Laundry Days

Its funny how you can have something as universal as laundry be such a different experience from one country, or continent, to the next.  You would think that clothes washing machines, like cars, would be basically the same. They are not.

I began my laundry experience in Germany cautiously.  Twelve years ago, when visiting Norway, I had done a load of laundry at our friend's house and remember being appalled when my daughter's security blanket came out permanently warped.  So, when I was ready to do our first load in Germany, I chose clothing I knew to be sturdy and easily replaced, if needed.

In our first rental home, the washing machine was located in the bathroom.  I know that in some places it is located in the kitchen.  The machine itself reminded me of my bread machine at home: a compact "box" about a quarter of the size of my American machine, with control panel on the side and a top that popped open with the push of a button.  Looking down from the top, the drum opened from the rounded side, rather than from the flat, circular side.  I had to push down on two spring-loaded doors, which released the latch and then opened outward.

I could only fit about 1/4 of what I would normally put in a load of laundry.  For a family of 5, that's a lot of loads!  The detergent is, fortunately, the same, although I later found that I couldn't find any bleach products and it was difficult to find anything unscented.  The next conundrum was the operation of the machine.  All the labels, of course, were in German and I had to decide the exact temperature of the water.  In all the loads of laundry I have done in my life, I have never had to think of the water temperature in terms of degrees.  Cold, warm, or hot: those are the choices.  In fact, I really have little idea of what temperature would define "warm".  Now I had to decide, in Celsius.  Thankfully, various temperature levels were labeled with types of clothing/fabrics, so a little time with the dictionary helped me determine a safe range for most of my laundry.

When I finally pushed the start button, the digital read-out said 110.  110 what?  Minutes!  Yes, nearly two hours to do a single, one-quarter-of-what-I-normally-do-at-a-time load of laundry.  This would be a laundry week, rather than a laundry day.  I have no idea what, exactly was going on during those 110 long minutes, nor how that could be considered "energy efficient" to be running for that long, but the machine went through a series of noises from "chug-pause-chug-pause" to something like a jet plane taking off down the run-way, making me surprised that I didn't come to the bathroom to find the washing machine had made its way down the hall.  Interestingly, in a conversation with a friend of ours living in France about the difference in washing machines (they have the same types as Germany in France) and washing times, she claimed, when she first came to live in America, that she had a hard time believing that American machines could really do a good job cleaning clothes in such a short time.  She was never really convinced that they were truly clean.

The clothes appeared to be clean and, thankfully, nothing warped or damaged.  Now for the next long step in the laundry: air-drying!  We had a fold-out rack which held all of the load, plus a small rack built into the wall in the "Florida room" for things that needed more clearance from the floor.  Since it was late winter during the time we lived in the first house, we hung everything in the Florida room.  We soon learned, however, that, no matter the weather (as long as it was placed under an overhang) everything dries much more quickly outside. We had a couple of loads hung indoors that dried so slowly, they began to smell musty.

Perhaps having such a long process of cleaning clothes does, in fact, work out to be more energy efficient.  After all, if you are faced with at least one day to complete a single "small" load of laundry from hamper to folded in the drawer, you are going to be more thoughtful about what you consider "dirty".  I know of plenty of Americans, with the luxury of a two hour turn-around for a load of laundry, who throw in their jeans after one day of wear.  They may not look or smell dirty, but have simply been worn.

When we moved to our second rental in early April, we bought a used washing machine.  Our landlord was very helpful and went through the manual with me, translating.  This machine was actually a combination washer and dryer.  However, by now I was very used to hanging things to dry, we had two drying racks, and, if I used the drying feature, that meant the machine was not available for washing. I ended up using the dryer only a couple times when I needed a quick turn-around on a piece of clothing, but even then, it only got things "mostly dry".

Another feature of this machine was that it had a one-track mind.  Once you started on a cycle, there was no going back.  It was also very sensitive to the amount of clothes you could wash.  Several times I would come down to the basement where it was set up to find that it had stopped during the wash cycle.  I would have to take out a piece of clothing or two and then turn it back on (it had a door locking mechanism where you had to wait exactly 2 minutes after you pushed the pause button before the door would open).  Since I wasn't sure if it had stopped before or after the wash cycle, I could never be sure if it had finished washing and it wouldn't let me restart until the whole cycle had ended.  Ironically, this machine ended up dying, stuck on a never-ending rinse cycle on our very final load of laundry before we left - a bedsheet which we had to ring by hand before hanging to dry.

After returning to the US, and back to my jumbo pair of washer and dryer (oh, those t-shirts had never felt so soft!), I am finding it hard to readjust to such a large capacity machine.  Numerous times I have taken down a basketful of laundry, only to find I had only a half-load.  I would like to be able to hang laundry again, but, unfortunately, our backyard is dominated by a messy walnut tree and I am sure there are city ordinances against hanging your unsightly laundry in the view of neighbors.  I was telling a friend about our German laundry adventures and enjoying her sympathetic responses to how long it took to wash a load of laundry and then hang it dry.  But I responded that I had gotten quite used to it and that it wasn't such a big deal.  When you think about it, even though a wash cycle here might take only about 30 minutes, how long is it before you finally get down to switch it over to the dryer? Two hours wouldn't be unusual if I get involved in a project or run an errand or two.  And then there have been plenty of times when I have left things in the dryer overnight before I got around to unloading and folding!  The only time I had really wished for the shorter wash cycle and high-heat dryer is doing bedsheets.  One of my kids has dust-mite allergy and we have to wash the sheets and all bed coverings every week.  With the German machine, I could only wash one sheet and pillow case in a load and worried if the day would be warm/dry enough for them to dry by bedtime.  Fresh air and sunshine are good for dust-mite control, but a cloudy day was not so effective.  Needless to say, we were not so diligent about washing all of the bedding on a weekly basis.  If we had been there longer, I would have invested in an entire second set of bedding.

Side note: most of Europe does not use the two bedsheet system we have in the US. There is a fitted sheet for the matress and then a comforter with a duvet cover that is changed/washed regularly.  German pillows are also different - about the width of American pillow, but squared!