As Green Week ends, we thought a look at another hot water hog would be appropriate. The average washing machine uses 55 gallons of water per load. At least half of which is hot water. So if your family averages 8 loads of laundry in week that could equal at least 220 gallons of water that needs to be heated. That is unless you switch to a cold water detergent. Tide has developed a formula that works just as well removing stains in cold water as hot. So what kind of cost saving does this translate into.

With the same method that we used earlier this week when calculating the cost of hot water for showers, we figure it costs about $240 per year to heat that water assuming a 50% hot water mix. Pretty big savings for doing nothing more than changing detergents.

Grab It: Tide Coldwater 2X Ultra Concentrated Detergent, Fresh Scent, 78-Load Bottles (Pack of 2)

Tags: Detergent, Green Week

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 7:23 AM and is filed under House. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.