What are the different cycles in a washing machine?

Washing machines are ubiquitous today, as essential and inevitable in any home as a light bulb or gas connection. These simple cuboids work tirelessly, washing our clothes day and night, and we don’t give them a second’s thought.

How exactly do washing machines wash our clothes, however? What are the different cycles involved, and what’s the difference between a spin cycle and, say, a rinse cycle? Let’s take a closer look.

How a washing machine works

As far as we’re concerned, we dump our soiled clothes into the washing machine, add a spoon or two of powder and other cleaning agents, press start, and 45 minutes later we have a batch of almost-dry clothes that we just need to hang on our clotheslines. What happens in that intervening time?

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1. Main wash:

Well, the first thing the washing machine does is assess the weight of the clothes in the bin, pick a wash cycle (or you select one) and then start filling up with water. When the appropriate amount of water is collected and, if necessary, heated, the main wash cycle starts. In this step, the clothes are agitated gently, and then with increasing violence, to dislodge dirt and to let the detergent get to work.

This process takes the most amount of time but is critical to properly washing clothes. Depending on the washing machine, there might be a pre-wash cycle or soak cycle also available.

2. Rinse cycle:

After the main wash, clothes are rinsed. The dirty water is first drained completely, and then fresh water is ingested. The clothes are then agitated in the fresh water to get rid of any stuck dirt, and to wash off the soap, detergent, and other chemicals. This process doesn’t take as long as the main wash, but might be repeated a couple of times to ensure that all the detergent and dirt is flushed out of the clothes. This is an important step as we obviously don’t want to be wearing soap-stained clothes!

3. Spin-dry cycle:

The last cycle, at least in most washing machines, is the spin-dry cycle. In this cycle, the water is first drained completely and the machine spins the clothes as fast as it can. Spinning the clothes this way uses centrifugal force to force all the water out, which is drained continuously. This step doesn’t fully dry the clothes – they’ll still be damp – but it does remove as much water as is possible to remove by mechanical means. 

Clothes can then be dried in the sun, and they should be ready to wear in just a few hours. Some washing machines might include a dedicated dryer which uses heated air to dry as well as drain the clothes of water. These are usually more expensive and consume more power but will give you dry clothes directly after a wash.

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These various cycles are an integral part of any washing machine design, be it a top load or a front load. The only thing that varies is how the clothes are agitated or the precise mechanism of the cycles, which are determined by engineers. Whatever the case, you put dirty clothes in, clean clothes come out. That in itself is a modern marvel.