How Much Water Does A Washing Machine Use?

Do you really know how much water a washing machine uses? Or what the water looks like when it comes out? Lets find out! We had our vacuum cleaner die on us and I was left with the dilemma of what do do with the components. I decided I wanted to use the hose for something. I wanted to find out how much water my washing machine uses. So, I stuck one end of the hose outside and on the end that was inside, I put the washing machine outlet pipe into the hose and routed the other end into a bathtub that was gathering rust in our backyard. And look at the result. Technically the result is a bit corrupt because our washing machine saves water. And there is a small hole in the bath. Oh well.

(I added the wheels to the bath so I can ride down the hill!)

[UPDATE] I plugged up the hole! And on the extra-large load the bath overflowed!

Comments

[patrickvaz]

Hi,
the quickest washing using little water like 20 odd litres is the quick wash cycle,

[ABNER42]

was that a complete cycle or just wash cycle???

[possum888]

Wash cycle. No rinse or spin

[dlginstructables]

Last year, I used the water meter from my house to measure how much water our washing machine uses. It worked really well, because it measures down to fractions of a gallon. I just made sure that no other water using devices were turned on while the laundry was running. Unfortunately, I can't find the paper that I wrote the figures on. I think a typical load was around 40 gallons.

[thematthatter]

well you should plug up the hole and use the standing water to breed mosquitoes. Its soooo Green!! :)

[possum888]

Nice. But where I live it's too cold for mosquitos!

[cubemonkey]

Where do you live, I think I want to move there.

[ncooper]

That appears to be quite a bit of water. Did you measure it so see what it actually was? I'd be interested to hear a rough figure.

[possum888]

Well I did this last week and the bath overflowed on the XL wash but on the L setting the washing machine used 46 litres of water. The volume of the bathtub is round about 53 litres. But the funny thing is my washing is actually one of those eco-saving machines! Maybe not so eco!