-t20-t35-vista?msclkid=1655e724b3a611ec8bedfd4ac1e857c9 https://www.theverge.com/22801890/sunbeam-radiant-control-to...
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Top loaders are basically an automated version of doing laundry but by hand. A 40-50 year old top loader which is probably what mine would have been today if it had kept working is much much simpler in many respects than a modern front loader. The spin cycle and it’s control is very different. I doubt you could build a modern washing machine with 1970 technology even if you knew what the end goal should be. And you need the right detergent too. Added: And toasters still do a crap job of figuring out done-ness.
ghaff 5y ago
And front loaders at least spin out more water so drying is more efficient. I suspect there’s less of a difference with dryers.

mindslight 5y ago

Previous improvements are brushless DC motors with VFD, and using less water thus less heat required. Although one can argue that water usage has been similarly MBAified, either across the board, or at least for many crappy models that fail to get the job done. A possible future improvement could be delayed start that communicates with time of use metering or something, although this would have to be implemented in such a way that the software itself wouldn't turn the machine into a piece of junk in 3 short years (eg libre software). I suspect there are also many sensor-based improvements that could give machines more intelligent processing, but anyone who has repaired appliances knows that BOM cost rules all. So those would seemingly rely on less time-based manifest-destiny "innovation" and more on designing machines with more value in the first place.

ghaff 5y ago
Of course more sensors also equals more parts equals more complexity equals more failure modes. My furnace went mostly out this winter because of what turned out to be an outside temperature sensor which it used to optimize boiler temperature.
- mindslight 5y ago
  Most of this can be tamed with competent software, which libre software can converge on in a way that throwaway proprietary embedded stuff generally does not. For example, failure of your outside temperature sensor should have just resulted in your furnace acting like it was very cold, using a bit more energy and creating a bit larger temperature swing. Furthermore, an alert of the failure through open protocols would allow for lightweight notifications through software you already use, as contrasted with the currently common commercial surveillance rigmarole.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Except the outside sensor was reporting that it was something like 75 degrees F rather than the 20 degrees F it actually was. And the microcontroller was basically going “Why doesn’t the idiot just open a window?” Not sure what the failure mode of a completely dead sensor would be. Certainly there not necessarily anything wrong with open source controller software but it’s no Panacea either. And what surveillance? My heating system isn’t networked at all.

nessguy 5y ago

While I don't know of any washers/dryers with them, heat pumps can be more than 200% efficient, so there's still potential for improvements there in theory. Though to be honest I agree with your point. A lot of the low hanging fruit for massive gains in efficiency are gone. It's like cars, going from 10 mpg to 20 mpg is a huge difference. Going from 50 mpg to 60 mpg is a much smaller difference.

coryrc 5y ago
Heat pump dryers are common in some places. Don't believe heart pumps are ever used in washers though.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"While I don't know of any washers/dryers with them, heat pumps can be more than 200% efficient" But then the washer is stealing heat from your house? That seems questionable? Seems like the right way to solve the problem is to provide hot water inlet, and that should provide it is whatever most efficient way you can?
- maxerickson 5y ago
  Heat pump dryers don't exhaust air to the outside, which saves a lot of energy relative to what is pulled from the house. (The water is either collected in a container or goes down a drain) For modern top loading washers, the final temperature of the water is restricted by limiting the hot water let in, they don't have a heater.