When I talk about saving energy on your laundry I am talking a two pronged approach. Saving energy as in electricity and water and saving your own energy in terms of effort.
Encourage children to wear things again if they aren’t dirty. This is a great way to reduce the amount of washing you need to do and will save you effort, time and money. It is so easy just to put every thing into the laundry bin at the end of the day but it really isn’t always necessary.
Choose a washing machine that actually detects the size of any given load and alters the speed and movement of the washing machine drum, to better manage the amount of energy and water used is really useful. This means you have better overall efficiency and is definitely money saving!
The new Panasocnic energy saving washing machines are not only great at saving energy through load adjusting sensors but they also have an in built steam iron technology which reduces creasing, resulting in less ironing. Reducing creasing is really key to reducing your ironing time as is making sure you dry items flat. Using ironing water can also really help with this.
Washing machines with steam refresh programmes are also well worth considering. They allow you to quickly remove odours from your clothes without washing them leaving you with refreshed and ready to wear clothes in less than 1/2 hour. Steam refershing clothes at home the bother and expense of dry cleaning, or delicate wool washing and careful drying.
Washing at lower temperature and on shorter cycles are more obvious ways of saving money on your laundry. Do try own brand detergent too, I have had a lot of success with these.
I do love this ironing tip: to make ironing easier and more energy efficient, add a piece of aluminum foil under your ironing board cover. Apparently the foil will help hold the heat and allow you to iron more quickly or on a lower temperature.
I encourage help with the laundry; my children take it in turn to sort the whites from the coloureds and bring me down loads which is a great help. I also only iron a few key pieces and fold most things neatly as soon as they are dry.
Having the right equipment, knowing a few tricks and dividing and reducing the workload means laundry really doesn’ t have to be such a chore.
*Pls see my disclosure policy
That first tip is my absolute must. My kids just undress and chuck things in the linen basket without looking! I really drill it into them to get more wear out of clothes before they land me with more laundry!