Product Review - ICMA Thermostatic Mixer

Product Review - ICMA Thermostatic Mixer

5 years ago I installed an ICMA thermostatic filter bought from a local RE supplier for about 70 Euros. I'm using this mixer to feed the washing machine (WM) since the model of the WM I have, lacked a hot water inlet. In fact most WMs only come with a cold water inlet and the internal heater is then used to warm/heat the washing water. In my case, I already had a 200 litre solar water tank, so it made perfect sense to use some of this hot water to feed directly into the WM. 

Just note that I do not feed very hot water to the WM simply because the machine's internal pipes might not handle the hot water. In fact I rarely go above 45°C - 50°C and if the washing load requires the temperature to be higher, I let the internal heater boost the temperature up. Having said this, the thermostatic mixer cannot go higher than 60°C so, to a certain extent, I'm protected against setting too high a temperature.

Benefits of this system are:

1) The WM's internal heater is used much less and therefore less electricity is consumed for a washing load.

2) The washing cycle time is greatly reduced since less (or no time) is spent waiting for the water to heat up.

3) In summer, I use the excess hot water from the hot water storage tank, thus relieving the pressure and stress from the system. Also, during the summer the demand for hot water is significantly less, so the hot water tank is left on a high temperature for an extended period thus causing stress on the various components.

For these last years the mixer has worked well. My only concern was that it would start to get stuck due to the impurities and hard water which we have here in Malta, something which has not happened.