Edit: Thank you to everyone that replied!
In: Technology
Whenever you clean something, there are 5 basic elements involved: Water, Agitation, Time, Chemical, Heat (WATCH for short!). Think of them arranged as the wedges of a pie chart. For something to get properly clean, there is a balance of these 5 things. You can reduce one or more of these elements, but in compensation, one or more have to be increased.
In modern washers, the amount of water, chemical, and heat is reduced, at the expense of time and agitation. The washer is relying more on the mechanical action of agitation to shoulder the load of soil removal, but obviously, this takes longer. In terms of our pie chart, W, C, and H wedges are smaller, and the A and T wedges are made larger to compensate.
As someone mentioned, it takes less energy to agitate the clothes in the wash wheel than it does to heat the water to higher temps, hence the energy savings.
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