<story><title>Does Clean Laundry Have Germs?</title><url>http://www.stopthestomachflu.com/does-clean-laundry-have-germs-1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ars</author><text>&amp;gt; might be set to 60C (130F)&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t do that. You risk legionnaires disease. Set the temperature to at least 140F.</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>An interesting side effect here is that the house water heater has its own temperature control. For years people have been turning down the temperature setting on their water heaters to save energy, as a result the typical house water heater might be set to 60C (130F) and the washing machine was doing the best it could.</text></item><item><author>e12e</author><text>&amp;gt; My sister Christy has an older top loader (not HE). She washed this laundry on hot and added the 1&amp;#x2F;2 cup chlorine bleach directly to the wash water and it was very, very clean. She measured the temperature of her wash water when the tank filled up using her meat thermometer and it was 130 degrees F. She used Sam&amp;#x27;s club detergent. Her laundry was perfectly clean (to the limits of my detection abilities).&lt;p&gt;So, 130F is just under 60C - what&amp;#x27;s usually the minimum considered to kill bacteria. While I haven&amp;#x27;t measured the actual temperature, my aging, second hand washer have three &amp;quot;white&amp;quot; programs: &amp;quot;hot&amp;quot; is 90 C, and there are two rated 60C. I&amp;#x27;d never assume any of the other programs had a sterilising effect.&lt;p&gt;If &amp;quot;hot&amp;quot; is just 60C, and often not that - I can see a need to use bleach for some loads (or other means of killing off bacteria) if the norm is to use warm (not hot) water for washing.&lt;p&gt;Would be interesting to see similar test with just water (no soap, bleach) and a 90C degree program.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d guess the results would be &amp;quot;dotted middleground&amp;quot; like many of the test here.&lt;p&gt;Also would be nice to see how hanging in the sun would effect otherwise clean clothes (airborne bacteria vs uv death ray stand-off - might be meaningless without checking for &lt;i&gt;type&lt;/i&gt; of bacteria).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>buttcoinslol</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t do that. You risk scalding burns. Far more people get scalded by tap&amp;#x2F;shower water that is too hot than contract legionnaires by several orders of magnitude.&lt;p&gt;120F is the max recommended hot water temperature in the International Plumbing Code.</text></comment>
<story><title>Does Clean Laundry Have Germs?</title><url>http://www.stopthestomachflu.com/does-clean-laundry-have-germs-1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ars</author><text>&amp;gt; might be set to 60C (130F)&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t do that. You risk legionnaires disease. Set the temperature to at least 140F.</text></item><item><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>An interesting side effect here is that the house water heater has its own temperature control. For years people have been turning down the temperature setting on their water heaters to save energy, as a result the typical house water heater might be set to 60C (130F) and the washing machine was doing the best it could.</text></item><item><author>e12e</author><text>&amp;gt; My sister Christy has an older top loader (not HE). She washed this laundry on hot and added the 1&amp;#x2F;2 cup chlorine bleach directly to the wash water and it was very, very clean. She measured the temperature of her wash water when the tank filled up using her meat thermometer and it was 130 degrees F. She used Sam&amp;#x27;s club detergent. Her laundry was perfectly clean (to the limits of my detection abilities).&lt;p&gt;So, 130F is just under 60C - what&amp;#x27;s usually the minimum considered to kill bacteria. While I haven&amp;#x27;t measured the actual temperature, my aging, second hand washer have three &amp;quot;white&amp;quot; programs: &amp;quot;hot&amp;quot; is 90 C, and there are two rated 60C. I&amp;#x27;d never assume any of the other programs had a sterilising effect.&lt;p&gt;If &amp;quot;hot&amp;quot; is just 60C, and often not that - I can see a need to use bleach for some loads (or other means of killing off bacteria) if the norm is to use warm (not hot) water for washing.&lt;p&gt;Would be interesting to see similar test with just water (no soap, bleach) and a 90C degree program.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d guess the results would be &amp;quot;dotted middleground&amp;quot; like many of the test here.&lt;p&gt;Also would be nice to see how hanging in the sun would effect otherwise clean clothes (airborne bacteria vs uv death ray stand-off - might be meaningless without checking for &lt;i&gt;type&lt;/i&gt; of bacteria).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pmoriarty</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;Don&amp;#x27;t do that. You risk legionnaires disease. Set the temperature to at least 140F.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;How does water heater temperature below 140F increase the risk of getting legionnaires disease?&lt;p&gt;Also, I always wash my clothes on warm, never on hot, because I don&amp;#x27;t want my clothes to shrink.&lt;p&gt;Many clothes manufacturers also label the clothes they make with directions saying to only wash on warm or cold.  Otherwise, presumably, the clothes might get damaged.</text></comment>