After months of many happy laundry loads with the Splindide 2000s washer/dryer combination unit we have aboard THRID DAY, this morning I finally found the answer to the dreaded question: How much water does it use per load? The owner's manual doesn't say, so I've been spending my time in that warm happy place of not knowing and telling myself, that it didn't use much more water than our old way of doing laundry the 5-gallon bucket. But as usual when the feel-good lies we tell our self are exposed, reality is not just cold and harsh, but is a water hog! In 0.03 seconds the folks at Google told me that my Splendide model 2000s uses 16 gallons of water per load of laundry while using about 20 Amps of electrical power at 12 volts. Now considering most watermakers aboard cruising boats are in the sub-20 gallon per hour size range, using that much water and power for a load of laundry could easily justify the expense and hassle of hauling dirty laundry to shore and picking up a bag of nicely folded laundry for about $5US per load.

We do sometimes run the washing machine off our ships battery bank through the 3000W inverter and besides pulling about 20Amp hours out of our 900Amp hour battery bank it works well. However, the typical way we operate the washing machine is to only run it when we are running the generator while also charging the battery bank, as we are doing at the moment. The Honda EU2000i generator is purring away on deck putting 75-80Amps into our batteries while the washing machine is pulling about 20Amps out, so it's a fair trade!

As for water, with 460 gallons of water held in 4 tanks along with our 35 gallon per hour watermaker, as crass as it may sound to other cruisers showering with a garden sprayer or doing dishes with salt water, we frankly don't worry about our water usage. We primarily use the Honda to run the watermaker, but at least once a week we run our 8kw diesel genset. With the genset we can make water, do laundry, charge the batteries, make hot water electrically, and run the microwave all at the same time. We don't "like" to run the diesel genset because it uses about 0.75 gallons of diesel per hour compared to the Honda that can put out 75Amps or run the watermaker for 5 hours on a single gallon of gas, but with the Honda we can only run one piece of 120v equipment at a time. Sometimes it is nice to be able to run all the 120v equipment and charge the batteries all at the same time, but convenience always comes at a price on a cruising boat.

The interesting thing is that even with all the Honda and Diesel genset running our "utility bill" for water and power is still far lower than the average American and our "evil" carbon footprint doesn't even show up on the graph of the average American living in the average house back in the States. With a former life as a scientist and inventor in the air pollution measurement and abatement field, I can't help but chuckle at the Man Made Global Warming (MMGW) hype and hysteria, so I love to tell my MMGW believer friends that my carbon footprint is smaller than theirs, which must make me a better person and love the earth more, according to the latest Pop-Culture mantra.

[Editor's Note 1:
I have a feeling I should turn off the Blog Comment ability for this post after my modern day "eco-heresy" comment regarding the MMGW scam, but Lori's dragging my up to the top of the lighthouse here in Mazatlan today, so I might as well go out with a bang if the hike kills me (or she pushes me over).

Note 2: The photo of the washing machine sideways was intentional, turning things on their side, so to speak. So just send the scathing emails about me being a MMGW Denyer and not about the photo please...ha ha ha.]