Suggest a washing machine within 25k max

lockhrt999 said:

Generally it's unavoidable that dust/mud gathering at the bottom of the tanks given the bad quality of water.

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River water contains silt, but that does not make it bad. If you don't want silt then you need a 40 micron filter installed where the water enters the house. You will need to change those filters on a regular basis.

lockhrt999 said:

But you can totally avoid getting that gunk through your pipes and choking your taps. Just don't let tanks go empty more than half. If you do let the water level go down to the bottom, the next filling will muddy the water.

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Yep

lockhrt999 said:

Dip alum stone once in a while to keep your water clear. It forces all the dust to settle at the bottom. You can easily remove that dust from the bottom by siphoning.

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Think I posted a video about this some time ago with raw river water. Half an hour later all the mud had settled. It really works. Though I think its overkill for municipal or even tanker water

lockhrt999 said:

And use chlorine drops to disinfect the water.

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Dosage better be right or he is going to end up bleaching all his clothes. Stick to vanish, per bucket. Safer and less hassle.

lockhrt999 said:

I wonder what will happen if we add dishwasher salt (which turns hard water to soft water) to overhead tank or to TL detergent powder. It's an experiment worth doing.

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NO ABSOLUTELY Do NOT do this. You will be making your tank water salty (in the sense of adding sodium chloride) for no good reason and that will corrode anything metallic it comes in contact with

Your dishwasher has a water softener built in that works by ion exchange and adding salt is to recharge it. That is the purpose of the salt. The bigger version is the Kent water softener.

There are chemicals that can reduce the hardness. I was experimenting with it and the hardness test was coming up blank. As in no hardness. This was from that Calgon patent from 1933

Why are you fixated on hard water? that is not the cause of the smell. Bacteria is the cause.

6pack said:

Problem is, we are buying water from tankers and these water tanker operators fill the tank from anywhere - any dirty lake or anywhere they don't have to pay money to steal water from. So there's mud in the water. I've even put a sediment filter at inlet of my flat but even that doesn't filter out the fine mud coming from the overhead tank.

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Has to be 40 microns. The 150-micron cheap ones you find everywhere won't catch anything. They are for farms I think.

6pack said:

Unless the society cleans both overhead and underground tanks of mud, we will always get mud in water. By now there's probably a foot of mud in the society tanks along with frogs and other water organisms.

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Write to your landlord and ask him to bring it up at the next association meeting

blr_p said:

If you don't want silt then you need a 40 micron filter installed where the water enters the house. You will need to change those filters on a regular basis.

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I think those filters will greatly reduce water flow. I'd love to replace my 150 micron one with 40 if compatible size available.

blr_p said:

Think I posted a video about this some time ago with raw river water. Half an hour later all the mud had settled. It really works. Though I think its overkill for municipal or even tanker water

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Yes. It's magical. We have been using it from many decades now. Not an overkill for municipal water, you'll be amazed to see how much silt it finds even in clear municipal water.

blr_p said:

Your dishwasher has a water softener built in that works by ion exchange and adding salt is to recharge it. That is the purpose of the salt. The bigger version is the Kent water softener.

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Oh I see

blr_p said:

Why are you fixated on hard water? that is not the cause of the smell. Bacteria is the cause.

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TBH, I'm not actually fixated on this very issue. But I have always been curious about finding a cheap and reliable method that can convert loads of hard water into soft water.

lockhrt999 said:

TBH, I'm not actually fixated on this very issue. But I have always been curious about finding a cheap and reliable method that can convert loads of hard water into soft water.

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How much is loads of water? Kent does water softeners that can manage a whole house

6pack said:

Like @lockhrt999 said, the smaller microns we go, the less water comes out. Water is not 24 hrs, just 25mins and in that 25 mins the tank barely fills half way if it's empty. I feel like removing the 150 micron filter and just allowing the water to come in as is.

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I don't have a problem with the mud in my washer. The water isn't muddy unless the tank is almost empty.

blr_p said:

How much is loads of water? Kent does water softeners that can manage a whole house

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Yeah, the whole house. 500 to 1000 liters daily for the whole family. Gotta check what commercial solution water bottlers use.

lockhrt999 said:

Yeah, the whole house. 500 to 1000 liters daily for the whole family. Gotta check what commercial solution water bottlers use.

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RO system. In my office, there are calcium spots on the water taps meant for washing hands in the washroom. For drinking purpose they have this small RO kiosk whose TDS has been adjusted to 93ppm. But a company can afford to make up those expenses. At an individual level it gets quite costly.

The KENT RO for entire house is the solution. You need to replace the cartridge containing beads every 2-3 years with adding common salt whenever the water changes its taste. I had it as an option but since I live in a rented space, it didn't make much sense in investing such an amount.

6pack said:

I also did a mistake after reading the manual.
In the manual, it was written that to minimise soap stains on clothes, we can dilute detergent powder in warm water and use it instead of putting the dry powder directly in the tray. So I diluted a scoop of detergent in a liter of hot water and put it in the washing machine before I put the clothes and started the process.

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Is this what soap stains look like?

6pack said:

Not fibers but similar like in this reddit post 2nd pic on the pant.

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Life without a heater in the machine. Or a preference for cold water washing

By fibres, I think he meant lint left on the clothes after the wash. Does that happen with you at all?

I've seen people here complain the clothes were linty after a wash in this or that top loader. Is that the case for you and have you any solution?

6pack said:

Edit: after dissolving the detergent powder in warm water i havent seen such stains.

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What detergent is it?

In spite of more water used in a top loader, it still does not dissolve during the wash cycle duration means your water temperature isn't high enough. So it gets trapped within the folds of the clothes and just stays there due to poor wash action and then leaves this stain.

And I don't think you're overloading and/or overdosing.

6pack said:

Guess I'l have to shift to using liquid detergent after the 2-3 Kgs of my current detergent get utilised.

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That should work if your water temperature is lower than required for powder

Ensure it rinses out well. I always recommend two rinses but people seem to use just one to save time which is not smart.

6pack said:

I used the detergent drawer and it pours detergent powder along with water directly on clothes and leaves white spots on tee shirts or blankets etc. Decided to never use again. From now on, i let the tub fill to the pulsator and then pause it and add dissolved detergent to the water. Top load detergent don't dissolve completely in one go unfortunately.

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Larger granules with top load detergent compared to front load and given more water should not be an issue if the water temperature is high enough

6pack said:

Surf Excel dissolves completely but it doesn't clean clothes as well as Ariel or Tide. I think surf only colours clothes blue to make them look white. Tide probably has some bleach in it, hence the spots on clothes. Ariel is too costly.

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Interesting observation. I found Surf cleans well in the front loader. My ideal and favourite detergent. Why that does not hold for the top load variant is a pity.

A few years ago someone was asking how to clean bedsheets with blood stains. Not a problem with Surf on a warm wash. The trick is to use a detergent with enzymes which Surf for the machine or Ariel and Tide have. At the time he was thinking it was about wash action. Not so. Wash action is secondary. It's the protein enzyme that specifically removes blood which is a protein stain.

Can't say whether Ariel or Tide clean better than Surf, about the same with more foaming from Ariel and Tide. The extra foam might be an advantage in a top loader which is why you think they clean better than Surf which typically foams less in a front loader.

You can test if Tide has some bleach. Put 5gm (teaspoon amount) in a thermos flask and add boiling water slowly halfway. Hold the flask up to your ear and then listen for a fizz.

If you hear any like from any carbonated drink then it has bleach. But my tests showed that the Tide for front loaders did not contain any. As is the case with detergents sold in India which are detergents for washing colours rather than whites and so contain optical brighteners that work in place of the older blueing.

To understand what I mean try the same experiment with 5gm of Vanish and see what happens

6pack said:

Yes, there's no fizzing sound with Tide and hot water. But the test cleared one thing. When i added boiling water to the detergent, there was that disgusting smell if you keep clothes in detergent water for too long. Looks like that smell comes from detergent itself and not the clothes. So time to change the detergent i guess.

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I've some times cooked detergent in a pot. What happened was the perfume became really overpowering and needed to get out of the room and let it air out.

Not disgusting though. I've not had that with any detergent I've tested in a thermos flask.

Are you sure the Tide you're getting is genuine? this should not happen with Tide

6pack said:

I buy from DMart. Should be genuine.

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Can you link to which Tide it is?

Will be useful for future reference. My guess is the perfume used breaks down into not so good smelling byproducts

6pack said:

@blr_p it's this Tide Plus

Tide Plus Double Power Detergent Washing Powder Jasmine & Rose 6kg + 2kg FREE https://amzn.eu/d/hU2rw1i

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Seems only a handful of people had this problem. The rest of the comments are all positive and say good smell.

That is the 5kg


This guy suspects it's an issue with the 8kg bag. Smaller amounts will be ok

That makes me wonder how are you storing it. I suspect exposure to air is breaking down the perfume molecules.

Smaller airtight containers are best. With 8kg a go that would be 8 containers or 5 if you went with the smaller bag.

When I buy Surf in bulk, it comes in a box with 1kg bags. Another thing I noticed is the wash temperature matters. Usually, on warm or hotter there is not much smell when the clothes come out.

Once I decided to do a cold wash (no heating just tap temperature water) and the clothes smelt weird, I could smell the detergent on them. Not stinking just unusual. Had the usual two rinses but still, I could smell something on the clothes. The first & last time I ever tried washing at that temperature.

I am sure the issue is in his water.

chyawanprash said:

I am sure the issue is in his water.

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Then it won't matter if he changes the detergent? there will still be this smell problem

Let him confirm it with the next detergent. Too bad he won't go with surf. I bet there would be zero problems. He's already confirmed it dissolved better than P&G brands.

I can't figure out what in his water can do this to detergent.

For instance, why would the smell appear instantly when adding boiling water during testing the detergent?

The "do not soak longer than 'x' duration due to bacteria" theory is out now as bacteria require time to multiply.

6pack said:

I bought it because it was cheap but never again. I can't smell any fragrance from it. Smells like regular detergent.

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The fragrance they used has a limited shelf life and has faded with time. 8kg is easily over a year's supply.

This I believe now is the issue. The fragrance molecules break down into unpleasant smelling byproducts.

This is why you cannot smell any fragrance and is why boiling water or soaking beyond a certain duration makes things smell bad

Also why people are saying the smaller packs are genuine and the larger amount is fake. They get through the smaller amount faster than the perfume has time to break down

Provided you did not see clumps over time as you poured it out of that one-inch hole the detergent will still be viable for cleaning.

Even if you stored this Tide properly i bet it would start to smell funny as its perfume would break down on its own given enough time.

6pack said:

Unlike Surf, this product doesn't have individual packets.

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Surf is more practical


Or there is Amazon's store brand Presto whose OEM seems to be the same people who make Syclone based in Cal

This Presto goes almost three hundred less than the equivalent weight of Surf

You get what you pay for