For five years I used exactly two settings on my washing machine: Normal and Start. I did not know what the other buttons did. I did not care. Then I shrunk a cashmere sweater into something that would fit a toddler and my wife made me read the manual.

Turns out most people use maybe three of the dozen settings on their machine. And two of the settings you are ignoring would fix the problems you complain about: clothes that do not get clean, clothes that wear out too fast, and the permanent musty smell in your front-loader.

Cold water for almost everything

Hot water cleans better for greasy stains and sanitizing, but modern detergent is designed for cold water. Cold prevents colors from bleeding, reduces shrinking, uses less energy, and is gentler on fabric. Use cold for everyday laundry. Reserve hot for towels, bedding, and heavily soiled work clothes where you actually need the sanitizing effect.

Warm water is the middle ground that nobody needs. It does not sanitize like hot and does not preserve fabric like cold. I used warm for everything until I learned this and my clothes lasted noticeably longer after switching to cold.

The clean washer cycle

Front-loading washers have a rubber gasket around the door that traps water, and that water breeds mold. You smell it as soon as you open the door. Running the clean washer cycle (sometimes labeled “Tub Clean” or “Self Clean”) with a washer cleaning tablet or a cup of bleach once a month eliminates that smell completely.

Also: leave the door open between loads. The drum needs to dry out. A closed washer door is a mold incubator. If you have a front-loader and it smells, this is almost certainly why.

Load size matters for cleaning, not just capacity

An overloaded washer cannot clean properly because clothes need room to move through the water and detergent. The drum should be about three-quarters full when loaded loosely not packed in. Overloading also unbalances the machine during the spin cycle, which wears out the bearings over time.

Under-loading is wasteful but not harmful. If you are washing a single delicate item, use the small load or delicate setting which uses less water and a gentler agitation pattern.