In article ,
Si $3o&m writes:

To clear more space in our kitchen I'm moving the washing machine into
the lean-to. The lean-to already has a cold water supply.

I've always used hot and cold fill but I'm thinking that because the
gas-heated water comes from the hot water tank upstairs and is heated by
the boiler downstairs, the long pipe runs probably make this an
unnecessary & inefficient option given that modern washing machines use
so little water for the washing cycles anyway.

What do people think?

You are right in most cases. Indeed, manufacturers have
been removing the hot fill from more recent models.
Because modern detergents need a profiled temperature
wash, the initial fill mustn't be hot, so very little
hot was used anyway and most of the heating is done
inside the machine gradually.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]