If I recall correctly, Miele prefers for the dishwasher to be hooked up to cold water. Modern dishwashers use so little water, by the time they are done filling, you might not even have flushed all the cold water out of the pipes. So, they all need a way to heat water. But not every manufacturer offers an installation preference.

We have both cold and hot capability however, aside from kitchen towels, I solely wash all our clothes in cold. Better for your clothes as well as your electricity bill.

But, as is often noted here, doing only cold washes is not so great for machine longevity. Tends to result in detergent residue and other build-up on front-loaders' parts (such as the drum support spider) which then corrode and fail. Also contributes to odor and mildew problems. Even for those who prefer cold washes, you'll still need to run a hot wash or hot drum cleaning cycle every so often to clean out the gunk that otherwise can and will build-up if you never run anything but cold washes.

jwvideo - Thanks for the info., I'd never heard that before. We do have a front load, and use liquid detergent. I wash kitchen towels once a week (I have a deep drawer in the kitchen that holds many) in hot water. Should I run hot more often?

You use a detergent meant for cold water, All front loaders have an issue with odor and is easy to just leave a washcloth in the door to keep it open a bit. As for this particular issue I think the idea of an on demand small system might be the answer.

>>>"I wash kitchen towels once a week (I have a deep drawer in the kitchen that holds many) in hot water. Should I run hot more often?

Hard to say without actually taking the washer apart to look at the outside of the drum and the inside of the containment tub in which the drum rotates. Residue build-ups vary with your home's water chemistry, how you have been dosing the detergent, how high a temperature the washer's "hot" setting yields, whether you use chlorine bleach, whether you use fabric softener, and other factors.

Does your washer have a tub cleaning cycle? I'd run that at least monthly or whatever your washer's manual recommends. If your washer does not have a tub cleaning cycle, you can run an empty load with the hottest wash temperature and as many extra rinses as the machine will provide, a couple of cups of chlorine bleach, and no detergent.

If you've never run a drum cleaning cycle before, I would start checking sudsing during the washing part of the cycle and during each rinse. If you see suds without needing to shine a flashlight through the window in the washer door to see them, your washer already has some build-up of residues and you'll probably want to run more cleaning cycles until you no longer see sudsing. If your washer drains (or can drain) into a laundry sink, that makes it even easier to check for sudsing. It's okay if you see sudsing in the wash cycle but you'll want to run another tub cleaning cycle if you see a lot of sudsing in the last rinse.

If you find sudsing in your drum cleaning cycles, you also might want to check your towels (particularly bath towels) for residue build-up. (IME, those seem most apt to collect residues.) What I do is occasionally run a load of towels through a wash cycle without any detergent and check for sudsing.

I second Patricia Colwell's recommendation for leaving the washer door open after use and but also would repeat the recommendations to run tub cleaning cycles. I also would leave the detergent dispenser drawer open after use and periodically check the dispenser drawer and its slot for residues (water is fine in there but detergent, soap or fabric softener residues should be cleaned out.) Toweling off the door gasket also can be a good precaution when your laundry space has high ambient humidity.

In the high and dry climate where I live, we do not often see moldy door gaskets but we do run into stinky machines. IME, the main culprits for machine stench here have been running strictly cold water washes combined with overdosing on detergent. Happens with top loaders, as well.

Jora,

Friends of my sister destroyed their frontload washer in 5 years by a combination of:

- 1 continual/extreme overdosing of liquid fabric softener

- 2 liquid detergent

- 3 too much washing in cold water

- 4 never using the machine's tub-clean cycle (which heats to 130°F on the unit they had)

The drum support (aka spider) broke during spin, the rim of the drum tore a gash in the front of the outer tub. They were quoted an outrageous figure ($800 or some such) to repair the machine so were going to trash it but my sister figured I could fix it (without the labor of a servicer being involved -- parts I found online totaled $259) so they gave it to her ... and the matching dryer which had nothing wrong.

The inside of the drum looked great, shiny stainless steel ... because the tumbling clothes rub on it to keep it clean. The machine's "innards" were coated with a thick layer of waxy/sticky residue on the outside of the inner drum and inside of the outer tub. The drum support (cast aluminum) was crumbling to gravel, some of the residue almost like a greasy powder.

I have been using front loaders for over 27 years and never had a mold or smell issue. I only run one wash cycle using cold water and that is for Lycra or Elastic gym clothes, or good black pants. The rest get 105F, most get 120F and one gets 140F. So I agree with dadoes using cold water washes contributes to all kinds of problems. The buzz word now is to wash in cold water to save energy. I think that if the USA was REALLY serious about saving energy the government would require commercial laundries to wash only in cold water. Until then 105F, and mostly 120F, is for my cottons.

Miele makes a 120V washer that can be connected to cold water, but it is not one of the 4 or 5 cu ft models The most it will hold is 17.5 pounds. Heating with 120V is slower than 220V even in a large washer filling with hot water.

OMG!!! Yet another reason to hope that my late mother's hand-me-down washer/dryer (purchased by her in 1986 and used by her daily until she died in 1993), outlast me!

Sorry - call me a dinosaur - but white cotton washed in cold water will never be nice and white. I like a hot water cycle for all my 100% white cotton - sheets, towels and clothing as well.

Running a hot water supply is easy. It’s the washer standpipe drain that is the difficult issue. Sort out the drain and just run a hot water PEX supply line.

Thanks for this info.

I run a lot of my clothing on cold (jeans, especially -- these and certain other fabrics WILL shrink in hot) but I have a lot of items that do best cleaned in hot water. So, I'm mixing it up, but am glad to learn more about this, regarding keeping my new(ish) front loader washer healthy.

I'm happy to have both cold and hot water lines running here. I can decide what I need based on the load materials.

wow dadoes, thanks for the pictures! I have never understood the appeal of fabric softener (for many reasons!), but this only solidifies my stance.

I wash jeans in warm (105+°F). None have ever shrunk (although *I* have expanded, LOL) ... but I suppose that depends on the fabric ... fashion-type vs. "work" jeans. I don't wash *anything* in cold except some 100% "collector" t-shirts that have pop-culture silk-screened or decal decoration.

Fabric softener, including dryer sheets, is a waxy lubricant. It's not verboten (I use it on some loads, NOT everything) ... as long as it's not chronically overdosed and there are sufficient hot washes and other good techniques to keep residue build-up at-bay. Cold water doesn't do it. Rinses are always cold nowadays so some residue build-up essentially occurs immediately.

An aspect confounding the issue is the dumb-downed warm and hot temperatures on machines nowadays. I checked the Normal cycle with a thermometer on the machine I repaired (a 2011-model Samsung). Warm was 80°F to 85°F (the Delicate cycle had a warmer warm) and hot was 95°F to 100°F ... and that's with my water heater set at 140°F. Newer machines may be more restricted. Getting a proper warm or hot wash requires selecting the more aggressive Heavy or Sanitary or Allergen cycle. And as I mentioned, the machine-clean cycle heats to 130°F but they obviously never ran it on a recurring basis as intended or the residue wouldn't have accumulated so much (there was thick residue in the dispenser drawer and the machine reeked of the sweet scent of it).

Back to Avon Lady's original question --

Just ran across a post on the automaticwasher forum mentioning two small Whirlpool front-load washers that are set up for cold-fill only. Not much info on them beyond the links to Whirlpool's website, although combo52 mentioned having sold a lot of them.

The links to the Whirlpool site are:

https://www.whirlpool.com/laundry/washers/front-load/p.24-fl-washer.wfw3090jw.html

and

https://www.whirlpool.com/laundry/washers/front-load/p.24-fl-washer.wfw5090jw.html

If your storage area has limited circuits and outlets, one of these small machines might be plug and play for a lot less cost than a Miele or Asko model. Still, depending on your situation, location and skills, you might be able to get a standard full sized washer of your choice and install a 120v inline electrical hot water heater for less than one of these small Whirlpools might cost you..