I have a nice clothes washer and dish washer now. They have a “delay” function, where you put the clothes/dishes in (I have to remember which goes where), add the soap, and then tell it when you want it to run the cycle. My clothes washer gives a choice of 1-8 hours later, and the dish washer only does even numbers…2, 4, 6, or 8 hours later. When I first got the machines, I thought the delay was cute, but couldn’t think of why I would need them.
And then once I had the washer all loaded up and was ready to start it…but I hadn’t taken a shower yet. I was late and needed to shower, and then leave for work immediately. I knew I would not remember to start the washer before going to work. So I set the delay for 8 hours, so that my shower wouldn’t interfere and vice versa, and the clothes wouldn’t sit in the washer wet all day.
Same with the dish washer. There have been times like above, but also sometimes I get it all ready to go, but it’s bed time. I don’t want to hear it as I’m trying to fall asleep, but it wouldn’t bother me at 2 a.m. I wake up to clean dishes, and I wasn’t annoyed with the noise when I went to bed.
I’m lazy so I often leave the dinner dishes until next morning. When I do that I put the washer on delay so it runs in the middle of the day when we’re all off at work/school instead of in the morning when people are still getting ready to leave the house.
All the time. Our energy rates are now different depending on the time of day so I set things that I don’t need to be there for the finish of (loads of towels, dishwasher) to run in the middle of the night when power is cheap and demand is low. Stuff I want to take out as soon as it’s dry and hang to prevent the need to iron I run while I’m awake (and then forget and need to iron anyway:smack:)
I don’t have a delay on the clothes washer, but I do on the dishwasher. I’ve set it to delay if I don’t want to hear it run while we’re watching TV, even though it’s fairly quiet. The low-demand in the middle of the night idea is a good one, too. I don’t know if our rates fluctuate or not.
We sometimes use the delay on our dishwasher (when we want to shower now and won’t remember to turn it on).
A delay on the washing machine sounds awesome, though. I could put in laundry in the morning and it would be ready for the dryer when I got home. I could do an extra load of laundry a day!
We only have a delay on our dishwasher, but all the time also. we usually do the dishes in the middle of the night, so that it turns on after we take showers. It is far enough away from our bedroom so that we don’t hear it much even if we are awake. In the summer it doesn’t make a hot house hotter then, and electricity should be cheaper at night.
I don’t think we’d use it for the washer, since we always have more than one load and there is a second step, the dryer, anyhow.
I had thought of that, too. Where I live, it’s the same rate all the time. My mom lives in Arizona, and it’s MUCH less expensive after nine p.m.
(I understand why her electric company does that…what with all the AC units running in the summer, but I would HATE that. I love the freedom of running whatever I want whenever I want.)
Yes - we have Economy 7 electricity which is something like 65% cheaper at night (midnight to 7am) than during the day. So we put the dishwasher on a timer to come on about 4am. The washing machine doesn’t have a delay, so we usually put it on right around midnight, just before we go to bed. That way, it’s finished before the dishwasher comes on (they run off the same socket, and both running together = blown fuse…).
Our oven has a kosher delay - devout Jews can set it to start the next day so they don’t have to push the buttons on the sabbath.
I have the washing machine set to Cold rinse, so I prefer to let the cold wet clothes sit for awhile and come to room temperature before I throw them in the dryer.
Bur you do have that freedom still. Sizing for peak usage is more costly than actually providing electricity so a cost break to encourage those who can time shift some usage helps everyone. We also have our thermostat set to come to morning temperature an hour before the cheap rates end. It’s a little earlier than I would normally have set the change but this way I get an extra hour of heat (or cool) for less money.
We love our delay on the dishwasher. It runs in the night, after evening showers for the evening people and before the morning showers for the morning people. It’s done in time for the hot water to refill and we have clean dishes for breakfast.
My dishwasher has* this function, and no, I haven’t. My washing machine doesn’t have it.
*Had, is really more like it. It was one of the ones that was part of a recall last month because it was a fire hazard. Mine never had a problem, but after that, I wouldn’t consider running the replacement, unless I was alert and around to monitor it.
Our old dishwasher had the time delay, and we used it frequently. With good reason; the thing was loud as hell. We’d generally load it up in the evening, then set it to run later in the early morning at like 2 AM. (I think it had a five hour delay or some such.)
We just bought a new Kitchenaid dishwasher. It’s super quiet. So quiet you really can’t even tell it’s on. So we’ve not yet used the 4 hour delay it’s got.
I hadn’t realized that my dishwasher had a delay until this thread made me look. So I set it for four hours last night. It’s a really quiet model, so I’ve never had a problem running it while we’re watching TV or anything.
It went off right after my husband got home and scared the shit out of him. He described stalking around the house looking for the weird noise, trying to see where the light was coming from. Finally he walked right past it and it did it again, but from behind him. His panic reenactment was pretty damn funny. I think the timer is now worth using just for the comedic effect.
My dishwasher has a time delay, but as far as I can tell, it’s broken. At least, it hasn’t worked the couple times I’ve tried using it in the past. If I can get it to work, I’ll use it all the time.
Our dishwasher and washing machine both have timers. We use the timer on the dishwasher, so it runs overnight. I just asked, and my wife has never used the one on the washing machine. I don’t think she wants to run it overnight.
