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Comment by naeemtee | Hacker News Reader

Wait, why is a washing machine cheaper than hand-washing?

That's a good question -- I'm struggling to find a well researched summary of the situation.

The biggest external cost with machine washing is the hot water, but most detergents now are optimised for cold / room temperature wash.

The biggest actual cost for hand washing is the time consumed - you may call it opportunity cost. Historically the societal benefits of the shift from having someone (typically 'the woman' of the household) spending 10-20 hours a week attending to laundry, to requiring perhaps a half hour of someone's time, have been better studied.

Not to forget that you will use a lot more hot water hand washing than a typical front loader uses.

Yes, I'm aware top loaders are still popular in the US, which may change the economics markedly.

Physical exercise is valuable too.

> Wait, why is a washing machine cheaper than hand-washing?

It's cheaper in regard to what alternatives are sacrificed for each unit of clothing cleaned.

It's probably cheaper if you factor in time spent washing clothes by hand. I could see people washing clothes more often and taking worse care with them given the convenience though.

And of course there might be some sort of marginal environmental or other cost between the two as well.

Less water, less detergent, less time.

I'd be surprised if there is a facet that is cheaper for hand washed. Only way I can imagine right now, is if you don't have but one or two things to wash.

I'm finding it amusing that so many people are focusing on the time portion and somehow managing to downplay it.

Even the energy costs are lower, considering how ridiculously little energy modern washing machines take.

opportunity cost - most people can make more money using a washing machine than they'd save hand washing.

That's a great theoretical argument, but the reality is nonsense. Most people aren't in a position to improve their income by doing an extra few hours work (working fixed hours, or working a salaried job where hours worked don't affect pay, or they're not working, etc), so they'd be better off financially spending that time washing their clothes by hand instead of owning a washing machine.

Take away the fridge, dishwasher, and the washing machine and now you need someone in the household to get perishable groceries daily, cook daily (no leftovers), wash dishes, and wash clothes. Add up these and gains from other appliance and services and you basically have a full day every day. The argument isn’t that you’d earn for an extra two hours a day with a washing machine at home. It’s that these appliances - in sum - free up an entire person to go work.

One would also perform better at work, if one's free time weren't filled with time-consuming and often exhausting chores. To be available and energized enough to perform well professionally requires that one be able to take care of the life stuff and still sleep.

I may be the only one in the thread who has washed clothes by hand (Granny made me acquire the skill), so let me say doing it correctly is a real upper body workout. A family load of laundry would take many hours and an athlete to do it in a day. Each piece must be done individually. Hanging it all up to dry requires a lot of space too.

Most food services go away as well. Probably over 95% of all restaurants cease to exist.

> these appliances ... free up an entire person to go work

And they help free up the other eight or nine hours that you don't spend working or sleeping during a day as well. They also help to free up many hours on the weekend.

The time savings and improvement to quality of life is immense. And we're just beginning. We're only fully 50-60 years into the appliance revolution.

Sometimes significant societal change exceeds the limitations of our own personal experiences.

I think the introduction of running water, especially hot water, into homes, and washing machines around the same time, made a substantial improvement in terms of availability of ~half the potential working population.

Hans Rosling called the washing machine the greatest invention of the industrial revolution:

> Rosling, however, believes washing machines foster education and democracy. He doesn't think the "haves" should tell the "have-nots" how to spend their days either.

http://www.businessinsider.com/hans-rosling-washing-machine-...

Undoubtedly the washing machine is an amazing invention. They save you time and energy, they do a better job, and they're more water efficient. My point was that the economic argument, and only that argument, is nonsense. Washing machines don't need a spurious argument like "Think of the money you could make while it's washing your trousers!" to be considered a sound purchase.

Improvements to education and democracy seem like an economic argument, but I recognize that such an argument really only works for the developing world.

I see where you're coming from, though, and realize that's not what you meant. For places where kids can go to school and a parent is not spending tons of time washing clothes instead of spending it with the children, the argument runs differently.

i tend to agree, but there's a lot of secondary effects that may lead different people to be saving money in different areas, just not 'making' money directly. you can spend more time cooking, which may save on meals out. you can spend more time helping kids with homework, vs spending on a tutor, etc. the general idea is that you can do something else more productive (instead of, or in parallel) with your time has merit, but most people would be doing something else that doesn't make extra cash directly (but again, may be saving them an expense somewhere else in their life)

The time saved has been rather extreme. It is more than just a couple of hours a week, if I recall. Something on the order of 14 or so hours in a given week. (Seriously, that isn't even that much. Couple of hours a day. Which would be about right, considering that laundry takes a long time to dry by itself.)

But even not counting for how much time it actually costs. The energy costs are lower for a washing machine. The detergent necessary is tiny. The health risks are minimized. (Let that one sink in. Touching dirty laundry is a great way to get sick. Especially if you are scrubbing it to wash away the soiled parts.)

So no, it is more than just a great theoretical argument. And the idea that folks are being wasteful by having a laundry machine is... well, astonishing to me.

I feel like that’s a mistake with the opportunity cost argument for and against. You don’t have to be in a position to make more money or improve yourself. Maybe the opportunity you find value in is not wasting time washing your cloths by hand.

It's not nonsense at all. Women were barely in the workforce before all of these inventions became commonplace because running a household entirely by hand was a full-time job. You'd be crazy to give up the income of a full-time job in order to go back to olden-times full manual labor for all tasks.

Most people don’t have 10/week hours that are needed for hand washing that’s comparable in quality to machine wash.

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