Secrets to Success

Ozone is an unstable molecule and heat is one of its primary enemies. Ozone is born of a delicate balance between a number of elements and physical processes that must be maintained as long as possible to take advantage of the many outstanding benefits it has to offer. Ozone is made with 3 oxygen atoms that stick together only as long as you keep them calm and cool. When the temperature rises, the oxygen atoms begin to return to their more rowdy nature and quickly end the ménage a trois! That special ‘energy’ they had when it was a group thing, has been lost. You’ve got to have water to wash your clothes. But ozone is a gas. If you want to use it in your laundry, it has to be dissolved in the water you use, before it falls apart. It is a difficult process. The ozone gas and the water must be combined for as long as possible, to get as much of the ozone as possible, to dissolve into the water. If the water is above 95-degrees, it is just not going to happen. It’s physics. However, as the water becomes cooler, the amount of ozone that can be dissolved into the water increases – all the way down to freezing! If you have really cold water, the Storm will work extremely well for you. Don’t worry if your water is 85-degrees though. The process still works well under 95-degrees, especially if the water doesn’t move too fast. This is the reason the water moves relatively slowly through the Storm – that’s what makes it work! If the water moved too rapidly through the matrix, the level of dissolved ozone in the water would drop, and you would not receive optimal results. It is advisable to use only cold water for both the wash and rinse cycles. This will help you maintain the integrity of the ozone molecules dissolved in the water for as long as possible where they can do their magic and deliver a finished product that you never imagined possible! There will be those days that you’ve just got to wash that one ‘special’ item in a big hurry. No worries, you can simply run a load with the Wash and Rinse set to ‘Warm’ and the cycle will finish in record time!

Ozone is extremely effective at rapidly destroying bacteria, viruses, mold and mildew spores, and other living contaminants. It only takes a few seconds for ozone to kill most of the common bacteria and viruses you might have on your laundry and only a few seconds more to kill just about everything else. It is really much more effective than any other sanitizer you could use, and it does not create any harmful vapors or residual by-products. In fact, ozone works 3,000 times faster than chlorine bleach without all the nasty, carcinogenic THM’s created when you use bleach. Articles of clothing, underwear, sheets, towels, pet beds, and other washable items can contain harmful and potentially dangerous germs that could spread to other items in your washer and eventually back to you and your family. Ozone in your wash will move the needle much closer to complete sanitation than any other sanitizer available. With a Storm, you can wash everything in ozone – effortlessly!

Dissolved ozone at the concentrations provided by a Water Energy Storm will provide bleaching action similar to using hydrogen peroxide. Also, you will not have to worry about any damage to colored items being washed in ozone and cold water. Heat and Chlorine bleach may also be required for bleaching an occasional stubborn stain like ink or dye. For these types of stains, you will need to make sure you wash them in hot water and bleach to get the stubborn stain out before you run them through the dryer. Because once they go through the dryer, the stains will probably never come out. Once the heat in the dryer ‘sets’ the stain, the only way to get it out is with a pair of scissors. Eliminating chlorine bleach will vastly improve the indoor air quality in your house. Chlorine is a halogen and when mixed with organics (sweat; blood; spit; urine; waste; all food; beer/wine; most dirt; etc.) it creates nasty, cancer-causing VOC’s made of halogenated compounds. These compounds are referred to as THM’s or DBP’s and there are literally hundreds of them, including formaldehyde and chloroform! These powerful cancer-causing compounds float invisibly through your house and expose your loved ones to unnecessary risk of developing lung cancer. When you smell that ‘clean chlorine smell’ that’s really what you’re getting and it’s not a good thing!

Ozone is not the be-all, end-all solution for every laundry issue. Some linen will still need some hot water and traditional chemicals to get it clean. The amount of hot water required is dependent on how many really dirty items you have to wash. For items with grease, cooking oil, lipstick, shoe polish, or other greasy/oily stains, you may need to wash these items in hot water to melt the grease and get it out of the fabric. So, make sure and set the wash temp to ‘Hot’ or ‘Warm’ and set the rinse temp to ‘Cold’. You will get the grease out in the wash cycle and you will get the sanitizing and deodorizing action of the ozone in the cold rinse cycle. It is better not to use fabric softener. The ozone will eliminate most of the chemical residues from the detergent and your linen will smell clothesline fresh right out of the dryer! Cold water is not suited to work well on greasy stains because of the physical nature of oil at low temperatures. Oil-based products are harder to break down when they are cold and less viscous. Heat and standard chemistry are required for more rapid emulsification of these oil-based stains. The heat melts the oil and allows the soap to dissolve it and the water carries it down the drain.

The Storm dissolves ozone gas into the wash water.  This dissolved ozone is what does the cleaning and destroys odors, bacteria, and stains in your laundry.  The ozone that is available in the wash water at the beginning of the wash cycle is ‘consumed’ or used-up by the contaminants in the laundry as they come into contact with each other.  Therefore, the dirtier your laundry is, the more ozone it will take to thoroughly clean it.  If you have a load of really dirty items, like your undergarments after a long workout, or a day of hiking in the mountains, or pet beds that have been well used, or something similar, it is recommended that you divide the load into two piles and wash two loads instead of one.  This will reduce the laundry/ozone ratio and give you more ozone power for the items in the washing machine.  You can also wash the same load twice but that adds to the wear and tear on your linen and reduces linen life.