You have to be careful though - in some areas men's underwear is not allowed to hang next to women's, and in some areas no underwear is allowed outside at all, and if you live in the ghetto your clothes will be stolen after 2 minutes...

California, I asked my landlady where can I hang them and she was extremely surprised, like I was really coming from another world (she answered like "in _this_ country we always use the dryer and nobody ever does _that_"); and actually I have never seen any clothes hanging outside here. I didn't want to dry mine in a tumbler anyway, so I made some improvised setup using cloth hangers and some chairs on the balcony Nobody tried to arrest me for this, though I must say I was too lazy to hang the underwear without the clips and ropes, so it made its way to the tumbler...

Aaah, one of my pet hates used to be the common tumble dryer – a power/money draining device that serves the lazy and environmentally unconscious. I used to spend hours questioning housemates on why it had to be used at all.

It was when I moved in with a group of mates a couple of years ago and had the heart-attack inducing realisation that one of them would put his trousers in 15 minutes before leaving the house for a warm kick-start to the day that I came to the conclusion that my battle to save the planet via the medium of reduced tumble dryer usage was long lost.


I have since focussed my attentions on trying to find a girlfriend.

Probably easier than getting some people to care about the environment

Wash white and color together - use color-absorbant rags. Wash towels and bedsheets together. Load number divided by at least three right there.

Put gel in, PROGRAM the machine.... Oh dear me!!!! How COMPLICATED! Do you use C+ or Cobol to PROGRAM your machine?

PRESS START!
Is it a double-safe button with key guards that requires four people to operate?

Sometimes I wonder how in the world did we ever get to the moon.

Very very few Americans hang their clothes out to dry on a normal basis. And if they do, they still have a dryer inside the house/apartment somewhere. This is based on 30 years or so living in the US. Now, I am not/was not a city dweller, maybe this is different there. Or if the Americans were recent immigrants...

Wow! You have a lot of faith into people's hability to use their brain!

White and color? Never ever! Only if you like grayish white kinda color. 4 towels plus 3 bed sheets set don't fit together, it gives at least 5 loads just there.

I wonder if two issues are being conflated here? If not, I will split them anyway

European washing machines : good
Swiss rota for communal laundry : stupid beyond belief

Luckily, despite having to use communal machines, my apartment block is small enough that we need no rota or booking system. As I've just joined a gym and currently have only one set of gym gear (luckily, it's special "quick dry" material) I'm washing almost every day. I could hand wash it, but I'd be cursing each time, if I was lumbered with a rota. I didn't get to the top pof the food chain to hand wash clothes.

Actually, I've had a front-loader (mistakenly called a 'euro' washer) since 1996 in the US. It's just that the US versions have a larger capacity and take far less time to wash. I mean, 3 hours for one tiny load? I don't see how that's any more eco-friendly than the one hour cycle.

Ah ha. So that's where you've got to ...

I saw many places in Florida where it is permitted, so it is surely depending of the area.

You have to admit though, they must be better than taking your clothes down to the river to wash and hanging them on bushes to dry!

It definitely a neighborhood by neighborhood thing. Some places that wanted to seem more upscale would not allow clothes lines or above ground pools as well as some will regulate what kind of fences you can have, etc. See, it isn't just in Switzerland where silly rules can exist!

Although, these are likely gated communities, and who wants to live there, anyways?

Undoubtedly. Have had several Electrolux appliances, just not a washer...good idea.

Good idea!

Actually, we never lived in a gated community. We did buy in an area of new construction. Homeowner's associations can be a total PITA. Talk about arbitrary rules. There were regs about fences, and drying clothes out of doors. External colors and decorations too. Can't remember what else anymore. We sold the house as soon as we moved here. Whew.

I'm curious about the 3 hour wash cycles though. When I wash towels at 60 degrees, it's no more than 90 minutes. The only thing I can think of that takes 3 hours is 95 degrees. I guess if you need to boil your clothes.......

If you're lucky enough to be able to install your own washing machine, Bauknecht does the washer that Whirlpool sells as part of the "Duo" in the US.

10kg load.

Because it's made in Poland.

The dryer IIRC is made in Mexico and does not exist in Bauknecht livery....you're limited to 8kg.

I had one for 5 years here in a house. Sadly, I left it with the house.

Buy abroad if you can - white goods have to be priced higher here otherwise the Swiss won't buy them because they're suspicious of the price. Fact.

To the OP,

If you wash an insane amount of clothes, and need a good cleaning job done quickly and economically, you should take a look at the Miele Octoplus series.

You will need a three-phase electrical supply arranged, but the washer and dryer (also available as an integrated tower) will do a full 8KG load - wash and dry - in 90 minutes.

They are not cheap, but they are made to industrial standards (they even have programmes for stuff as diverse as horse blankets, hospital gowns and gas masks!) - and they will last for ages.

i also don't like to use the tumble dryer for environmental reasons, but now i think i know where i'm going wrong on the gf front

And... load no. 23, full of dirty gas masks!