When you're looking to save money on laundry, there are several ways to do it. But our favorite way is using ozone, where a family of 4 saves an average of $40 to $80 a year in laundry detergent and up to $200/year in hot water costs.

Plus you save by extending the life of your clothes and other laundry, you help the environment, you get cleaner, fluffier clothes, and it's healthier for you.

And today's extra savings? We've been able to shave another $20 off the cost of our product. By including this savings with extended laundry life, we now think the average family will pay for this unit with savings within 1-3 years and will be helping their health and the environment along the way.

If you're at all like me ... you will never like the smell of laundry with detergent in it again. (Yes, it gets left in the material.) Even the "healthy" stuff smells like chemicals now that I'm used to truly fresh smelling laundry, and I know my skin is thanking me.

One of the most interesting points of using ozone to do laundry at home is the fact that it can really save you a lot of money. We use general numbers on our home page, but we thought it would be useful to show the range of savings people can enjoy. Keep in mind that there are many factors to the cost of laundry, and this blog entry tries to show more of the possibilities.

Bottom line: using ozone to clean your laundry at home means no longer using warm or hot water, and no longer using soap. So let's take a look at the item that fluctuates a lot: heating water. We'll look to this site to make our calculations.

Since soap works best only if you wash with warm or hot water, we're going to assume you're washing at least with warm water in every instance, and we'll show the range of warm to hot loads.


The Cost of Hot Water for Laundry
If you use gas to heat your water, it's going to cost you a lot less. The average price of natural gas in the U.S., delivered to your home, is $1/therm. For a front-load washer at this rate, you'll pay 5-8 cents per load MORE than if you used cold water.

For a top-load washer, you'll pay 9-14 cents more per load.

Electricity rates vary widely across the United States. Excluding the high rates of Hawaii (about 33 cents per kWh), rates are about 8 to 20 cents per kWh.

At 8 cents, a front-load washer will cost 8-13 cents more per load than using cold water.

At 8 cents, a top-load washer will cost 13-21 cents more.

At 20 cents, a front-load washer will cost 20-32 cents more per load than using cold water.

At 20 cents, a top-load washer will cost 33-52 cents more.

Now you can see why there is such a massive range of potential savings when moving to an ozone laundry system. The average American family does about 400 loads of laundry per year. So you can see that warm/hot water savings are anywhere from $20/year up to $200/year!

At average electric rates, savings are 10 to 30 cents depending on the type of washer and the number of hot and warm loads. So if we go out on a limb, we could probably say that average savings with gas heat are around $40/year and savings with electric heat are around $80 year with many variations possible.


The Cost of Soap or Detergent for Laundry
Soap costs are much easier to figure out, but they vary just as much, if not more. You see people talking about homemade soap for 2 to 5 cents per load. And you see people talking about needing more soap for dirty loads, driving prices from 50 cents to $1.50 per load for brand name soaps.

Realistically, most people won't make their own soaps, and few people need to use tons of soap for extra dirty loads. However, based on this article, we think it fair to say that reasonable costs range from 6-24 cents per load. At 400 loads of laundry per year, this cost will be $24-$96/year.


Total Savings of Doing Laundry with Ozone
When you take the savings of both warm/hot water and soap, you can see that on the VERY LOW END, your annual savings (at 400 loads per year) could be as little as $44. On the absolute high end, your savings could be as much as $296! Using the middle ground on the costs of soap and hot water usage, we think it's fair to say (as we claim on our home page) that the average family will save between $90 and $150 per year.

Remember that someone living alone will save far less with fewer loads of laundry, and a large family could save quite a bit more.

We know the old saying that love is in the air. That amounts to a very good thing. But what happens when it's ozone in the air? We bring up this question because when you use ozone to clean laundry (as they do in industry), there's a higher concentration of ozone in the air around the washing machine during and for a short time after the wash. Is this a problem?

We hear about "ozone action days" -- when pollution is high and heat / light are present, this combination can form high levels of ozone in the air we breathe. Conventional thought tells us that this can irritate our lung tissues, and some people are very sensitive to this. So we have maximum levels and exposure times.

Alternative views on health suggest that breathing low levels of ozone may be beneficial, because ozone offers a loose oxygen atom that can attach to and disable molds, viruses, and bacteria in the lungs. (Just as we know it does when used in laundry.) Even if this is the case, we acknowledge that too much ozone can still be disruptive if it causes too much detoxification at one time.

(In Europe, many doctors inject ozone into the bloodstream to kill off pathogens rather than having people breathe it because of the possible irritation.)

We prefer that people research and draw their own conclusions on whether ozone could be useful at moderate levels. Personally, we like it at a level just below the point of smelling it -- it seems to keep the air fresh, and we think relatively "disinfected." Many hospitals use it to decontaminate operating rooms between procedures.

Within either view, though, we simply recommend that you limit your exposure to ozone in the air. If you're especially sensitive to it, then start your load of ozone laundry and step away from the room until the smell dissipates. If the ozone doesn't bother you, just use common sense caution and don't spend too much time in the laundry room when the ozone smell is strong. This way, you know you're staying safe while your laundry is getting a better wash for less money and without the usual chemical soaps!

One of the reasons we're so excited to have an ozone laundry system for the home is because ozone's been used for so long in business. The food industry uses it to sanitize food; the water industry uses it to sanitize water; and hotels and hospitals have used it for a long time when doing laundry.

It's a great example of something that's proven long before it's available to consumers in their homes. But now, to all of our benefit, it is. Which means we can stop using soap, which shortens the longevity of our laundry and tends to mat it down over time; typically has nasty chemicals in it (unless you've spent extra on natural soaps) and isn't good for your health; and accumulates in our ground over time.

Plus, no more hot water, which costs an extra 50 cents a load or so. (Ok, so that depends on a lot of factors, but that's about an average.) The colder the water, the better it is for ozone to clean your clothes.

Laundry cleaned by ozone has a fresh, non-artificial smell and comes out fluffy since there's no residual soap. And best of all, ozone attacks bacteria, viruses, mold, etc.

The fact of its industrial use, though, might just be the most convincing reason of all for many of us. They're looking for effectiveness and cost efficiency. And ... aren't we all? If they've chosen it as a best solution, why not bring that solution into your home?