PureWash allows you to do your laundry on COLD with NO detergent!
I recently saw the PureWash Professional-Grade Ionic Laundry Purifier and it peaked my interest. The thought of always using cold water and never having to use detergent is an interesting one. I have NOT used PureWash (yet). There are a few things I want to find out about it first and I thought I would share that research with you.
The PureWash Ionic Laundry Purifier claims that it can launder your clothes in cold water without laundry soap. It claims to use the “power of oxygen” (ozone) and “technology that has been used in institutions for years”. I did find this washer that washes clothes using no water that uses the same technology. It uses small amounts of water to rinse and has a detergent free option. I also found out that the Wakiki Beachcomber Hotel in Hawaii started using ozone and cold washes for their laundry in 2001 and negotiations were being made with other hotels at that time.
One of the first things I noticed about the PureWash was the reviews. There are 23 customer reviews and 21 of them are 5/5. One of the reviewers even added a one year update and he still loved it. That is pretty good! Another of the 5/5 reviews says she washes her diapers using the PureWash. She even said that she used to wash twice and rinse three times and now she only washes and rinses once each. Diapers are probably the dirtiest laundry item out there so if it can clean those it is doing pretty good!
How does Ozone Work?
Ozone is that “clean” smell after a rainstorm. Ozone is created when lightening strikes. It is 3 molecules of oxygen (the oxygen we breathe is 2 molecules of oxygen). Ozone can be used as a sterilizer and deodorizer. It loosens the grip dirt has on the fabric transferring the grime into the water to be rinsed away. Essentially, this is the same thing your laundry detergent does. After reading through the process I can see where it could work. Although, I am still a bit gun-shy about a product with such a grand claim.
How much can it Save?
According to the product claims you will never have to use hot water or detergent again. It will not take the place of stain treatment or fabric softener if you use either of those products.
Use this washing machine cost site to run your own numbers, but here are mine so you can see an example:
- My homemade laundry detergent costs $0.07/load
- I run 6 loads each week, but only two loads on “hot”
- According to the washing machine site, it is $0.12 more for me to run a hot load compared to a cold load (this will vary based on where you live because the temperature of your groundwater will be different, here in Arizona it does not take as much energy to heat the water). It will also vary depending on your electric and gas rates and how you heat your water.
- (6 loads a week)($0.07 each in laundry detergent) + (2 loads of hot each week)($0.12 saved on heating water) = $0.66/week or $34/year.
For me, it would take 12 years for the PureWash to pay for itself! That said, never having to purchase laundry detergent again and not using any chemicals to wash our clothes is intriguing.
Those numbers could change significantly depending on your own habits. If I used store bought detergent and hot water for every load then I would be saving $84/year vs. $34. Even more significant is the fact that we just changed our tanked electric water heater for a tankless gas one. If we still had the electric water heater I would be saving $0.45 each load vs $0.12.
