I Washed Week-Old Gym Clothes Without Detergent And I' ...

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The O3 Waterworks Aqueous Ozone Laundry System

The O3 Waterworks Aqueous Ozone Laundry System is one of those things that sounds way too good to be true. The system uses water infused with environmentally-friendly ozone to clean clothes rather than chemical-based detergents. 

I expressed my skepticism to the company when they contacted me, so they sent me an laundry system to try out. I installed the system, grabbed my funkiest pile of workout clothes, tossed them into the washer, and chuckled knowingly, certain that this would defeat the unit. 

Instead, I was so impressed by the results, I haven't touched my laundry detergent in a month and I don't think I will ever again. 

Your Laundry Is Killing The Environment

Take a glance at the label on your favorite detergent, even natural ones, and you'll see a vast collection of surfactants, solvents, and additives. These long-chain polymers end up in the environment by the ton every year as we wash them away in our laundry. Wrap them in a laundry pod and you add microplastics to the list. 

Not only are these chemicals bad for the environment, they can, conversely, speed the breakdown of your clothes over time. Add hot water to the mix and you'll find yourself picking massive lint blankets out of your dryer filter. 

Washing your clothes with regular detergents and hot water produces microfibers. They break down the textiles during the cleaning process. These microfibers also end up in the environment and are emerging as another major contributing factor to microplastic pollution (since most clothes are a synthetic blend these days and contain some plastics). 

Plus, the energy required to heat all that water creates enough of an environmental impact that even laundry giant Tide is encouraging households to wash their clothes in cold water instead. 

Your Laundry Is Killing Your Wallet

There's been a ton of analysis thrown at the true cost of doing laundry. But on average, the typical 4-person household does around 8-10 loads of laundry per week, costing around $600 per year. If you're using additives like fabric softener or scents and using hot water instead of cold, that cost goes up even more.

And if you're using a front-loading washer, you're likely dealing with funky smells, requiring you to spend extra on tub cleaners, adding additional cycles to your annual load. 

Waterworks Aqueous Ozone Is The Solution

O3 Waterworks Aqueous Ozone Laundry System

This is where Waterworks' ozone laundry system comes in. They use a diamond electrolytic cell to pass a charge through regular tap water, creating water that's infused with dissolved ozone. That ozone then reacts with organic compounds and oxidizes them, removing them from your clothes just as effectively as any detergent. 

They're not the first ozone laundry system on the market. In fact, aqueous ozone has been used commercially for decades. O3 Waterworks CEO, Corey Levy, encountered consumer applications of the technology years ago but was dismayed that the systems used substandards parts or construction and lost effectiveness over a short amount of time as a result. He knew that this technology could help consumers and the environment but it had to be reliable enough that people would trust the solution. So he set out to make sure O3 Waterworks' system was the best.

The Aqueous Ozone Laundry System uses stainless steel instead of plastic to ensure that it lasts for years instead of months. The unit also contains a variety of flow and ambient sensors to determine things like water pressure, room temperature, and humidity (hot, moist air reduces the effectiveness of ozone creation so the unit works a little harder). All of this ensures the system performs reliably no matter if it's in a laundry room in Arizona or Florida. It's also longer lasting than its competitors, operating for up to five years before it needs to be refurbished. 

Does It Actually Work?

If you're like me, you've read all of the above with a bit of a smirk and a raised eyebrow. Asking someone to wash their clothes without detergent seems like a waste of time and about as effective as that essential oil diffuser you bought three years ago and is now mouldering forgotten in a cabinet. It goes against what we've spent our whole lives doing. 

Unboxing the Aqueous Ozone Laundry System, I was impressed with the heft and sturdiness of the product. Corey Levy wasn't kidding when he said they wanted their product to stand out and be as durable as it was effective. 

Installation took no time at all, less than 20 minutes. The included template made mounting the unit on the wall a breeze. What's nice is that I didn't have to worry about line-of-sight and could hang it wherever was convenient in my laundry room. The included remote (which reminds me of a car remote) is RF-based, not infrared. After hooking up the included stainless steel hoses and plugging the unit in, I was ready. 

I've got a front-loading, high-efficiency (HE) washer that's heading towards the end of its effective life cycle. It washes well enough, but even with frequent tub cleaning and filter drainage, it's still a bit funky. I was told that the dissolved ozone would help with that as well. 

With the press of a button, I set the laundry system to its highest setting. Then I tossed in the rank pile of workout clothes that'd been accumulating in the corner of the laundry room all week, set the washer to Cold Clean, added an extra rinse cycle (as recommended for HE machines to ensure enough ozonated water is used to clean the clothes) and started the cycle. 

O3 Waterworks Aqueous Ozone Laundry System on its high setting

The Aqueous Ozone Laundry System lit up immediately with a glowing limeade green to indicate that I was using the higher ozone setting (recommended for extra dirty and bulky items). There was maybe a bit of an ozone tang in the air when I came back to check on things in the middle of the cycle, but otherwise there was really no difference between this and a normal load of laundry, except I hadn't added detergent or softener to the cycle. 

When the cycle ended, I opened the washer door and, expecting the dank funk of old, wet gym clothes, was met with a slight smell similar to what you'd smell outside after a good thunderstorm. Mostly, there was no odor at all except that of obviously clean clothes. 

Emboldened by the experiment, my household has spent the last month doing load after load, not using a drop of detergent or softener. Again and again our clothes have come out clean, soft, and just as good, if not better, than if we'd used chemicals to clean them. 

About the only casualties of this experiment are two shirts that I'd noted in the weeks prior as being aggressively non-colorfast, leaving blankets of lint in my dryer every time they went through a cycle. Corey Levy did say that occasionally garments could see accelerated fading if they weren't colorfast. Since they'd been reaching the end of their useful life before this, I didn't mind too much. 

The company is the world’s best Ozone Generator for Washing Machine supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.

It's a small price to pay for the fact that the funk I'd come to associate with my washer has disappeared in the weeks that we've been using the system, the slimy ring I had to keep cleaning out from around the door seal drying up as well.  

Since I'm sensitive to fragrances, I don't mind the fact that there's no real scent coming from my clothes after I clean them with ozonated water. If you're firmly in the "if it doesn't smell like a greeting card summer meadow then it isn't clean," you can still add fabric softeners to the drying cycle. 

You can buy the Aqueous Ozone Laundry System directly from O3 Waterworks for $399. While it seems steep, I'll save at least $400 in laundry staples and hot water costs in the first year alone. Even if I have to buy another in three years, it will have more than paid for itself. Plus, knowing that I'm reducing my impact on the environment makes a huge difference.

A Look at What Ozone Can Do for Your Laundry Business

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, laundromat owners now more than ever have focused on creating safe, clean environments for their customers. As a result, ozone as a laundry additive has been gaining a lot of industry buzz of late.

Let's examine this mysterious, colorless gas.

One of the key advantages of ozone is that it keeps your store smelling fresh. If you've got a properly operating ozone system, you can be assured that, when a customer opens a machine, there will be no funky smell. There also will be no mold or mildew in the door gasket or soap dish. When you open your bulkheads, they will be clean and fresh-smelling. There will be no leftover residue and no excess smell from detergent, softeners and other chemicals. An ozone system can make your customers' store visits seem like aromatherapy treatment.

Another advantage of ozone is the ability to clean in cold water. In fact, ozone actually gets consumed by water at about 110 degrees ' so, if you're mixing ozone with hot water, it will have virtually no use at all. Of course, cold-water cleaning has energy-saving and environmental advantages, which can provide owners with opportunities for rebates from their energy providers.

In addition, cleaning with ozone in cold water significantly reduces the amount of detergent and chemicals required ' and increases the effectiveness of those chemicals. However, this sometimes can be a double-edged sword, as self-service customers are notorious for over-dosing their laundry with detergent. Unfortunately, such over-dosing can lessen ozone's effectiveness.

In the cleaning world, ozone is referred to as a 'wetting agent,' which means it opens up the fibers of a fabric to aid in the release of soils, as well as creating a natural softening effect. Ozone also will assist in reducing the fabric's ability to retain moisture and, thus, reduce drying time.

Clearly, there are real benefits to utilizing ozone. However, there also are some chemical considerations when introducing it to your cleaning process.

First of all, ozone has no effect on oil-based stains. Ozone won't remove any of those types of stains with any success. In fact, some oil stains will react to ozone by oxidizing and leaving behind a yellow stain. In general, cold-water cleaning ' without certain types of chemistry ' has no impact on oil-based stains.

A chemical dose in a warm or hot bath with no ozone is the best way to solve these types of stains. Fortunately, the chemicals with which ozone reacts poorly all work better in warm or hot water.

Those chemicals that negatively impact ozone are citrus-based cleaners and enzymes ' both of which are ideal for attacking oils and greases. In fact, ozone will kill the enzymes and actually have a negative chemical reaction with citrus-based solvents.

Additionally, ozone and oxygen bleach cancel each other out. But you'll notice that your ozonized cold rinses will be much more effective than bleaching. At my business, we've nearly eliminated bleaches from our chemical arsenal.

For typical, residential laundry loads, cleaning in cold water with a warm-water wash will be the most beneficial method. You'll get the benefits of the ozone during the rinse cycles.

A commercial accounts application benefit of ozone is that you can follow a hot wash (more than 160 degrees) with a cold rinse (70 degrees or less) with no fabric shock, if the cold water is ozone-saturated.

How Much Ozone is Enough?

What is the right amount of ozone? To find the answer, you need to understand your water. Every laundromat has different water, and it can change throughout the year, depending on its source.

The two major factors that affect the cleaning ability of water and ozone are hardness and pH levels. Ozone's effectiveness is altered by both, so be sure your ozone system is designed around each. And, if you do commercial accounts work, have your chemical supplier check those levels a few times per year.

Traditionally, ozone is measured in laundry applications by an electrical charge (in millivolts) that increases in the water with the presence of an oxidizer. The measurement is called oxidation reduction potential (ORP).

As an example, a commercial swimming pool with chlorine (an oxidizer similar to ozone) will be between 650 and 750 ORP. By contrast, a typical laundry application will look to achieve an ORP reading in the 850 to 925 range.

Here is where water quality comes into play. ORP is not a measurement of ozone in the water. Rather, it's a measurement of the effect ozone is having on the water to create the ideal level for cleaning. In other words, if your water is hard or features high PH levels, the ozone will be consumed, thus requiring a higher quality of ozone to reach the 850+ OPR reading required to enjoy the full benefits of ozone for a traditional laundry application.

As a result, it's important to have ozone professionals size your system to ensure it will deliver the results your business needs.

Introducing Ozone to the Wash

There are two ways to get ozone into a washing machine. One way is to inject it into the cold water supply using a Venturi valve ' making a single washer, a bank of washers or an entire laundromat's cold water supply the delivery system for the ozone. The second method, which is common in fire/water restoration applications, involves 'bubbling' the ozone directly into the sump at the bottom of the washer wheel.

Both methods have pros and cons. For example, ORP sensors last only a year or two and are sensitive any residue buildup. If ozone is being generated for each washer individually ' as with the bubbling method ' each washer would require a sensor. However, if the entire water supply or a dedicated group of washers are all on the same ozonized cold water supply ' as with the injection method ' the ozone can be measured at one single point.

With injection, ozone (at levels that are high enough to be effective in cleaning) will break down and deteriorate the rubber in most water valves more quickly than they normally might. Of course, if you already have high pH or hard water, you're going to be experiencing that level of diaphragm deterioration in your washers anyway ' and, therefore, you already should be replacing those diaphragms in your machines every couple of years.

If your water is soft or you have neutral or low pH levels, you will require less ozone to achieve the 850 to 925 ORP level. So, deterioration will be less of an issue.

Clearly, when bubbling ozone into the sump at the bottom of the washer, you're avoiding the rubber components and water valves, so you won't experience the deterioration to your valves. Again, with this method, you'll traditionally have some type of sensor monitoring the ozone so that it doesn't off-gas ' and this means extra electronic equipment on each machine to regulate how much ozone is actually in the washer.

Excess ozone and the eventual excess off-gassing of that ozone into a confined space like a laundromat over a period of time is a potential risk to customers and staff. Ozone can have short-term respiratory effects, especially for those who already suffer from preexisting respiratory conditions. Just as a safety precaution, I would consider installing a room sensor that detects high ozone content in your laundromat.

When ozone tops a 975 ORP reading, the water typically can no longer 'hold the ozone' within it any longer, and the gas begins to escape within the drum, which means a heavy ozone smell within that space.

No doubt, understanding the ways in which ozone can benefit a laundry operation and managing your expectations for ozone use is important.

If operating a correctly designed ozone system, you'll see amazing results with many types of cleaning. Ozone clearly outperforms all other methods when tackling human or animal soils, such as urine, blood and other bodily fluids.

Gym clothing can be washed in just cold water. Any type of animal coverings or beds will be cleaned and sanitized ' and the odors removed ' in cold water alone. And terrycloth garments will look and feel like new after a few ozone washings, as the fibers will open up and any residual chemical buildup will be removed.

Perhaps best of all, at the end of the day you're going to have a cleaner, more sanitized and better feeling laundromat with ozone. Your store will be much more appealing ' and your customers will notice it.

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