If you’re someone who hasn’t mastered all the different settings of your washer dryer machine, you’re not alone. Most of us tend to glance through the manual when we first get our spanking new machine and experiment a little with the settings, then end up picking a couple of settings to stick with forevermore.

All the different buttons, symbols and timings might seem daunting, but it’s worthwhile to know how to make the most out of your washer dryer to save you time, energy, money and also, wouldn't you want to take the best care of your clothes?

Pre-washing

Many machines come with a pre-washing function to help you clean heavily soiled items (just think of your child’s football match falling on a rainy, muddy day) before you start the actual washing programme. You can also use this function to wash out stains, just be sure to first try removing the stain while it’s fresh by dabbing it with a bit of soap water before popping it in the wash.

Washing Programmes

Here’s where there is usually a whole plethora of options to choose from, but that’s a good thing. It pretty much guarantees that you’ll never have to wash any laundry by hand ever again.

To keep things simple, here are 5 easy to remember categories:

1. Everyday Laundry

For cotton and other non-delicate materials like t-shirts, shorts, jeans and towels.

Cottons: Standard washing programme for textiles made of cotton or linen

Easy-Care: For textiles made of synthetic materials or blended fabrics

Mixed Load: For washing natural and synthetic textiles together in a single load

2. Delicate Materials

Gentler washing cycles ensure that even the most delicate of materials end up clean and in the same shape and size as before.

Delicate/Silk: For delicate, washable fabrics like silk, satin, synthetic or blended fibres

Wool: A gentle wash programme for hand and machine-washable fabrics made of wool or wool blend

Down: For machine-washable fabrics that are filled with down

3. To be on the safe side

For the times you want your clothes extra clean with a prewash; to make sure all the suds are out with an extra rinse, or be certain that your clothes are spun as dry as possible.

+Prewash: Energy-intensive program for heavily soiled textiles made of cotton or linen

Rinse: An extra rinse with a spin

Spin / Drain: A single spinning programme with a selectable spin speed

4. Urgent Laundry

For the days when you want to wear a specific outfit only to find it was left at the bottom of the laundry hamper.

SuperQuick 15’: A 15 minute wash and spin-dry cycle for less than 2kg of lightly soiled laundry

Wash&Dry 60’: This option washes 2kg of lightly soiled laundry for 15 minutes, followed by 45 minutes of heated drying

5. Bonus Option

These programmes come in handy during flu season or when you want an added level of cleanliness.

HygieneCare: Pretreat dry laundry by hot air followed by a low temperature washing cycle to achieve the most hygienic wash results for non-delicate fabrics.

Allergy+: A prolonged wash program with higher washing temperature and a longer rinsing cycle, to effectively remove allergens from your clothing.

Drum Clean: To maintain the hygiene of the washer drum and remove residual lint.

Drying Programmes

Rain or shine, you can now know for certain that your clothes will be dry on time.

Materials such as wool or silk may be on the no-no list, but it's good to check the labels and make a mental note of items that can't go in the dryer.

There are two different types of drying programmes - Gentle and Intensive - so pick the one that suits your needs. Regular cotton items or lighter clothing would be more appropriate for a Gentle Dry, while towels and sheets would be better suited for Intensive Dry.

Now that you know all that your washer dryer can do, I bet you can’t wait to try out a new setting with your next load of laundry!

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