PUBLISHED ON 6/24/24

Soft-Mount Washers Get Clothes Cleaner

Some contributors to this site, including experienced owners, seem to not understand the washing process. Soil removal by washing requires:

  1. water (traditionally the hotter the hot water the better, and the more water the better)

  2. chemical contribution (soap, detergent or other additive)

  3. agitation (the longer the vigor and agitation, the better the removal of soil from the fabric)

All of these features are applied in various methods, quantities and times in order to satisfy cost and timetables. Laundromats traditionally have used fast timers (close to 22 minutes plus fill time) to reduce the amount of time customers can "tie up" their washers. Washing machines made by the same manufacturers as Laundromat washers use far longer wash cycles (an hour or more.)

Hot water use in washing machines is used because it aids the work of the chemicals and because the heat aids in soil removal is better with certain fabrics. Do you wash soiled hands in hot water or cold water? Does hot water help your hand soap remove more soil and oil from your hands? Same with a washer.

Laundry equipment engineers know that more agitation loosens more soil, allows more chemical interaction and results in cleaner fabrics. Top-load washers used an agitator to move the clothes around and produced a quality agitation as long as the washer was not overloaded. Front-load washers emulate the process of hand washing in your sink or tub by lifting, dropping and reversing during their cycles and scrapping of the simulated washboard of the washing machine tub interior.

Now that we've busted some, or hopefully most, of the soil loose from the clothes the soil is contained in the water. More water dilutes the dirt and will assist in removing soil and chemicals from the fabric. Do you use a very low volume water stream when washing dirty hands or do you use a heavier stream? Same idea.

Now we need to remove the residual chemical and soil compounds from the water. Laundromats, in order to reduce costs of water use, have used one spray rinse and one deep rinse (this is the rinse pattern used by all top-load washers) while front-load washers have traditionally used two full wash and three rinse cycles, hence the accurate belief that the old model front-load washers cleaned better. If additional clean water washes and rinses are used, the more residual debris is removed. Current models of the major brands allow a reduction in the wash and the rinse cycles on front-load washers in order to reduce water use. Fewer wash and rinse cycles reduce the ability to remove much of the residual debris. Cost versus quality is always a consideration but keep in mind that lower water levels reduce the final quality of the wash.

Finally, we get to the process of removing the residual debris from the fabrics. A large portion of the dirt and chemical will be removed in the draining process after wash and rinse cycles. The more water and rinse cycles used will result in more residual debris being removed. All of these cycles will have extract periods. The benefit of soft-mount washers is the ability to remove more of the water (as it is filled with soil and chemicals) in the extract cycles.

Some folks don't know that wet clothes are still actually dirty clothes. The water that is not removed during the wash and rinse cycles is dirty water. Not as dirty as after the first wash cycle, but dirty none-the-less. This is a benefit of soft-mount washers: they remove more of the dirty water from the clothes. This leaves the clothes cleaner and thereby softer and now having less water to evaporate during the drying process (which doesn't remove soil and chemical but only evaporates them back into the fabric) extends the life of the clothes.

There are other benefits to soft-mount washers, such as a reduced need for as many dryers, lower cost installations, no need for increased concrete foundations and providing a quality wash with reduced energy costs. Forget the idea that the movement you see on some soft-mount washers (bouncing about) is cleaning the clothes better, that's just absorbing the vibrations in the springs and shocks and not applying the pressure to the bolts and foundations of a hard-mount washer. The increased cleaning benefits come from the increased debris removal during the wash and rinse cycles and the water removal with the higher extract speed in the extract.

See an actual comparison between a 200G hard-mount washer and a 400G soft-mount washer and the savings in utilities and cleanliness in using the soft-mount washer at: https://www.laundromat123.com/350G_v_200G_Laundromat_Washer_C.html

If any of the conversations and industrial cleaning information I have received over the years have not been properly reflected in the above, I would look forward to a knowledgeable correction from any factory spokesman. Hope this help others understand.