The first wave of appliances were created to do jobs that people didn’t want to do or didn’t have the time to do. These are the laborsaving appliances such as washing machines.

You’re probably wondering what you can do with your appliances to wring more work from them for less pay, so you can start saving up and get some cool solar electric panels on your roof. This is a brief discussion of a few of the household “necessities.”

Clothes Washing

The majority of energy used in washing clothes, up to 90 percent, goes to heating the water that is used. Since front-loading machines use much less (about a quarter) hot water than top-loaders use, they save a great deal of energy. But there’s more. All washing machines wash by agitation, but not all agitation is the same. Front-loaders can easily produce agitation by spinning the clothes up so that they then fall down again. Toploaders require a much more complicated system of forward and backward motion that is not only much harder on your clothing but also uses more energy and is more prone to breaking down. Furthermore, toploaders are incapable of spinning as much water out during the final spin as front-loaders, meaning your clothing requires much longer drying times. If you then stick that wet clothing in an electric-resistance heat-powered dryer, it’s all over. You’re an energy glutton, no two ways about it.

So, do the deficiencies of the top-loader qualify it for immediate replacement? In some ways, it depends on how often you use it and how you use it. If you’re using cold water to wash your clothes, then it’s probably not that big of a deal. As high-quality new front-loaders can cost more than $600, you might want to put off purchasing one as long as possible. However, if you find it necessary to use warm or hot water to wash your clothes, and especially if you ever have to use a dryer, then the priority level goes up a few notches. We’ve found that clothing from our front-loader comes out cleaner than that washed in our old top-loader, without the need for using warm water very often (in the summertime our solar water heater provides a surplus, so we use hot water to wash clothes). Either way, the improvement is quite substantial, and we would put replacement of top-loaders high up on the priority list. Look at the energy labels when you shop for a front-loader to find the most efficient models, check the Energy Star Web site for ratings, and don’t forget that washers have different cubic-foot capacities.