While doing laundry and keeping your clothes clean is a necessary chore, it can often be a big part of your overall energy bill. And while most clothes are good to clean in temperatures between 30 and 60 degrees, it can be confusing to know the difference between all of the different programmes.

To help, one doctor appeared on the BBC Morning Live to share what temperatures you should wash your clothes in for different benefits, including how you can use the programs to your advantage to slash your energy usage between 40 and 60%.

Alexander Gerald van Hoogenhouck-Tulleken, better known as Dr Xand, is a doctor and TV presenter. He’s best known for presenting the CBBC children’s series Operation Ouch!

Appearing on the BBC Morning Show, he went on to urge people to think twice before starting their normal washing machine programme when doing laundry.

“The hottest your washing machine will go is 90 degrees usually, and that will kill everything. It’s almost boiling it, it’s bad for the clothes. It’s very expensive,” he explained. “Whatever’s happened to those clothes, I think you’ve got to get new clothes at that point.”

Moving to a slightly lower and more common temperature, he continued: “At 60 degrees, certain bugs will be killed and that can be quite good.”

He went on to say that this is a good temperature to wash things in if you have viruses and illnesses going around.

“So if you’ve got an infection going around your house, particularly think of something like Norovirus. Put it up at 60. Along with the mechanical cleaning and the detergent. That’s quite good,” he said as it will help prevent the spreading of the viruses.

While most people will be washing their items in 40 degree cycles, Dr Xand revealed that he saw ‘no point’ in this temperature, especially because it’s often expensive.

“It’s too hot to be cheap and it’s too cold to kill anything. Commit to one or the other, or either go hot or go cold,” he told viewers before urging them to drop the temperature by just 10 degrees.

“30 degrees, that gets the job done. It is much cheaper,” Dr Xand explained. “So going from 40 to 30 saves you almost 40% in energy costs. It’s quicker. Make sure you get a lower temperature detergent.”

However, Dr Xand said he’d gone one step further as he claimed he washed ‘everything’ on 20 degree cycles in order to save some money.

“I’ve got to say, I’m a 20 degrees guy for everything except my workout clothes which go in hotter. 20 degrees saves 62% of your money compared to 40 degrees. So that is a big deal,” he said.

A test done by Which? showed that while clothes clean after a 20 degree cycle, the cleaning power was ‘slightly worse’ compared to cleaning in 30 or 40 degrees. However, they found that switching to a liquid detergent helped, and went on to say that it should still be enough for everyday cleaning.

However, if you’ve decided you want to start to wash your clothes in lower temperatures, Dr Xand went on to explain that it means it’s becoming even more important to keep your washing machine clean and cleaning it regularly to get all the germs and dirt away.

He explained that he often puts the detergent tray in the washing machine as it can be ‘a nuicance’ to clean by hand. This will help prevent and get rid of any mould that likes to grow on it.

“And then mechanical cleaning of the drum, just a cloth, some vinegar. Wiping is really good,” he said. “And if your machine has a cleaning cycle which runs at a high temperature, do that according to the manufacturer’s instructions and then air it out.”