GARMENT WASHING MACHINE AND EQUIPMENTS

Garment Washing:
The technology which is used to modify the appearance, outlook comfort ability and fashion of
the garments is called garment washing.

Objects of Garment Washing:

Garment washing is the best touch of a garment. Same type of garments can produce
several effects for several wash.
1. To create wash look appearance, seems the new touch of fashion.
2. By the washing technique, faded/old, color or tinted affect .
3. Washing technique creates new fashion such as tagging, grinding, destroy, blasting,
whickering, permanent wrinkle, deep dye, tie dye, p.p spray, hand crapping, p.p spoonzing
etc.
4. To reduce size materials that imports soft hand feels.
5. To attraction the customers/buyer by different types of fashionable washing and market
development.
6. Due to washing, shrinkage occurs in the garments. There is no possibility of further
shrinkage of the wash garments.
7. Any dirt, spot or germ if added in the garments during manufacturing is also removed due to
washing.
What is Washing Machine?
Washing machine is the machine used to wash the various types of clothes without applying
any physical efforts. With washing machine you don't have to rub the clothes with hand or
squeeze them to remove the water from them. The washing machine is also called as clothes
washer or simply the washer.

Type of Garment Washing Machine:

1. Front Loading Washing Machine.
2. Side Loading Washing Machine.
3. Top loading washing machine.
4. Stone Washing Machine.
5. Semi-automatic washing machine.
6. Fully automatic machine.
Front Loading Washing Machine:

Front Loading Washing Machine

Features of Front Loading Washing Machine:
 Available with complete stainless steel inner & outer drum Front door.
 Long lasting rust free operation.
 Auto timed, auto reverse, auto temperature control.
 Auto Water Level Control
 Electrically operated water & steam valves.
 Separate motors for wash & extract.
 Ideally suited for laundry wash & stone wash.
 Easy loading & unloading through large toughened glass door
Side Loading Washing Machine:

Side Loading Washing Machine

Features of Side Loading Washing Machine:
 Electrically & mechanically interlocked, S.S.Loading & Unloading doors
 Drive : Heavy duty motor co-ordinates with gear box, Pully V Belt drive
 Electrical Control : Well protected for performance auto timed, auto reverse & auto digital
temperature control
 Protective device against single phasing, reverse phasing and motor overload
 Gauge glass cork pair for water level indication.
 Front display of controls through pilot lamps, push buttons, water level indication etc.
 Electric, Steam or thermal fluid heated
 Automatic features like auto timed, auto reverse, auto temperature controller with inching
devise.
 Side Loading, open pocket, single & Double door, ideal for larger laundries
 Performs all Type of wash with soap, detergent, bleaching, acid, stone or any chemical wash
including dying
 Ideally suited for Denim/Stone Washing, Enzyme Washing, Garment Dying & Bleaching,
Softening, Milling Operation (for woolens)
 Interlocking system for main door opening for extra safety
Top loading washing machine:
In this washing machine the clothes are loaded from the top of the washing machine. There is a
cover at the top that helps loading and unloading of clothes in the round vessel that perform the
function of the washer as well as the rinser and drier in the fully automatic washing machine.

Top loading washing machine

Stone Washing Machine:

Stone Washing Machine

Object of Stone Washing:
 To create or produce irregular fading or old looking affect on garments.
 To remove dust, oil spot, impurities from the garments.
 For soft felling to wear the garments i.e; to improve softness.
 To achieve the buyer washing standard.
Differences Between Front and Side Loading Washing
Machine:
The main difference between a side loading and front loading washing machine is how the
clothes are placed inside. A side loading machine has a hinged lid on side, allowing the clothes
to be placed inside a horizontally-oriented watertight tub. In the center of this tub is a device
called an agitator. The agitator's job is to swirl the clothes through the soapy water. A front
loader has no central agitator, but uses gravity and side-mounted paddles to agitate clothes. Once
the front door is closed, it remains locked mechanically until the washing cycle is complete.

Advantages of Garment Washing:

 Starch materials is present in the new fabrics of he new garment are removed, hence feels
soft during use.
 Softness feeling of garments could be further increased. Washed garment could be wear
directly after purchase from store.
 Fading affect is produced in the garment in regular or irregular pattern.
 Fading affect could be produced in the specific area of the garment as per specific design.
 Different outlook of garment could be produced in the garment by different washing
techniques.
 Similar outlook can be produced in the garments by different washing techniques.
 Initial investment cost to set up a garment washing plant is comparatively lower.
 Dirts and spots if present in the garment are romoved.
 Shrinkage occurs in the garment washing, hence no possibility of further shrinkage.
Parts of the Washing Machine And their Working:

Parts of the Washing Machine

1. Water inlet control valve
2. Water pump
3. Tub
4. Agitator or rotating disc
5. Motor of the washing
6. Timer
7. Printed circuit board (PCB)
8. Drain pipe
How to Use Your Washing Machine:
 Select a wash temperature that’s as close as possible to the maximum wash temperature on
the care label.
 Choose the proper spin programme.
 Put detergent in the machine.
 Put the dirty items in the machine.
Note: Don’t overload the machine

For pictures OF GARMENT MACHINE TYPES

http://textilelearner.blogspot.com/2014/03/different-types-of-washing-machine.html

DOCUMENT 2
Garment washing is normally done after stitching. According to fashion trend and
customer demand buyers ask for garment washing. For the washing apparel buyers
mention exactly what types of washing they need for the order. For example, Tom Tailor
buyer asked for washes like – Vintage wash, Cloud wash, softener wash or Acid wash.
Each wash has different types of appearance on the fabric surfaces. Wash types mainly
depends on the product types. For denim product heavy enzyme is required where for
knitted Tee light softener wash may be okay.

The primary objects of garment washing is

 To remove starch that applied during fabric manufacturing.

 To soften the garment hand feel and improve bulkiness
 To remove dirt, spots, oil stains that accumulate to garment at the garment
manufacturing processes.
 To remove chemicals used during printing process and embroidery process
To fulfill customer demand
 Washed clothes can be worn directly after purchasing
 To give faded look or any other color tinted look to the garment.
 To stabilise garment shrinkage and dimensional instability
To have an idea about washes few washes have been explained below.

1. Heavy enzyme or Vintage Wash: Vintage means old look. To get the old or
used appearance garments are washed inside washing machine with enzymes. Fleece
sweat shirt are washed with heavy enzyme.
2. Cloud wash: Cloud wash gives appearance of white patches on the garment
surface that looks like cloud in the sky.
3. Stone wash: To get faded look on the garment surface white stone are used
with enzymes during washing. During washing fabric come in contact with stones and
by rubbing color fades. Stone wash generally used for denim product washing.
4. Acid wash: For acid wash, base color of the garment taken out by spraying acid
on the specified areas.
SOURCE: https://www.onlineclothingstudy.com/2011/02/garment-washing-important-process-in.html

DOCUMENT 3

Garments Wash:
The garment was is a new technology in the garment trade. Normally washing mean cleaning
something. But in the garment trade, only cleaning of garments is not the garment wash. Garment
washing is a technology which is applied to change or modify the outlook, appearance,
comfortability, and design of garments. Garment washing is applied on solid dyed garments or
solid printed fabric. Now I would like to discuss the different types and objects of wash in the
garment industry.
Types of Garments Washing:
In garments industry, there are mainly two types of washing process for garments products. Those
processes are wet washing process and dry washing process. Here also wet washing process is
divided by eight ways and the dry washing process is divided by five ways, according to the fabric
quality and buyer requirements. But most common and applied wash in garment is normal wash,
which is also known as detergent wash. In the wet washing process enzyme wash, stone wash and
bleach wash is most popular to the buyer and the manufacturer. On the other hand, Potassium per
magnet spray and hand scraping is common for dry washing process in the garments industry.

Garments Wash

A. Wet Washing Process

1. Normal wash or Detergent wash

2. Pigment wash

3. Enzyme wash

4. Stone wash
5. Bleach wash

6. Enzyme-stone wash

7. Bleach-stone wash

8. Acid wash
Stone Wash

B. Dry Wash Process

1. Sand blasting

2. Whisking or wrinkling

3. Hand scrapping

4. Potassium per magnet spray (PP spraying)

5. Destroying
Potassium per magnet spray (PP Spray)

Objects of Garments Wash:

1. To remove dirt, dust and waste materials from garments.
2. To remove size materials from garments.
3. For garments wash shrinkage occurs, so accurate measurement can be found by customers.
4. Fading effect is varied here by variation of an amount of detergent used, processing time and
processing temperature.
5. To increase the brightness of garments.
6. To increase the smoothness of garments.
7. To change the appearance of garments.
8. To make directly wearable after purchase.
9. To make garments become soft and handy.
10. To remove harmful materials from garments.
SOURCE: http://textilemerchandising.com/different-types-of-garments-wash/

DOCUMENT4

There are different varieties of garment wash used nowadays:

1. Normal wash
2. Pigment wash
3. Bleach wash
4. Stone wash with or without bleach
5. Acid wash
6. Enzyme wash
7. Caustic wash
8. Garment wash and over-dye
9. Whitening
A simple outline about different garment wash has given here:
1) NORMAL WASH:
Normal wash consists of washing garments in hot water with adequate detergent
and softener, rinse with plain water and dry in tumble dryer until it is 100% dry.
Some sodium is added to lend the garment a prominent washed look. Water
temperature, proportion of components of wash is adjusted as per requirement of
wash and types of fabric; the garment is made of. The softener makes the fiber
soft and tumble-drying makes the fabric fluffier. An expert technician can handle
washing by an expedient way to solve many problems arising out during
washing. Washing can also affect different garment parts differently. Shell fabric
may be solid color while pocket may be white pocketing piece. After washing, it
may appear that pocketing piece has been stained.
It may happen because maybe too much softener has been used or the fabric
bleeding color is of weak color quality. Though softener makes the fiber soft, it
also breaks the dye loose and may stain the fabric. Too much use of softener
makes the fabric waxy. So, one should cut a balance in using softener and other
components in regular wash. In such cases, garment should be washed with less
softener and check if the staining problem is got rid of or eliminated. If use of less
softener cannot solve the problem of staining indicates poor color quality of
fabric. In this case, the garment will not pass U.S. standard on possibly the
following aspects:
 -Color change, Color staining, Crooking (rubbing), One way of improving
staining problem or dye quality of fabric may be the following:
(1) Have 40 degree C hot water in a tumble washer.
(2) Put 1% color fixing agent and mix with hot water.
(3) Put the dry garment into the tumble washer and let them soak in the solution
for 5 minutes and then lift them up for drying.
(4) Run the tumble washer a few times and stop.
(5) Do not run the washer too much; it may lead the dye to come off and stain.
(6) Just let the garments soak and absorb the chemicals. Move the garments
inside the washer as gently as possible; when the garments are dried, the color
quality substantially improves. After treating the garments in the mentioned way,
they can simply be imposed to normal wash to give it the washed look.
2) PIGMENT WASH:
Pigment Wash is similar to normal wash but a bit costlier. The garment is solid
color pigment dye. The requirement is that the color should fade evenly to lend
the garment a prominent washed look. Pigment wash requires a higher
temperature of water than a normal wash.
(1) Use hot water 50-60 degree C.
(2) Load the tumble washer not more than 70 % of its capacity. It enables
garment to move inside smoothly. If fully loaded with garments due to the friction
of the garments with tumble body.
3) BLEACH WASH:
Bleach wash means that bleach chemical is used in water while washing in a
tumble washer. Strict washing time is a requirement with such wash because
otherwise the garment may be over bleached and the color cannot be reversed.
4) STONE WASH:

Stone wash means washing garments

with special stones so that garments achieve a very strong washed effect.
Volcanic stones are used in such wash abrade exposed parts of the garments,
this idea of washing with porous volcanic stones is to give the garment a strong
and rough wash to achieve the pronounced washed effect through abrasion on
the exposed areas, such as the seams and pocket corners.
Sometimes, bleach is added to the wash so that the color fades in a more
pronounced manner. This is done to make navy blue jeans into a more faded
light blue. Such wash requires a lot of skill, experience; workmanship and
expertise so that desired results are achieved. In stone wash the following points
should be carefully checked:
(1) Size of the stones: Stone size is very important in stone wash. They have
various effects on the garment being washed. Large stones may give tough
abrasion, and small stones may lead less abrasion. Stone should be selected
based on the required abrasion effect as well as the type of fabric of the
garments. However, larger stones may damage comparatively light-weight fabric.
Small stones may give softer abrasion.
(2) Garment-Stone ratio: (Weight of stones relative to the weight of garment)
Wash with more stones may lead to more apparent blue/white contrast on the
fabric.
(3) Washing time: Washing time also much important in stone wash.
(4) Quantity of Bleach: Use of more bleach can shorten wash time and leads to
more productivity. Bleach, however, cannot be used indiscriminately.
Disproportionate amount of bleach may lead to lose of the desired blue/white
contrast on the fabric. In order to achieve a better result, one should cut a
balance between quantity of bleach, stone size and amount of stone. Sometimes
one needs to use the normal quantity of stone and longer washing time to
achieve the color standard requirements.
5) ACID WASH:
It is a patented process and can be used only by permission. It is also a kind of
stone wash. The wash is performed in two steps: in the first step, garment is
washed without water and in the 2nd step with water.
(1) Soak volcanic stones in potassium permanganate solution. Stones absorb
chemicals and become saturated. The stones are then dried in normal air or sun.
The stones are ready for work.
(2) Denim garments are now made ready for wash. They are desized/detached in
water in a tumble washer and dried in a spin dryer.
 (3) The garments are put in a separate tumble
washer filled with treated stones. Water is not added. Now run the tumble dryer
wash the garments without water. Tumble washer is run to wash the garments
without water. Stone will abrade the garments, especially, the exposed parts.
Hidden parts will not be abraded.
(4) After that, the garments are taken out of the tumble and transferred to another
tumbler filled with water for washing and rinsing. After rinsing is over, the
prominent acid wash effect will show up.
The treated stones carry the chemical to bleach the exposed parts and bleach
them to white. But the hidden parts remain untouched. Whitening agents are
often added to water during rinse to make the white color in the blue jeans whiter
to display acid wash.
6) ENZYME WASH:
Enzyme wash is performed with a kind of live cell. Enzyme can break some
fibers of fabric and gives the fabric special effect desired on the garment.
Enzyme wash provides the fabric a soft, sanded or “peached” effect very
desirable on many garments. Enzyme wash is also useful for indigo denim.
In this case, enzyme can replace stone but gives denim a stone wash look, with
better and nicer blue and white contrast on the fabric. Enzyme wash is, however,
costlier than stone wash.
7) CAUSTIC WASH:
Caustic wash is a pre- printing wash. Caustic is a strong chemical with highly
corrosive features. Prior to printing on cotton fabrics, gray goods are treated in
boiling water with caustic, which also has strong cleaning power, especially for
grease. This wash can remove all soil, dirt, grease, fine particles of cotton seeds
as well as all foreign materials. As a result, only pure cotton fiber in the fabric for
printing is left. It leads to stability of printing and well-cleaned fabric. However,
when we want to do caustic wash on garments, we just do the opposite of the
above; prior to printing, fabric is not treated with caustic wash for cleaning.
Printing is done on the row & unclean fabric so that about 30% of the printing
done on the surface may eventually fade away. Finally, printed garments are
caustic washed. It leads to, about 30% of the printing washed away along with
the foreign materials- leaving about 70% of the printing on the fabric. It eventually
makes the design or stripe of the desired look. For this type of wash, the printing
must be pigment print with a binder. Baking treatment should also be performed
so that
The color will stay on the fabric more or less securely to coincide with the caustic
wash to be done later.
8) GARMENT WASH AND OVER-DYE:
This type of wash is also used for denim garments to give them an exclusive look. This is
performed in the following way:

(8.1) Wash the denim garments with stone so that the double needle seams,
pocket flaps, and exposed parts get washed down to light blue color or white.
(8.2) Put into dye the tumble to dye the garments to get the desired color.
(8.3) A coat of new color will appear on to the garment, especially, in areas
where the garment has been washed to a light shade. It creates a unique but
different look. In this process of wash, the lining or pocketing will pick up the color
too. By this wash, direct dye or reactive dye same as dyeing fabrics or yarn may
be used. Direct dye is cheap. So, direct dye may be utilized with the concomitant
use of color fixing agent, after dying to make the color more stable. In case of
solid color fabric staining within the garment is not a problem. However, if
 garments of different colors are washed together by the consumers, color may
transfer to other garments. Reactive dye is always preferable in this case.
9) WHITENING:
Whitening agents are used to create a super white look. (Unless the garments
you wash is all colored namely no white color at all in the fabric, you should use
whitening powder in the rinsing process to make the white part more white) In
denim where there are colored warp threads and white weft threads. If such
garments undergo “stone wash and bleach” whitening powder is used for the
final rinsing. It makes the white threads in the fabric whiter and generates a
stronger contrast between blue and white on the surface of the fabric.
After washing, denim checks the reverse side of the fabric to evaluate if
adequatewhitening agent has been used during rinsing. It is a common practice
that garments having white parts should be washed with whitening powder at the
time of rinse. It generates a quick and desired look.

SOURCE: http://www.goldnfiber.com/2013/04/different-types-of-garments-wash.html/

DOC 5

Clothes washing machines




by Chris Woodford. Last updated: August 5, 2017.

I f there's one household appliance most of us simply could not do without,

it's the clothes washer. If you've ever been without your machine for a few
days or weeks, you'll know just how hard it is to wash clothes by hand.
Although clothes washers look pretty straightforward, they pull off a really
clever trick: with the help of detergents, they separate the dirt from your
clothes and then rinse it away. But how exactly do they work?
Photo: A typical European clothes washing machine, powered by electricity. This one is a front-loader: you put
your clothes into that little circular window at the front. In the United States and Asia, top-loading machines are
more common.

The parts of a clothes washer

Photo: Inside a clothes washer drum. The paddles turn the clothes through the water. The holes let the water in
(from above) and out (from below). The rubber seal (gasket) stops water leaking out through the door.
The basic idea of a clothes washer is simple: it sloshes your clothes about in
soap suds for a while and then spins fast to remove the water afterward. But
there's a bit more to it than that. Think of a clothes washer and you probably
think of a big drum that fills with water—but there are actually two drums, one
inside the other.

The inner drum is the one you can see when you open the door or the lid. In
a front-loading clothes washer, common in Europe, the drum stands upright.
You push your clothes inside the door from the front and the whole drum
rotates about a horizontal axis (like a car wheel). The drum has lots of small
holes to let water in and out and paddles around the edge to slosh the clothes
around. In a toploader, more common in the United States and Asia, you open
a lip on top and drop your clothes into the drum from above. The drum is
mounted about a vertical axis but doesn't actually move. Instead, there's a
paddle in the middle of it called an agitator that turns the clothes around in
the water.

Photo: Clothes washing from yesteryear. This GEC electric washing machine, dating from 1935, was much
more primitive than today's machines. There was no spinning to get the clothes dry: instead, you had to use a
wringer (also called a mangle) fitted to the top of the machine (a pair of rollers through which you fed the
clothes to squeeze out the excess water). This one is an exhibit at Think Tank, the science museum in
Birmingham, England.

There's a second, bigger drum outside the inner drum that you cannot see. Its
job is to hold the water while the inner drum (in a front-loader) or the agitator
(in a toploader) rotates. Unlike the inner drum, the outer drum has to be
completely water-tight—or you'd have water all over the floor!
The two drums are the most important parts of a clothes washer, but there are
lots of other interesting bits too. There's a thermostat(thermometer
mechanism) to test the temperature of the incoming water and a heating
element that warms it up to the required temperature. There's also
an electrically operated pump that removes water from the drum when the
wash is over. There's a mechanical or electroniccontrol mechanism called
a programmer, which makes the various parts of the clothes washer go
through a series of steps to wash, rinse, and spin your clothes. There are two
pipes that let clean hot and cold water into the machine and a third pipe that
lets the dirty water out again. All these pipes have valves on them (like little
doors across them that open and shut when necessary).

The washing machine program

Photo: Controlling a washing machine: Top: An old-style mechanical clothes washer programmer. The dial on
the left selects the program. The dial on the right sets the wash temperature (it's effectively a thermostat).
Bottom: A modern electronic programmer. These dials are mounted on a computerized programmer circuit.
The countdown-display tells you how long in hours and minutes it will be before your washing is clean and
ready to take out (one hour and two minutes in this case, for a 30°C wash with a very fast 1400rpm spin).

All the important parts of the clothes washer are electrically controlled,
including the inner drum, the valves, the pump, and the heating element. The
programmer is like the conductor of an orchestra, switching these things on
and off in a sensible sequence that goes something like this:

1. You put your clothes in the machine and detergent either in the machine
itself or in a tray up above.
2. You set the program you want and switch on the power.
3. The programmer opens the water valves so hot and cold water enter the
machine and fill up the outer and inner drums. The water usually enters
at the top and trickles down through the detergent tray, washing any
soap there into the machine.
4. The programmer switches off the water valves.
5. The thermostat measures the temperature of the incoming water. If it's
too cold, the programmer switches on the heating element. This works
just like an electric kettle or water boiler.
6. When the water is hot enough, the programmer makes the inner drum
rotate back and forth, sloshing the clothes through the soapy water.
7. The detergent pulls the dirt from your clothes and traps it in the water.
8. The programmer opens a valve so the water drains from both drums.
Then it switches on the pump to help empty the water away.
9. The programmer opens the water valves again so clean water enters
the drums.
10. The programmer makes the inner drum rotate back and forth so
the clean water rinses the clothes. It empties both drums and repeats
this process several times to get rid of all the soap.
11. When the clothes are rinsed, the programmer makes the inner
drum rotate at really high speed—around 80 mph (130 km/h). The
clothes are flung against the outside edge of the inner drum, but the
water they contain is small enough to pass through the drum's tiny holes
into the outer drum. Spinning gets your clothes dry using the same idea
as a centrifuge.
12. The pump removes any remaining water from the outer drum and
the wash cycle comes to an end.
13. You take your clothes out and marvel at how clean they are!
14. But there's still the problem of drying your wet clothes to figure
out.
Why do washing machines need so many programs?

Artwork: Cooling down: In the United States, it's common to wash clothes at fairly low temperatures. In Europe,
warmer washing is much more the norm. This chart shows the broad trend in Germany over the last few
decades, where 40°C is the typical average wash temperature. New European energy-efficiency regulations
and better detergents will increasingly favor lower temperatures (20°C) in the future. [Compiled from a variety
of market research sources.]

Your machine doesn't know what you put into it and can't automatically tell
how carefully to wash something like a delicate woollen jumper—because it
doesn't know that's what it's got to do! The only things under its control are the
amount and temperature of the water, the speed of the spin, the number of
times the drum oscillates, the number of rinses, and so on. No-one wants to
wash clothes in a scientific way: "I think I need 5.42 litres of water at exactly
42°C, I'll need to wash for exactly 34 minutes, and I'll need 200 spin
revolutions when I'm done." That would give us literally an infinite number of
possibilities, which is too much like hard work. Recognizing this, machine
engineers try to make life easy by offering a few preset programs: each one
uses a slightly different combination of these variables so it washes safely
within the tolerance of different fabrics.

Why does that matter? All fabrics are different. A fabric like wool is immensely
strong but has two big drawbacks (from the point of getting it clean): it's
extremely hygroscopic (absorbs huge amounts of water) and loses its
elasticity as the temperature increases. So if you're designing a washing
machine to wash woollens, that's your starting point: don't allow the wool to
become too hot (because the fibers will degrade and stretch too much) and
don't agitate it excessively because it will stretch and not return to shape. With
sturdier fabrics like denim, you can afford to bash them about in the drum
much more—indeed, you must do so, because you need the agitation to get
the detergent deep into the fibers and break up the dirt (and, of course,
clothes made from denim are more likely to get dirtier than more delicate
fabrics such as cashmere jumpers, which people treat more carefully).

Each program you find marked on a clothes washing machine is a best guess
by the engineers as to how much agitation a particular garment/fabric is likely
to need and how much it can put up with without getting damaged. If you were
handwashing in a sink, you'd make those judgements instinctively, balancing
the need to get your garment clean with the need to protect it from damage.
While your brain/hands would do that without thinking, the washing machine
does it with a certain wash temperature, so many agitations, so many spins,
and a certain spin speed.

Artwork: Clothes washing machines haven't always used rotating drums powered by electricity. This one, from
the 1880s, is entirely mechanical and uses a large, stationary tank (light blue) with holes perforated in its base.
Underneath the tank, there's a water pump (dark blue) with a piston (red) inside. As you move the handle
(brown) from side to side, the pumping piston slides back and forth, alternately shooting water up into one side
of the clothes container and pulling it down through the other side (yellow arrows). According to Gifford, it was a
"simple and durable construction, capable of throughly washing the clothes without subjecting them to undue
friction, and wherein the action of the washer will not tend to remove any buttons." From US Patent 409,399:
Washing Machine by Hiram H. Gifford. Artwork courtesy of US Patent and Trademark Office.

But do machines really need so many programs?

Look at the programmers in the photos above and you'll see something
interesting: both machines seem to have an incredible number of programs.
The mechanical programmer in the top photo offers 14 programs, seven
temperatures, two spin speeds, and full or half load—and if you multiply those
you'll get 392 possibilities! The electronic programmer underneath it offers 12
programs, 5 spin speeds, and various other options so, again, a good few
hundred possibilities. Yet if you're like me, you probably wash almost all your
clothes on a single program all the time. Even if you don't do that, it's unlikely
you could think of 392 different types of clothing that need washing in 392
different ways.

Much of this is a marketing con to make you believe the machine has more
features than it really does. Most machines can really do only about three or
four basic washes: 1) a high-temperature, long-duration wash for white
laundry that uses a fairly high spin speed and lots of water; 2) a slightly faster,
lower-temperature wash for colored cottons that uses similar spin speed and
water volume; 3) a synthetics wash that uses the same amount of water,
agitates the laundry less, spins more slowly, and uses lower temperatures;
and 4) a woollens wash that probably uses quite a bit more water, but agitates
the drum less, and spins the water out relatively slowly. Any other programs
are variations of these four.

What's the difference between a front-loader and a top-loader?

The washing process is slightly different in front- and top-loading machines,

so let's now look at each of these in a bit more detail:
In a front-loading clothes washer...

1. There's a fixed outer drum (blue) and a rotating inner drum (red) with
small holes around its edge. The drums are mounted on a horizontal
axis.
2. The inner drum is held to the frame of the machine by heavy-
duty springs. That's because, when the clothes spin, they can make the
drum shake violently; the springs help to absorb the vibrations.
3. Hot and cold water enter through the detergent tray at the top.
4. The inner drum turns back and forth. The plastic paddles on the inside
(shown here by gray triangles) help to slosh the clothes through the
detergent and water held by the outer drum.
5. An electric motor turns the inner drum, typically using a long rubber belt
(yellow).
6. A heating element heats the water as necessary.
7. When the wash cycle is finished, the pump sucks the water away.
8. The water empties down a tube to the drain.
In a toploader...

1. You lift the lid on top and drop your clothes in from above. We're looking
here from one side.
2. Just like in a front-loading machine, there's an outer drum (blue) and an
inner drum with holes in it (red), but they're mounted about a vertical
axis.
3. Hot and cold water enter through pipes near the top, passing through
the detergent tray and flushing the detergent into the machine.
4. During the wash cycle, a large plastic agitator (green) turns around,
moving your clothes through the water. Both drums remain stationary.
5. The agitator is powered by an electric motor using a rubber belt.
6. During the spin cycle, the same electric motor turns the inner drum (red)
at high speed, throwing water through its holes into the outer drum.
7. When the wash is finished, the pump drains the water from the outer
drum.