Like most washers, mine has several different cycle options, one of which is the “Heavy Duty” cycle, for clothes that are badly soiled. I actually always use this option instead of the “Normal” cycle, my logic being: “If this cycle can clean really grimy clothes, it’ll do an awesome job on my just-ordinary-dirty clothes!”
Am I wrong here? Are there downsides to always using the Heavy Duty cycle, aside from the washer possibly using more water (which isn’t a problem to me)?
Ever wonder where all that lint comes from when you clean the lint filter in your dryer?
But yeah, it just uses more water and power. Still, the normal cycle should be fine. That’s all I ever use, and I’m a guy - clean is clean.
Actually, I have a front load washer, and every 3 months or so I run the ‘tub clean’ cycle. And without using any detergent at all, this cycle will produce a ton of suds from what I assume is excess detergent that doesn’t get rinsed away completely. After seeing that, I use way less detergent than before, about 50% less. Clothes still get cleaned.
1: It costs you more. 2: It’s more environmentally damaging. 3: Your clothes, linen, etc won’t last as long.
Your washing machine won’t last as long either. It’s more wear and tear on moving parts that have only so many ‘miles’ in them.
And this actually is a problem for many of us that share whatever aquifer you are drawing from. Just because you can pay for it doesn’t make it ok in the larger sense.
Does Heavy Duty actually use more water? How much water is controlled by the load size selection, which is orthogonal to the cycle selection.
Selecting the proper load size is important too. Always selecting the large size is wasteful if you have a small load. Besides wasting water, it also shortens the life of the machine.
In the U.S., this is generally only a problem in the Southwest. Elsewhere, unless your region is experiencing drought conditions, this usually isn’t an issue.
Washing machines vary, but many (most?) will do things like use additional water to pre-soak and will add more water during the agitation and rinse portions of the cycle.
Heavy Duty will also often use a more aggressive agitation cycle for a longer time period, which adds significant wear and tear to the clothing as well as the machine itself.
So, Heavy Duty usually uses more water, more electricity, causes more wear and tear on clothing, and more wear and tear on the machine itself.
I’m the OP’s polar opposite. My clothes typically aren’t all that dirty. I use the “lite” setting, cold water, and less detergent than recommended. Occasionally I use no detergent at all and they still get clean.
My clothes that do get dirty (my horseback riding jeans and shirt) I rarely launder. They’re hung with my gf’s Carrhart barn suit in the basement.
Things like dog beds, horse pads and blankets, I take to a laundromat, or at least I did pre-COVID-19.
Heavy duty usually uses the hottest water possible, which wears out clothes faster, fades colors more, and burns more fuel to heat the water. Heat is also bad for stretchy fabrics like spandex, elastic waistbands, polyester, etc., because it breaks down the rubbery fibers. Granted the dryer does more damage to those sorts of fabrics (many are supposed to be hung dry for that reason), but a hot wash isn’t good either.
I’ve been on Straight Dope for a long time, and this thread probably ranks at the very top of the “Useful info learned per minute spent reading” list. My guess would have been only that the heavy-duty cycle wears out the clothes faster. I never even thought of the other stuff.
Ignorance fought! Thank you all!
My comments below are for household washing machines. Industrial machines are probably a completely different animal.
jjakucyk is close here. Washing clothes in a washing machine basically beats the dirt and oils out of the fabrics. Detergents don’t do the cleaning part, they prevent the extricated dirt from re-attaching itself to the fabrics. Even a light duty cycle beats the dirt out. The longer you run agitation the more you beat up your fabrics. To truly lengthen the service life of clothes just soak them in a warm soapy solution. This is why Woolite still exists.
engineer_comp_geek got it as well: “Heavy Duty will also often use a more aggressive agitation cycle for a longer time period, which adds significant wear and tear to the clothing.” Correct.
Water temperature also factors in, but every washing machine I’ve owned has a water temperature selector. Running a washing machine on a heavy duty cycle does not mean “use hot water only.” You might select it, but it’s not automatic.
Thanks for the responses, everyone! My clothes DO wear out faster than I think they should, and I’ll bet this may well be the reason. Normal cycle it is, from now on! You have helped change a 30-year habit of mine. 
One more angle. If you’re on a sewer system, any extra water you put down the drain increases what your town has to purify before spewing it into the river. It’s not so much that you’re wasting water, it’s that you’re wasting your town’s capacity to handle sewage.
And if you have a septic tank system you are also putting unnecessary water through it.
Most day to day clothes laundry is just to rinse out the body salts and a few light stains. Economically, and environmentally, you are best using a lighter setting. The heat in your dryer will additionally clean and sterilize your clothes.
You’re also wasting the water treatment that happens before it gets to you. I’ve heard people claim that them using too much water isn’t wasting it. After all, the water comes from the lake and then returns to the lake via whatever path it takes. The water is not destroyed. That’s true, but it ignores the fact that the lake water will be coagulated, flocculated, filtered and possibly treated in other ways (e.g. irradiated with UV) before it comes out your tap.
I use the “delicate” setting on my machine. When I moved to my present town, I had to use a laundromat. Instantly, I felt like I had moved into a house that was infested with…Something. Previously, I had used a “free”-type detergent, and the laundro switched to same at my request. Better.
When I finally had my own machinery, I started to use the extra rinse cycle, and quickly saw that the the heavy-duty cycle was twisting my clothes so tightly that there was no way I was getting a decent rinse. Delicate has obviated that, plus I’m pleased to know that the machines might now outlast me.
Also using half the recommended detergent load; no more crawley skin.
Dan
This is true.
And that excess detergent is on your clothes as well. Even in a clean tub, previously washed clothes will often produce suds without adding detergent.
Our family ran a dry cleaners for decades and people always use too much detergent at home. There’s a ‘recommended’ amount on the old powder and liquid detergents, and people routinely used more by ‘eyeballing’ it or thinking more detergent cleaned better. Definitely not true. It contributes to fading and additional wear on clothes.
On the hang-dry thing: We have a rule in our household: anything that covers me above the waist gets hung to dry. Those same garments are also done only on cold. So basically, only pants (jeans, mostly) and underpants (which are cheap) go through the dryer.
As a result, I have shirts older than my kids, that are still presentable.
And a side question: Why not just use cold water for most laundry? Sure, something with ground-in mud or whatever might do better with hot water - but if we’ve got something visibly stained, we’ll usually do cold water at least at first, to avoid setting the stains. Does hot water really do that much better for most things?
That’s not exactly true; detergents act in effect as emulsifiers. Basically they have a polar and a non-polar part of the molecule- one part attaches to oil/grease, and the other allows it to be washed away by water. It’s the combination of detergent, water and agitation that allows the dirt to be removed from the fabric, especially when there’s grease involved (which there almost always is).
It’s exactly like washing your hands in that respect.
In addition most but not all modern detergents have enzymes to help remove soils. Proteases (protein), amylases (starch), mannanases (polysaccharides), lipases (fats/oils), and cellulases (acts on cellulose fabrics to increase softness, reduce pilling, remove particulate soil and brighten colors).
Note that front-load washers, without the agitator, are significantly less damaging to clothes. They also use less water. And in my experience more mechanically reliable.