Solar Heated Water for Washing Machines with a Cold Feed only.

[Greenbeast]

surely most machines now don't have timer dials? you tend to set a program and its all handled by circuits and chips?

[kristen]

I've dug out my e-on bill to check my Leccy rate

Primary Day units 29.14 (first 105 kWh) - so basically a £30 standing charge p.q.
Other Day units 13.85
Night 4.45

My ratio of Day : Night units = 2.4:1

Which I calculate as an average cost of 11.1

I wonder if I should get rid of dual-rate meter if I can't shift more usage to night time rate.

Just looking at my ratio of Day : Night it varies from 4 (Jan/Feb) to 1.6 in October, but we have managed to move the 12-month rolling average from 3.0 for Jul06-Jul07 to 2.4 for the last 12 months.

It will be interesting to see if the replacement (Feb09) of the old Grunfoss CH pumps with low energy ones will make a big difference this Winter.

[wookey]

Good job greenbeast. I need to do something like that. y

If anyone is looking for washing machine solenoids and the tip isn't handy you can get them from CPC: http://cpc.farnell.com/
hmm, online catalogue doesn't seem to cover white goods, but single universal inlet valve is WG18916 . £2.29+VAT. Also available as double and triple  output and as 90degree instead of 180 degree variants.

[StBarnabas]

My ratio of Day : Night units = 2.4:1

Which I calculate as an average cost of 11.1

I wonder if I should get rid of dual-rate meter if I can't shift more usage to night time rate.

Just looking at my ratio of Day : Night it varies from 4 (Jan/Feb) to 1.6 in October, but we have managed to move the 12-month rolling average from 3.0 for Jul06-Jul07 to 2.4 for the last 12 months.

It will be interesting to see if the replacement (Feb09) of the old Grunfoss CH pumps with low energy ones will make a big difference this Winter.

Hi Kristen
My Night to day units are 3.6 to one - I use far more night time electricity. I am hoping my 3kW PV system will   also improve this considerably and a much bigger buffer tank for my GSHP system. My major night use is electric storage AGA, storage heaters, and heat pumps so my ratio is highest when it is cold. At 2.4 to one the other way I would go back onto a single tarriff.

[kristen]

"At 2.4 to one the other way I would go back onto a single tarriff."

Yup, definitely worth considering ...

Used to use Immersion instead of Oil as I calculated that E7 was cheaper than Oil for DHW in the Summer.

Only big user on Night now is the Pool filtration pump.  If that isn't a big enough load it would help to run it in the day so I could dump Solar excess to pool as it occurs - rather than store until midnight (which must have some additional standing loss attributable to the higher Delta-T).

I think I'll have one more major effort on the "dish-and-washing machines only to be run at night" policy enforcement before I make the switch.

[matt_w]

Sorry, this thread isn't going to die is it ? 

I've just been playing with my washing machine, it's hot and cold fill and has a digital readout up front (kind of half way between old and modern) and is about 10 years old.

Today I switched the connections from on the hot and cold sollenoids and ran a 50 degree wash (tank was at 60).  Washing machine didn't care   good result #1.  So it should be easy enought to switch between the two.  Of course I could leave it on hot only (with TMV) but I'd rather rinse in cold.

Interestingly my washing machine has a bank of lights on the front to indicate if it is washing / rinsing / spinning.  I'm thinking I can use this to also power a small change over relay, I simply need to switch to hot only when the wash light is on.  Result #2

Unfortunately my washer does small fills of water, turns for a bit then fills again - the upshot is that the water cools quite a bit by the time it gets to the washer.  With the power meter I noticed the heater element have to help a bit   However it't not all bad.  A 50 degree wash normally uses 2.0 kwh of electric, today it used 0.5 kwh.  Manual filling with water in the drawer I have got it as low as 0.3 kwh but is hassle and not 'wife friendly'.  If/when I find the hot pipes I will insulate them as I go, however I suspect it won't make much difference, so I'm not going out of my way to rip up the floor just yet!

Good luck with your projects.
Matthew

[Ivan]

Which reminds me, I must finish my timer delay relay project....

[Brandon]

Have you tried one of these Ivan?

[evan]

A few years ago I made a simple modification to our old Hotpoint machine, which had both hot and cold fill solenoids.
As has been mentioned in the thread, the hot solenoid only activated on the hottest programmes, 60 degrees and above, which are rarely if ever used.

There was an extra button on the front, I think it was "rinse pause" or something, which was never used.  So I used it as a simple changeover switch - press it to make the first fill come from the hot solenoid, then remember to un-press it again for the rinses.

Worked well, until the motor blew up and a free newer machine took its place (this one is micro controlled and has, of course, only a cold fill).

Once we're moved and have a good solar system again, I am definitely planning to rig it up properly with an external hot supply solenoid valve, and a microcontroller to patch into / fool the washing machine sensors to let it run properly and automatically mix the wanted water temperature. 

[Mickey]

Hi All,

It's been over two years since I started this thread and my washing machine has been connected to the hot feed only since then, fingers crossed, no problems.   Mickey

[Mudman]

I've been happy with my tmv arrangement as reported on the thread somewhere- always takes 45deg input water (approx) and we always runs hot tap (adjacent) to get hot water through just before starting the cycle.
I have found that insulating the pipe run with high spec insulation keeps it hot enough (starts at 70 deg) long enough that the whole cycle has hot water. that insulation was a kingspan glass fibre product (from a building site that was chucking it - new.)
since then I found (in another skip!) some used industrial level pipe insulation (kingspan one which is pink and covered in aluminium foil) so am going to use that on a few of the pipes to see if it's even better at keeping things hot.

i'm considering redoing a few meters of the pipe run when i do the kitchen so as to shorten the dead leg- can cut some corners with diagonals for example- but it may not make that much difference to how long you run the hot tap (about a minute at the moment starting from cold).