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Over the past 50 years, home laundry washing machines in the U.S. have traditionally been vertical axis (VA) deep fill machines with center post agitators. Most VA washers suspend the clothes in a tub of water for washing and rinsing, which typically requires about 150 L (40 gal) of water for each load. The conventional VA washer meets the consumers’ needs of cleaning a clothes load, but consumes a substantial quantity of water and energy. As a result of government mandates to reduce energy usage and through industry competition, laundry products have significantly improved their energy efficiency over the past ten years. The majority of U.S. appliance manufacturers now offer high efficiency (HE) clothes washers. These machines are two basic types: 1) horizontal axis (HA) design (also called front-loading machines) in which the clothes load tumble through a small bath of water rather than being immersed in a tub of water as is conventionally done with most VA washers or 2) a modified VA design in which low-post or no-post agitators are used with spray wash and spray rinses. These HE washers use significantly less water and estimates have shown that these washers use approximately 20-66% of the water consumed by a conventional VA washer.