Do you know what one of the most common complaints is that I hear from Germans who have just moved to the United States? Our washing machines don’t tell the exact water temperature! Our machines have just three settings: hot, warm and cold.
It really bothers them! They tell me they can’t know whether their clothes are really clean or not if they don’t know the precise numeric temperature of the water. We figure we know how hot the water is by feeling it. We think we know our clothes are clean by looking at them and smelling them. This is not enough for those Germans, and some of them even spend a lot of money on very expensive imported German washers, just so that they’ll know the exact water temperature! At least that’s what they tell me.
Oh, yes! I’ve heard the same thing from Germans on job assignments in the US. On my own washing machine here in Germany, you have to select a water temperature. The maximum temperature is 90° C, the lowest 30°. “Cold” is also an option. I have never used a temperature above 40° C. :lol:
Another difference: Doing a load of wash requires at least twice as much time in Germany. On an American washing machine, you can choose the length of the wash cycle. I’ve never seen this option on a German washing machine. And I sometimes have the feeling that the standard (i.e. inflexible) length of a wash cycle on a German washing machine is actually longer than the maximum length of time on an American washing machine. Of course, I could be mistaken. Maybe the rinse cycle is just longer.
At any rate, I am still good friends with the German woman who first mentioned her dissatifaction with American washing machines to me. At the time, she complained that “hot” wasn’t hot enough. That was the main complaint. Similar to what you mentioned in your post.
In the meantime she and her family are back in Germany and I now live here, too. And what do you suppose I’ve found out? You got it! When my German friend does the wash in her German washing machine, she never selects selects a water temperature higher than 40° C.
I don’t know about the rest of you but I seem to be learning a lot about the American way of life. On the matter of washing machines I have to come clean! and confess that we are a Bosch household. Now I always thought that articles of clothing have a recommended maximum temperature on the label. In that case how can you tell which level to wash your clothes at/in?
These are the sorts of question that make the world spin round!
Well, the temperature panel of my washing machine has five levels: 95°, 60°, 40°, 30° and funnily enough: cold. I don’t know the German obsession with exact water temperature stems from but maybe it’s because we are from the Land of Ideas? I mean, looking at all the different programs my washing machine can perform, makes me feel part of a great nation of inventors ;-).
I mean, if use all the possible combinations, there must be more than 50 programs my machine can do and I’m quite sure that 3 would be absolutely sufficient!.
It’s also of way of creating new jobs because you need lots of engineers to test all these programs and add new ones on a constant basis…
This is so funny to read this. First, I am German, living since October 2005 in the USA and yes, I miss the German washing machines badly and not because I need to know how hot the water is, but because I like my close, especially my white wash, clean and I can’t get stains out as good as I used to in Germany - without bleach!!! And for a fact, I can’t get them out with bleach either. In Germany we don’t use bleach much, I don’t know anybody that uses bleach, because our washers work better than the Americans. Sorry, to say so. First, the wash cycle as some said correctly is much longer, normal white wash requires a wash cycle of 90 min. minimum, longer when it is extra dirty. The different temperatures are important, because of what you wash, whites, color cotton, color synthetics, mixed fiber, wool etc. . And have you ever felt how cold the “warm” water flows in the American machine. I did, and it is not even 30 C, 86 F, good for wool, but not for my husbands work close (colored wash).
And someone said, he/she has a washer with temperature on in here in America? Tell me more about it.
The cheapest German machines washes much better than the average American one, especially when you don’t want to use bleach, what isn’t to good for your clothes anyway.
Oh, something else I want to ask, on what washer can you choose the length of the wash cycle? I never saw one like that. Maybe because I don’t want to pay more than 800 dollars for mine? My washing machine in Germany was around 400 dollars new and washed my white close spotless, most of the time, only a few stains where tough though.
You might be surprised by a reply after some time from your post.
I moved to US just a month ago from Europe (previously living in Italy and Austria) and I am dealing with the problem of getting my US standard washmachine wash properly.
I was horrified to see how clothes do not get nicely clean - especially my white shirts. After all, a 30 min wash I believe is just a joke…
So I wonder if you have any suggestion on how to make these big boxes work, after sometime living here.
Possible alternatives: change and wash clothes every day or get back to handwash???
I must say, we have a front load washer and it “stinks to high heaven”. The water collects somewhere in the bottom and turns mildewy (not sure that is a real word). Are the German washers front load and do they avoid this problem? We are preparing to renovate our laundry room, so this is a very opportune topic for us!
This topic is really interesting. I never had a problem using my washing machine. Although it does not have many options as yours, but you can select hand washing, mild, delicate, etc. There is also an option for cycling and drying too. It is not the very expensive one, but it is a bit pricy. I do not use bleach on white clothing because it changes the color quickly to be yellowish. Especially white cotton fabrics have die on them to look really clean; using bleach brings out the original color. Mrs. Stewart’s laundry bluing which is sometime hard to find, or oxi clean works wonders.
Hi Kagicre,
I fell in love with German wash machines when I lived there many years ago. I also want to be able to choose my water temperature more precisely than the American Hot, Warm, Cold options.
Do you have any resources where I might be able to find German wash machines in the US?
Thank you,
Luci1212
Home Depot, a National hardware store chain, sells 3 Bosch machines with delivery in a week. These don’t have specific temperature settings, just the general extra hot, hot, warm and cold. They are half the capacity of other brands sold in the US.
I wonder though if, like the local social aspects of language, there are other local country factors at work.
I don’t have any answers, but Consumer Reports, a well known reviewing organization, did not review any Bosch clothes washing machines. For dishwashing machines, they found the Bosch products to be the very highest rated.
I wash everything in cold water. I have never been convinced that hot water cleans any better than cold. Cold water is the temperature that it enters the building which will vary in temperature from winter to summer.
It takes a lot of energy to heat water, so I don’t use hot water unless I’m convinced it helps. I use it for baths/showers and doing dishes. I rarely use it for anything else.
For clothes I’ve found that the detergent makes much more difference than the temperature.
