How do you wash your towels?

[myaeger18]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

8 washers seriously. It's insane. I have collected so many towels over the past few years. At least when I dry them I can put two loads in one dryer at the laundromat.

I can go almost a whole season without washing them once. Of course I don't want to do that, but you get the point.

[02zx9r]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

i had 42 of the general purpose 16x16 towels in the wash last night. Thats a lot of towels in 8 washers.

[myaeger18]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

I know. Kind of rediculous. But like I said, I can go almost all spring, summer, and fall without washing them. I will count them next time I wash, which will be soon because I didn't wash them at the end of the season last year. I'll post my findings.

[Tuck91]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

i like to use Cheer and seperate microfibers form every thing else, i wash the wash mitts, foam applicators, terry clothes all seperately as well

dont wanna cross contaminate

[roushstage2]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

Some detergent, usually about 1/2 as much as normally needed, and APC, hot water, normal/heavy duty cycle. 2nd rinse with a cup of vinegar. Any addition rinses if needed until there is no soap at the top of the water.

Dry on high heat.

[02zx9r]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

i have not tried the apc routine, really have not had a reason to as of yet. But will certainly try it out when the time comes.

I could not let my dirty towels sit there for several months if not longer before washing them, unless I threw them in a bucket of water or a 55 gal drum of water and let them soak forever

[Markus Kleis]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

I did a tally recently... I think I have somewhere between 500 and 550 microfiber towels alone. Wonder how long I could go without doing towel laundry, and when the time came, how many loads that would equate to? Haha...

[myaeger18]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

I figure I was fitting somewhere around 50-60 towels per load in the large washing machines. So that puts me in the 400-450 range. Not right. I know I should have washed them before winter but I didn't get the chance. I'll give'm a good wash this weekend. It's been bothering me lately. Maybe it's just me getting mentally ready for spring and the start of detailing season!

[akimel]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

Here is a comment posted by Leo Cerutti over at Detailing World:

OK, now to cleaning... HOT water will do no harm at all to either cotton or polyester microfiber. Even boiling it won't melt the fibers. Polyester melts at 500F (260C) so if your household water is that hot you have a lot more to worry about than your towels. Same applies to your dryer, HOT setting is no problem at all, the dryer will never reach more than 135F to 140F (60C). Use some logic and think for a minute, if the dryer got hot enough to melt the fabric many of your clothes would either melt away or come apart at the seams if they used polyester thread!

Wash: Simply use a good liquid detergent and hot water to wash, use 1/2 what the manufacturer recommends for the load size, they always tell you to use too much. Use too much and your towels eventually get stiff. Add about 1 tablespoon of distilled white vinegar per towel to the final rinse, ay more and they will smell like vinegar. The vinegar helps the threads release any excess detergent, basically this is the original fabric softener.

Dry: Dry on hot. Depending on the ambient humidity sometimes towels come out with a lot of static, simply spray with a light mist of water and the problem should go away.

Of course, don't use any fabric softeners in the wash or dryer, all they do is add a coating of silicone to the towels.

FYI

[Sandstone]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

We have very soft water here in Chicago so most commercial detergents including Tide HE don't rinse well so I've been using 1 packet of Snappy Clean or one scoop of DP Pad Rejuvenator in my Samsung front loader which uses about 4-5 gal in the wash cycle. I rigged the piping to give a hot wash AND a hot rinse and I choose the extra rinse cycle. I do separate towels into three groups: drying, window and wax/interior/QD. Works great. I usually fill the bleach dispenser with vinegar since the bleach is added to the 1st rinse. I use a combo of Sam's Club (Hometex Brand), SS and ADS window towels. The ADS towels appear identical to the Sam's towels.

I ordered some Sport Suds and Atsko Sport Wash from Amazon yesterday to give them a try since they are free rinsing and we can also use them on our clothes.

I haven't played around too much with dropping the concentration of Tide etc when washing microfiber but for clothes about 1/3 of the recommended amount of HE detergent is optimal for a normal load and 1/2 for a heavily soiled max load. This provides the best balance of cleaning and rinsing. 1/2 the recommended amount of Tide with microfibers was a rinsing nightmare in both top and front loaders.

[02zx9r]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

I did a tally recently... I think I have somewhere between 500 and 550 microfiber towels alone. Wonder how long I could go without doing towel laundry, and when the time came, how many loads that would equate to? Haha...

Holy Towel Batman, thats a lotta towels. I have probably just under 80, and I thought I was bad. Hopefully my addiction wont get that bad, but I would not let it bother me if it did

[electricgreen]

Re: How do you wash your towels?

I wash microfibers by themselves, on hot, with laundry soap and a bit of dish soap (to really break up any wax, etc). I let them agitate, then soak for about an hour, then run the full cycle. Then I rewash them with no detergent to be sure it's all washed out. Dry by themselves as well, no softeners.