Landlord charges €1 per 15 mins on Washer & Dryer

_Dara_

I wash clothes at 40 degrees except for the odd item at 30. If I put in a full wash on a quick cycle, my underwear simply won’t be clean. They actually still are smelly. They should smell fresh and clean and they’d smell musty. Not good. A quick cycle isn’t enough for things like underwear to get clean and, IMO, they need a 40 degree wash. 15 minutes wash for underwear? Yikes! I wash towels, bedding and tea towels at 60. These are items that will get germ-ridden if you don’t wash them thoroughly.

I hope you’ve never groused to housemates about them doing longer, hotter washes than you. It’s none of your business and, among housemates, the amount it would add to each person’s portion of the bill would be tiny. It’s a fantastically stingy thing to complain about.

You are very wrong that “most” people do low temp, fast washes.

flaneur

Sharing accommodation in Ireland is usually a miserly, miserable experience. I've been there!

We had a guy who would throw a strop if anyone put the heating on at all. He kept turning it off if he saw it on and shouting at people. It was so bad your breath would fog in the living room on a winter's day.

One reason I would sooner emigrate than share here.

ongarite

The_Conductor wrote: »

+1
The usual cycle I use on my washing machine- a Samsung 'Eco Bubble' cycle- is 3 hours 42 minutes.

Newer machines using less water but keep using that water for much longer, same for modern A++ rated dishwashers.

Danonino.

Mekhi Cuddly Minus wrote: »

I find my clothes absolutely perfectly clean after a 15 min 30 degree wash followed by an additional rinse. Hence why I have no heed at all in people claiming I need to do hotter washes. I don't think the washing machine at home as ever been used above 40 degrees in the years since we have the current one and 99% of the washes it does are the 30 degree 15 min cycle followed by a rinse.

Also its quite a normal way to wash from other households I have experience of, fast low temp washes are what most people do in my experience (bar an odd annoying housemate in the past).

I wouldn't dream of running a washing machine at 60 degrees and have never seen mould in the washing machine.

Find this thread entertaining in ways I thought impossible ha ha. This post actually did annoy me though. The housemate is odd and annoying for not following your very strict, entirely opinion based and arguable washing machine guidelines. What if that housemate considers washing bedclothes or towels under 60 as unhygienic. He may or may not be correct, but to call that odd or annoying is weird to me.

Anyway my only question is: if the esb is included in the rent why is the OP being charged for using the washer/dryer? I’d be asking to see the esb bill, id gamble that it’s being covered easily before that coinbox is emptied. It’s a rediculous situation and I’d probably be off looking elsewhere before having to deal with it.

flaneur

The modern AAA+++ machines still do a very good job it's just you would not want to be in a rush.

Old top loader US machines used to do a full wash (sometimes not all that well)in about 20 minutes but it was a done using as much hot water as it would take to run a very full bath. They also often throw in chlorine laundry bleach in the states. It cleans but wrecks things and it's bad for the environment..

Our machine used to completely empty the entire hot water tank in the process!

flaneur

flaneur wrote: »

Sharing accommodation in Ireland is usually a miserly, miserable experience. I've been there!

We had a guy who would throw a strop if anyone put the heating on at all. He kept turning it off if he saw it on and shouting at people. It was so bad your breath would fog in the living room on a winter's day.

One reason I would sooner emigrate than share here.

Heating use was another thing that would annoy me when I lived in house shares, it wasn't unknown for me to turn it off or to change the timed cycles to much shorter "on" times than housemates had set (I'd never actually say anything though or shout at anyone or anything like that). I'd almost never turn on the heat myself, if it was very cold I'd use a small portable heater to heat around me rather than waste gas heating the full house.

I have some seriously low heating bills though, love seeing the tiny gas bill come in when I hear what some people spend on gas.

endacl

Mekhi Cuddly Minus wrote: »

I was everything at 30, pile everything in togeather, towels bed clothes, shirts, underwear the lot.

Is Nox short for noxious?

flaneur

Good for you.

I hope you've good insulation and a naturally stable body temperature. Not all of us want to live in miserable, cold, damp conditions.

I know people who've become ill because of houses that were deliberately kept so cold that they basically were suffering from mild hypothermia.

Not everyone is able to live in conditions like that and you should not inflict them on people.

Basically what I'm reading is that you're just unwilling to pay for normal services in shared accommodation. An element of heating in a household is a normal overhead.

You also realise that kWh of electricity is dramatically more expensive than 1 kWh of gas and that you'll be using more power to raise a cold room to temperature than you would to maintain an even background temperature.

Letting a house go cold and then heating from cold with a very expensive heat source - peak rate electricity, is a false economy.

Electric Sheep

endacl wrote: »

Is Nox short for noxious?

My guess is that Nox001 is short for Obnoxious One. I wouldn't take him too seriously:P

_Dara_

Mekhi Cuddly Minus wrote: »

Heating use was another thing that would annoy me when I lived in house shares, it wasn't unknown for me to turn it off or to change the timed cycles to much shorter "on" times than housemates had set (I'd never actually say anything though or shout at anyone or anything like that). I'd almost never turn on the heat myself, if it was very cold I'd use a small portable heater to heat around me rather than waste gas heating the full house.

I have some seriously low heating bills though, love seeing the tiny gas bill come in when I hear what some people spend on gas.

If every housemate used a small, portable heater when cold, the combined cost would likely add up to more than the cost of using gas heating.

Stingy folk tend to be pretty short-sighted a lot of the time.

Pintman Paddy Losty

OP, you are a guest in the owners house. If you don't like the setup you are free to leave.

I'd be careful about going whinging to the owner about it. If they don't like having you live in their house they can turf you out on a whim.

Pelvis

This is the same in my place, though I'm not a licensee, and it doesn't cost as much. Typically €4 to €6 will wash and dry your clothes, shortest cycle is 2 hours, and an hour is enough in the drier for me.

I don't really have an issue with paying, my main issue is the fact that there's only one washing machine and drier shared between at least 6 flats. It's ridiculous.

astrofool

steddyeddy wrote: »

ntlhell?

ntlhell was a poster who always became whatever person could speak most authoritatively on a subject, a doctor on illness forums, a builder on DIY forums etc.

Mango Joe

OP make sure that you and anyone else living there never, ever uses this system. This will mean they wasted their money buying this meter and paying for it to be installed.

- This wasted cash will upset them to an unimaginable, heart-rending extent as they are miserable, tight, insufferable, penny-pinching ahhrseholes.

Also you should research and execute every subtly passive means of introducing irritants and inconveniences into their lives by stealth as you live in their midst.

Start by making sure that the remote control can only ever be found after a 15-20 search and any really good match that's set to be recorded 'accidentally' fails after 4 minutes, ring all of the local evangelical churches and ask them to call to the house at the worst possible times to spread Gods word - that kind of thing.

Pintman Paddy Losty

Mango Joe wrote: »

OP make sure that you and anyone else living there never, ever uses this system. This will mean they wasted their money buying this meter and paying for it to be installed.

- This wasted cash will upset them to an unimaginable, heart-rending extent as they are miserable, tight, insufferable, penny-pinching ahhrseholes.

Also you should research and execute every subtly passive means of introducing irritants and inconveniences into their lives by stealth as you live in their midst.

Start by making sure that the remote control can only ever be found after a 15-20 search and any really good match that's set to be recorded 'accidentally' fails after 4 minutes, ring all of the local evangelical churches and ask them to call to the house at the worst possible times to spread Gods word - that kind of thing.

If I was an owner occupier and you were my licensee, you would be out on your ear in jig time. You could hide the remote all you wanted when you were back in the parents house.

_Dara_

_Dara_ wrote: »

If every housemate used a small, portable heater when cold, the combined cost would likely add up to more than the cost of using gas heating.

Stingy folk tend to be pretty short-sighted a lot of the time.

The heater made virtually zero difference to the bills. I went through the ESB bill in detail every two months to ensure it wasn't increasing and the average cost of the bill was exactly the same before and after I started using the heater. It might get a 30 minute usage an odd day here and there. The thing was not being left on or being used all the time. Far more efficient than heating the full house (especially as I was there in on my own a lot of the time).

Anyway I don't need it anymore, no longer housesharing and I have a fire and access to large amounts of free fuel for it so I can have a nice warm living room with minimal gas usage.

cbreeze

When I was growing up there was a family of eight living up the road who had no such thing as a washing machine or clothes dryer. The mother would put all the clothes in the bath with a few scoops of 'Rinso' and relays of kids would take it in turns to march up and down the bath for the wash and rinse cycle. They got their feet washed at the same time. The wash was then put through a hand-operated wringer and put out on the line.

Neyite

cbreeze wrote: »

When I was growing up there was a family of eight living up the road who had no such thing as a washing machine or clothes dryer. The mother would put all the clothes in the bath with a few scoops of 'Rinso' and relays of kids would take it in turns to march up and down the bath for the wash and rinse cycle. They got their feet washed at the same time. The wash was then put through a hand-operated wringer and put out on the line.

Even that's got to be better than an overloaded quick wash at 30 degrees

CruelCoin

flaneur wrote: »

Add to that if it's a shared machine, is going to be spreading bugs from one load to the next and the cycles are so short that it might even include bodily fluids ...

jesus, what do you think people are trying to wash?

steddyeddy

CruelCoin wrote: »

jesus, what do you think people are trying to wash?

Who knows? It's certainly not going to kill odorous bacteria at that temperature.

L1011

CruelCoin wrote: »

jesus, what do you think people are trying to wash?

If your underwear has never had any bodily fluid or bacteria in it, you are probably washing yourself in a 60 degree wash cycle a few times a day!

riffmongous

If the electricity is included in the rent.. you can always do a few handwashes in the sink, it might encourage him to negotiate on the price

Pawwed Rig

Just worked out at the rates the OP is paying would cost me about €90 per week. Our washing machine easily runs for 16-20 hours a week and the dryer runs about 6 hours. OP probably doesn't have vomity and pooey kids to deal with though.

steddyeddy

steddyeddy wrote: »

Who knows? It's certainly not going to kill odorous bacteria at that temperature.

Well I can an confirm that clothes come out totally clean and fresh from the wash. Like many things people here are claiming a 30 degree wash is no good yet how can they know when they haven't ever used it to wash the clothes in question yet somehow know "they aren't clean" :rolleyes:

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

Just worked out at the rates the OP is paying would cost me about €90 per week. Our washing machine easily runs for 16-20 hours a week and the dryer runs about 6 hours. OP probably doesn't have vomity and pooey kids to deal with though.

20 hours a week :eek:? Between two of us I'd say it would take 3 months to rack up 20 hrs on the machine. Different of course with kids but it still appears a lot.

awec

Mekhi Cuddly Minus wrote: »

Well I can an confirm that clothes come out totally clean and fresh from the wash. Like many things people here are claiming a 30 degree wash is no good yet how can they know when they haven't ever used it to wash the clothes in question yet somehow know "they aren't clean" :rolleyes:

It's fairly straightforward science.

I know that if I boil a spud for 10 seconds it isn't going to be cooked, I don't need to actually do it to know.

Similarly I know that the 30 degree quick wash isn't going to properly clean clothes, bed linen and whatever else. It might look clean, it may even smell like your lovely fabric softener, but it isn't really clean.

Pawwed Rig

Mekhi Cuddly Minus wrote: »

20 hours a week :eek:? Between two of us I'd say it would take 3 months to rack up 20 hrs on the machine. Different of course with kids but it still appears a lot.

5 or 6 washes in the week would rack up that time easily. The eco wash option tends to add an hour to each cycle.

Pintman Paddy Losty

The way people go on here you'd think you're a walking bio hazard if you're not boil washing all your clothes. :rolleyes:

Lots of precious souls in here. Must have very weak immune systems living in such a sterile environment.

steddyeddy

Mekhi Cuddly Minus wrote: »

Well I can an confirm that clothes come out totally clean and fresh from the wash. Like many things people here are claiming a 30 degree wash is no good yet how can they know when they haven't ever used it to wash the clothes in question yet somehow know "they aren't clean" :rolleyes:

Back off man, I'm a scientist to quote a hero of mine. Bacteria don't die at thirty degrees. In other words they don't die at room temperature. You sound very young judging by the mother comments, however it may be a good idea to learn how to wash properly yourself before you comment on how other people wash, live and how they aspire to live their lives.

steddyeddy

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

The way people go on here you'd think you're a walking bio hazard if you're not boil washing all your clothes. :rolleyes:

Lots of precious souls in here. Must have very weak immune systems living in such a sterile environment.

No, it's just revulsion at a very unhygienic practice and the insistence that we should all live that way.

Pintman Paddy Losty

steddyeddy wrote: »

No, it's just revulsion at a very unhygienic practice and the insistence that we should all live that way.

Tosh.

A 30 degree wash will remove all but the heaviest of soiling. They will not smell and a rinse after removes any detergent.

It mightnt kill all the dreaded terrufying bacteria but most people don't go around the place in constant fear of germs.

Some people here would be better investing in sterilized cocoon like the bubble boy if they're so terrified of germs.