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Front loading washers

Posted: Mar 5, 2010

What kind of detergent do you use? I'm getting a front loader this weekend (I hope) and right now I have a bottle of Tide Cold Water. It says it's ok for front loaders but a friend and I were talking last night and she said the instructions for hers said not to use Tide as it gums up the system.

Do you think I could water down the Tide and use up this bottle and then switch to something else later?

;

DETERGENT - frontloadfan

[ In Reply To ..]
I've had a frontloader for several years and love it, but look for the "HE" on detergent bottles (high efficiency). Regular detergent will tend to have more suds and my washer will actually stop working and give a "suds" display if using regular detergent. I don't personally know of the Tide detergent gumming up the washer or how watering it down might help. Hopefully someone else can answer that for you. If you do use your Tide, just use a lot less of it. If I use Woolite in my washer, I definitely have to use a lot less to avoid getting too many suds.

Front load washer - BOMT

[ In Reply To ..]
I bought one about a year ago and was told not to only use detergent with "he" (high efficiency) on the bottle because the washer uses less water and not using this detergent (he)will cause problems with the rinse cycle not rinsing out all the soap, etc. I've never tried watering down anything, just always used the "he" stuff.

Detergents and front loaders - climbing Mt. Washmore

[ In Reply To ..]
I've had a front loader for just about 10 years. Recently got a newer one with all the bells and whistles and let my son take the old one for his place. Ten years ago, there weren't a lot of HE detergents available, and the ones available were very expensive. I started to simply use less of the regular detergent, because it was cheaper. I used about 1/4 of the amount that would be used for a top loader.

Then a few years into it I became friends with a woman who is a chemist who works for a company developing detergents. She told me that suds are something that simply appease the consumer. We believe that suds are necessary to clean. It's simply an association we have with soap, which does produce suds. In the "olden days" when granny did the laundry, she used soap, and it sudsed, and that psychological selling point has stayed with us. And, it's important to note that soap and detergent are two different things. It's very difficult to find laundry soap these days. What we see in the grocery store is detergent. Detergents don't really suds up very much, but they are effective cleaners. So, my chemist-friend told me that when they develop new detergents, they actually add sudsing agents to please the consumer. HE products generally have less of that, because the suds can cause problems, and as someone mentioned, some machines will turn off when there are too many suds. Suds are "sticky", and that's probably where the idea that some detergents "gum" up machines comes from.

She told me to simply use less of the regular detergent, as most brands of HE detergents are simply formulated to appeal to the consumer's sense of what they feel is an adequate amount of product and will produce enough suds to, as she put it, "look pretty in the window." She recommended that I use only about 2 tablespoons per load of regular detergent, and my clothes will be clean. Just 2 tablespoons! Isn't that amazing? It took me a while to believe her. It just seems that you should be using so much more, and of course, the detergent manufacturers want you to use more of their product.

As far as Tide is concerned, I know that a sample of Tide actually came with my new frontloader (Maytag). I don't use it, however, because my son has an allergy to Tide. (The chemist also told me that Tide is one of the more allergenic brands out there. There's one particular ingredient that a good number of people cannot tolerate. I can't remember the name of the ingredient, however.)

So, I suggest that you buy whatever brand you like, and just keep backing down the amount that you use until you reach a minimum amount to clean your clothing. You'll save lots of money! As I wrote, I use just about 2 tablespoons per load.

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