Comments on: Green Breakthrough: Save Energy by Washing Diapers in Cold Water

By: Krista

Krista — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 06:08:21 +0000

Hello, I live in Taiwan and have no hot water piped to my machine. 6 weeks ago, we began washing our cloth diapers. Our baby has had no diaper rash and the diapers seem to come clean, and smell great. Since we can’t always dry outside (pollution) we often bring them inside and put a fan on them. To the lady inquiring about the kissaluvs-they take a while to dry, but I’m in a humid environment and I’d say about 24 hours (with a fan on them) and they are good to go. If we can get them outside in the sun, the drying time is cut down considerably.
I’m all about cold water-it saves energy and seems to me to do a great job of cleaning.

By: Heather

Heather — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 10:17:27 +0000

I’m glad I found this post- I live in a 3rd world country about to have my first baby and don’t have a washing machine with hot water. I considered borrowing the $700 I would need to get one, but if it doesn’t get hot enough to kill the germs, then what is the point? I’ll use cold water and some tea tree oil and dry them in the sun, which does kill germs, at least when you’re at high elevation I know it does! We do wash our dishes in hot water because they get cleaner. Oil and stuff comes off easier. Then we rinse and then rinse again in a tub of water with a capful of bleach. this is because we don’t have bleach in our water but we do have tons of water born diseases and lots of people using the same dishes. Since we started doing this, one kid with a runny nose didn’t mean everyone has a runny nose and one kid with diarrhea didn’t mean eveyone had to get it!

By: rebecca

rebecca — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:11:56 +0000

Heather, is the washing machine broken, or does it just work that way for some reason? I think it should work fine for diaper laundering. My diaper days are long gone, but I feel like I very rarely run the hot wash. I lived in Europe for a few years, and all of the washing machines I used were cold-water only; it seems to be the norm in some parts of the world. As for stripping new prefolds, it seems like washing and drying them a few times should do the trick. If not, you could always take the stack to the Laundromat one time to break them in.

By: heather

heather — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 04:20:30 +0000

We just got a new washing machine which doesn’t have a true hot cycle (it switches between hot and cold and it ends up to be more like a warm cyle). I was ready to sell it and find another machine. So, I found this post in my search for whether 120 degrees was truly necessary. It seems to me that you can wash on cold and treat any problems that arise (stink, build up, rashes, etc.) with a tiny amount of bleach or oxygen bleach every once in awhile and some vinegar in the rinse. After a child is ill, it is probably better to sanitize the diapers with a little bleach or oxygen bleach than to rely on hot water to kill the bacteria. I do agree with the fact that detergent does dissolve much better in warm to hot water. Does washing only in cold require more rinse cylces to get all of the soap out?

I was wondering about prepping new cloth prefolds though. Do those still have to be washed in hot (120 degrees) to strip the cotton oils? Or can you strip the oils with warm water and just do more washes?

By: jenn

jenn — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 20:24:58 +0000

I would like to add my knowledge to this conversation…
(I wash in cold water. fyi)

For washing diapers- (smell problems)
-Vinegar works for sanitisizing. The secret is putting it in your rince cycle. (i put it in my fabric softener compartment)
-I also use Borax as a presoak and a little in the wash. It is also for staining and smells.

To answer the question about vinegar and pit stains. No it wont work. Its not a stain remover. Ive never tried but Ive heard that a few tsp of salt with boiling water (obviously cooled a bit) rub it into the stains with a cloth soaked in solution.

I also have a spray bottle with a few drops of teatree oil. which is cool for killing germs, mold etc.) I spray the pee in the diaper before foring it in the bin. (never add too much though since it is an oil, literally 8 drops for a full bottle)

By: Coral

Coral — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:10:17 +0000

To the previous poster who lives in China, I live in CT and when the temp reaches about 50 degrees I begin line drying. It does take all day at those temps but it saves my electricity bill. AIO may take up to 24 hours to dry in cooler weather as the pockets, fitteds and prefolds will dry faster.

By: Amy @ simply necessary

Amy @ simply necessary — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:29:50 +0000

Good post…found by googling b/c I was wondering this same thing. We now live in a rented house where our water doesn’t get as hot as in our previous house and we also have harder water now. I have been dealing w/LOTS more stink issues and leaky diapers. At first I thought it was all hard water issues but after tackling that and still getting no results I started wondering if washing in hot was actually backfiring on me b/c it was never getting hot enough to sanitize but actually getting warm which could be a breeding ground for more germs. Just a thought.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 03:57:02 +0000

We live in Mexico and do not have hot water to the washer either. However we do have very hard water and I think this has added to our stink issue. I ended up boiling once a month to take the stink out. Expecting new baby any day now and have a nice prefold stash waiting…..praying that we dont get the stink with a new born…not a good thing!
Hopefully the cold water wash with the dryer will help with that.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:47:53 +0000

In the old days, in Trinidad, they had a special large pot where they boiled the cloth diapers after washing them. After that line drying.

By: Ma Jen

Ma Jen — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:37:17 +0000

There are many places where dishes are washed in cold water (3rd world countries) with bleach added b/c hot water (due to lack of fuel for heating) is not readily available, but commercial bleach is easy to buy. The key is adding a bit of bleach to the water.