Curious...hot or cold? Line or dryer?

Just interested after reading a debate on the age old cloth vs sposie debate...and wondering how many of you wash in cold water and line dry? Or do you usually hot wash and dryer your cloth naps?

I was suprised to read the person arguing *for* sposies made the comment 'most' people wash their cloth naps in hot water and use the dryer....in my experience that's not the case at all but maybe I've been living in a bubble lol

For us, we use cloth exclusively and 97% of the time use cold water washes and line dry. Very, *very* occasionally we'll do a warm (not hot) wash and use the dryer if we're desperate but could count on the fingers of both hands how often that's happened over the last year!

You?

Same here MamaT!  (well we own a dryer but it gets v little use!)

I actually don't know hot to do a cold wash in my machine, otherwise I'd do a cold wash all the time, but we wash at 30 degrees.
I line dry, we don't own a dryer! Or if its wet then I park the clothes horse in front of the heat pump (which goes anyways) and I can get a whole clothes horse dry by the morning!

My MIL thinks I'm nuts for using cloth (although we're only part time so far) cos it's SOOOO much more work, and SOOO much more expensive, I mean, how much for a nappy?! REALLY?! Do you realise you can buy a weeks worth of sposies for like $20??????

Guilty hand-up here

Almost always do a hot wash (but only started after DD had a run of 4 UTI's within a few weeks....so we needed to make sure we had all bases covered!) Could probably switch back to cold washes now

And over winter the dryer has been used more and more - DD is in cloth almost fulltime, including at her carer's, and as I'm studying at uni fulltime, I just don't have the time I used to to hang them and wait for them to dry. The one thing going for me is that because we have such a large MCN stash, I only do washes every 3 days or so.

I've made a promise to myself to hang dry them more once the weather improves, and I'm not busy (and exhausted) 24/7..... however, I also use the dryer (if not hot water) for our clothes.

TBH, the water/energy argument still doesn't hold for me, because people always forget about the amount of water & energy it takes to manufacture sposies in the first place. Besides, for me, the fact that I don't send (as much) plastic & poo to the tip are enough.

Cold and on the line here too.

I wash them with cold water and then hang them on the line (we dnt own a drier)
And if its raining, they get put infront of fire to dry.

hi,
cold wash here too...
i think that accually there s not difference between hot machine wash and cold....as hot wash doesnt kill any more bacteria anyway... it would have to be boiling water to do this...
i just do baking soda/vinegar sometimes and trust the sun to desinfect my nappies a bit:-)

No drier here, dont even own one, just outside line under carpost if wet and then i finish them in the evening in fron of the fire.

iceland

I use hot/warm every time i wash the nappies but I have a front loader too and the amount of water you use is next to nothing.

Cold wash, mum and dads washing machine goes spass on hot or warm washes and mostly dry them on a clothes horse but lately I've had to use the drier as I run out of them WHOOPS! and its been pissing down.

Think I'll be looking at a front loader when we next need a washing machine I think!

i dissolve the washing powder in about a cup of hot water first then add it to the load

And yep we'll be investigating a front loader when this machine craps out...gotta be impressed though, it's about 12 years old...or more!