Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
kaisersoze_gw

Ozone in Home Laundry

kaisersoze
10 years ago

Does anyone here have experience and/or opinions about using an ozone system for their home laundry (ie, PureWash, O3 Pure Eco, Laundry Pure)?

There is a thread from 2007 but no further threads or comments that I can find since then (http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/laundry/msg070643597684.html)

I have some concerns about having ozone in an enclosed laundry room, but I like the idea of no detergent and eliminating the smells from a front load washer. If it works as well as people say it does, why isn't it more prevalent especially since units have been available for years?

Comments (2)

  • laundryvet
    10 years ago

    A few thoughts on ozone, and I do have some experience with it on the commercial side of laundry.

    Disadvantages
    -will make you sick if the system gets out of control
    -industrial systems are fairly reliable, but crazy expensive

    Advantages
    -no hot water required, big utility savings
    -Linen smell after processing
    -sanitizing.

    Ozone does a nice job sanitizing, but is not universally recognized as a sanitizing process in laundry, mainly because linens can have varying densities and thicknesses; you might get the outside of the linen sanitized and for a thin item like a sheet it does a nice job. However, an object like a pillow almost certainly will not be sanitized

    Ozone's ability to stay in the water is very temperature dependent, it outgases in warmer waters. You might have a hard time in a place like Florida getting the ozone to stay in solution.

    Ozone is ineffective on many types of stains. Hotels may launder items two or three times to get stains out, also employing spot treatment chemicals. Not sure if you would be willing to put up with multiple washes since the whole idea of a washer is to get garments clean.

    Unquestionably, ozone does a great job with linen smells. Some premium hotel chains process linen with ozone strictly for the smell, and they don't mind spending time and money to make this happen.

    I am not familiar with home versions, but I would tend to think the only benefit would be smell.

    Steve

  • lee676
    10 years ago

    Much like "steam" in recent years, there was an "ozone lamp" fad in the early 1960s or thereabouts, a blue or purple lamp in the dryer that was supposed to have the effect described in the previous post, giving your clothes that fresh outdoorsy line-dried scent. They were developed by Corning for use in dryers, refrigerators, and air purifiers. It only used 4 watts; I think this was a HID bulb rather than incandescent, which means it required a ballast and would add substantially to the cost. The dryer that was in my childhood home had one (Whirlpool/Sears IIRC); the only good picture I can find online of these lamps is at 6:20 in this Youtube video of an old Puritron 800 air cleaner, but apparently the idea is still floating around as I found lots of CFL ozone bulbs.

    "Lying on a table, or held in your hand, this small electric lamp looks like any other. But when lighted, it glows with a soft purplish halo. And if you let it burn for a second or two, then put your nose about an inch away and sniff you'll notice a fresh-air smell such as you get when you step outdoors after a thundershower. For this 4-watt bulb generates small amounts of ozone, the same form of oxygen that's created in the atmosphere when lightning flashes in the sky.

    The ozone is formed in the air around the bulb by ultraviolet rays generated inside the lamp and passed through the special glass of which the lamp is made. All ordinary glasses would block this radiation. But this glass, developed by Corning Glass Works and mass-produced for lamp manufacturers, transmits these ozone-generating rays, and in just the right quantity.

    In an electric clothes dryer, this ozone lamp of Corning glass gives your wash the same fresh smell it has when dried in outdoor sunshine. A modification of it is being used in refrigerators to banish moldiness. And the use of ozone lamps in ventilating and air-conditioning systems to freshen the air is being studied.

    The glass for this little lamp is only one of dozens of ray-transmitting glasses that Corning makes glasses that can take any segment of the light spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet, and put it to work. And because Corning can mass produce them, these glasses have widespread use in product and process improvement.

    Throughout industry, Corning means research in glass because a multitude of Corning developments such as light control have helped make glass a material of practically limitless uses."