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Hard water, HE washer - what's your regimen?
We have hard AZ water and a HE washer. With my boys I feel like I tried everything but we always ended up with rash issues. With this new LO I'm going to try again with CD but would like to make sure I've got a good wash regimen. I know with HE machines you use less detergent but with hard water you use more. What do you do? Had used drops detergent (among many others) with the boys but just bought some country save.
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Re: Hard water, HE washer - what's your regimen?
If it's really hard, you may want to add a softener to the wash water. Calgon, borax, and/or washing soda all soften the water so the detergent can work better and rinse better.
My water is slightly hard (most is). I use soap nuts and 1 tbsp of the EFF recipe (borax, washing soda, and oxiclean). Pre rinse, hot wash, 2 cold rinses.
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I have pretty hard water and it took me a long time to figure out a good routine. Finally we hit our stride and things are going well wash-wise. Here's our routine:
Cold rinse (no detergent)
Warm rinse w/o spin (no detergent)...this is to trick the machine into adding extra water.
Hot wash with 1/2 capful of liquid Calgon and 1 Dropp. (I tried powdered Calgon...it didn't cut it for us. The liquid is much better).
Cold rinse w/o spin
Cold rinse
This has been working well, but I've also recently been experimenting with soap nuts...I like them so far but might try adding a bit of the EFF CD detergent like tokenhoser suggested.
Good luck!
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(We have a 2009ish LG frontloader.)
Cold Quick Wash with spin.
Warm Rinse + Spin, Water Plus, no spin (to get the diapers nice and soaked).
Hot wash with Ecos Free and Clear (up to the HE line), a capful of liquid Calgon, and some Funk Rock (hubs has been doing the laundry lately, but I think he uses 1/2-3/4 Tbs), Water Plus, cold rinse, extra rinse.
If there are any suds in that last rinse, we'll do another Rinse + Spin, but usually there aren't.
We have extremely hard water according to the water department. so my routine is:
Quick wash cold water no detergent extra rinse NO SPIN
Regular wash hot with prewash, 1/2 scoop tiny bubbles in prewash and 1 scoop tiny bubbles detergent 1/4 cup calgon water softener in main wash extra rinse cold.
I've had no issue with build up. Diapers always come out great. Alot of times I just skip the calgon too. Tiny bubbles is a great detergent with hard water. Best of all you can buy it at Costco.com in bulk, 6 boxes for $60. each box does 60 loads.