Trouble Cold-Washing Laundry

[shanghaikai]

Ah. Well, in that case, you're out of luck. While Shanghai certainly has the density to support neighborhood laundromats, there's a significant cultural barrier as most Chinese are accustomed to their laundry methods and the foreigners tend to have enough means to get by. Setting up a coin-op laundromat may or may not work. Hard to tell but there's definitely a decently large capital investment involved. I've also heard that running such a coin-op place also tends to be a good option for people who can do the maintenance and repairs on their own machines as they'll surely see plenty of abuse.

[cdn_in_bj]

well, I just burnt the hell out of a couple of socks and have stunk up with apartment with a nasty smell (almost caught on fire)..

Maybe next time you should use the defrost setting.

All kidding aside, have you considered buying an electric heater? One type uses infrared light and a fan to circulate the air and another type looks like a radiator on wheels and has oil inside which gets heated up. The infrared type would actually help to reduce the humidity, however I think for drying socks/clothes the radiator type would be safer. This would actually solve both of your problems (cold apartment and wet clothes) and a radiator heater should only cost around 400-500 RMB. Of course, it will add to your electric bills.

Our central heating isn't going to be activated until mid-november but it's going to start getting cold indoors here before then. So I'll be buying an electric heater this weekend, and I'm going with the radiator-type due to the dry air here.

[youpii]

Buy an oil filled electric heater. It's perfect for drying socks

[F_Kal]

Perhaps you can wrap them around your ears. Your body heat will dry them, and you won't be able to hear the neighbours drills.

Yeah! That's a good idea! With a little practice in "g Tum-mo"meditation every sentient being can finally have dry socks from the first moment!

[Shadowdh]

As for washing clothes in cold water - doesn't matter what powder you use, it won't work. Some heat is needed to activate the enzymes (or whatever) in the washing powder/liquid. so you need to either get a better washing machine or add hot water to the wash manually.

I thought that the modern washing powders (um perhaps to much to expect in China?) were specifically designed to use at low temps (eg the whole ariel turn it down to 30 degrees to save the whole world thing) and I am sure I have seen a documentary or read a piece that made the comment using hot water with such a powder makes it less effective in fact (of course this could be for non bio stuff only as that doesnt have the enzyme)... but I could have it wrong of course as I so often do... just ask my wife...

[adrianlondon]

30 degrees is not cold water; this is centigrade we're talking here ;)

And they advertise that fact heavily because, one assumes, most of their previous attempts didn't work under 40.

[F_Kal]

Well, Ariel is a bit outdated. Today I bought this chinese White-Alice-in-Wonderland-Cat brand and on the package among lots of unknown hanzi it advertises "0C degrees"!

This is called chinese know-how! Now all I need is some ice-cubes to put in my laundry cocktail...

[adrianlondon]

You woz conned. You bought a packet of snow ;)

[Lu]

Man this thread is funny :-D

This is called chinese know-how!

Yeah, just like Chinese washing machines are so lihai, they wash clothes in 45 mins while Western washing machines take twice as long!

As to keeping clothes clean, what Roddy said, don't wear white. Alternatively, if things are still dirty after washing them in the machine, you could handwash them in hot water (this is what I do). You could also manually add hot water to the machine. Given that you're in China, it's likely there is a hot water machine somewhere around.

[roddy]

Also, re: drying clothes. Try putting them through another spin cycle and you'll shake off more water, meaning they need less time to dry. You end up with more creases, but less mold.

PS At least up here in the north if your clothes aren't drying it's because they've frozen solid. No chance for the mold to get a look-in . . .

[Shadowdh]

And for washing them try a few less clothes in each wash, this might give them more of a chance... of course it might not too...