Washing routine-What's wrong with mine?

[mammacandoit]

I have cloth diapered all of my kids. However, either my water, soap, or my LO pee makes the most raunchy diapers ever. I mean awful. I have been using bleach in every load (about 1T) or they won't get clean otherwise. Sometimes I even have to wash twice. I have stripped and stripped too.
Lately, my routine is this:

Dry bucket
on wash day, soak all diapers overnight with bleach & soap (I let it agitate about 10 minutes first).
Drain next day.
Wash on cold with soap & bleach.
Smell
Possibly wash again.

Because I have a hot water boiler heat system, my water is heated much more slowly then with a hot water heater.....but since it's free I'm not complaining. But I wonder if maybe the diapers aren't getting clean because I'm washing on cold during the day? I just can't wash on hot because it will take all the hot water for a few hours.
I have also wondered if it's my soap, so I bought a different brand today.
We have regular brands of detergent at our store....nothing special. I have been using some "eco" brand from walmart. Is that a bad brand?
Please help me figure this crap out (pun intended )

[parterasd]

Try hot with tide original powder, if you need to stick with something from your store.. No soak. Cold prerinse, hot wash, two cold rinses.

[s@hmommy]

I wouldn't soak them overnight, I think the bleach can wreak havoc if left for too long. It could be your detergent, I would first try using more and I use around 1/4 cup bleach in nearly every load of diapers. We had stink issues for a while and more soap and adding bleach fixed it. Do they need to soak overnight? If I have a super nasty one I usually soak it in a bucket by itself overnight, but the pee ones i don't bother.

[parterasd]

Oh I misunderstood. You can't wash hot? What if you wash hot at an odd hour when you don't need hot water?

[mammacandoit]

I've just noticed that if I don't soak, then they really stink. what do you think the bleach would do to the diapers? Besides....1/4 cup vs 1 tbs is a big difference. I wonder about the soap. I looked and it's ECOS FREE AND CLEAR.

[mammacandoit]

Originally Posted by parterasd Oh I misunderstood. You can't wash hot? What if you wash hot at an odd hour when you don't need hot water?

I wondered that too....like if I washed at night. However, if I do this, then I obviously won't be able to soak.

I've also wondered if it's because my diaper bucket has a sealed, closed lid. Otherwise, hubs gets pretty irritable about the diaper smell.
Thoughts on this?

[mammacandoit]

why no soak?

[mammacandoit]

I could order some soap if that's the problem....what does everyone use?

[mamatoclaire]

Rather than putting them in to soak overnight I would just wash them on hot, start it before you go to bed then using the hot water shouldn't be an issue. I've also read not to use plant-based detergent so depending on what your eco friendly detergent is that might be an issue. And how much detergent do you use? I wash with Sun free. It's cheap and it works, I use a half a cap full.

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[mamatoclaire]

Originally Posted by mammacandoit I wondered that too....like if I washed at night. However, if I do this, then I obviously won't be able to soak. I've also wondered if it's because my diaper bucket has a sealed, closed lid. Otherwise, hubs gets pretty irritable about the diaper smell. Thoughts on this?

I just think washing on hot will be more effective than soaking. You need the hot water to kill the bacteria.

I use a regular trash can with no lid and have no smell issues.

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