When In Rome: Laundry

The Germans are all about efficiency.  Most noticeably in the area of energy efficiency.  So they have smaller, more energy efficient washers and dryers for their clothes.  And in the nicer weather (and even not so nice) you see everyone with clothes on the line.  This is a local custom that I joined in on right away because a) I love hanging clothes on the line.  And b) the dryer that was here at our house from FMO wasn't working well.  It took over two hours to dry a medium load. 

FMO just dropped off my new washer and dryer today, and as soon as the maintenance guy comes to hook it up for me I'll have a good working dryer.  But I still think I'll be hanging as often as I can.  Awhile back I read this post by Trina and I really liked her thoughts on saving energy and money by using the dryer less.  And then I read this post which convinced me even more that I'm all about hang drying... I love the smell, love that it keeps our clothes nicer longer, and love that it saves green (especially green bucks ;o) ).  

It's going to be important for me to save energy everywhere I can because our heating bill in the winter is going to be pretty pricey... this house is big and has lots of lovely windows... but it's heated with oil so we want to be careful to not get nailed with a huge heating bill.  So I'm going to try to go green as much as possible... which is super easy in the summer! 

Here are my new guys.  They're actually German.  FMO gives you the option of American or German machines.  Most Americans want the US ones because they're what we're used to (bigger and faster... but they use more water and energy).  I opted to switch out and get the German ones because we only have German hook-ups in our house so I wasn't able to have hot water for my washer.  The German washing machines actually heat up the water themselves for a hot load... so with German hook-ups there's no option for hot water to come into an American washer.  This wouldn't usually be a problem for me except for in the cloth diaper department.  Cold washes aren't getting them clean enough.  

So after today I'll be truly rockin' my laundry German-style:  high efficiency front loading German machines... and a clothesline ;o)