I have just had a repairman tell me that my self-installed standpipe is too low and causes the washing machine to stick on a fill-cycle. His explanation, which was obviously what he has been taught, is that the water enters the machine, fills the drainpipe at the back, which rises to reach into the standpipe, and as soon as it reaches the top of the drain, it spills over and starts 'siphoning' - which he immediately associated with siphoning petrol ("not that I have ever done that" he pointed out) My problem is - the fault is very interrmittent. On a rinse- cycle it lets water in, and as soon as the level/pressure is great enough, it should stop the intake, and move on to the next cycle. When the fault occurs, the drum does not even start to fill before the water is escaping down the standpipe, and it keeps on like that for hours, or until it is knocked-on. For the water to reach the top of the standpipe to spill-over, there has to be pressure behind it, and if the drum level is low or empty, that pressure can only come from the inlet, and assumes that something is stopping the inflow from getting to the drum, so it carries on to the outlet. He tried to 'fix' the fault by raising the U-bend over the standpipe from the recommended minimum (60cm) to 85cm - near the maximum of 90cm - just under the worksurface, saying that he was confident that would do it. On the first test, it was still spilling over, so he told me that it was probably because it was still too low, and it was all the fault of the 'installation' of the standpipe (ie not his problem). If I replaced the standpipe with a longer one, it would cure it. I tried to get him to explain the difference between raising the drainpipe as he had done, and increasing the height of the standpipe, and he tried to tell me all about siphoning again. Young folk today! He was also careful to get me to sign his paperwork _before_ filling in what he had done (I didn't notice the blanks) so that "standpipe to low" (sic) went in after I had signed! Damn! Also there was a blank box saying "tick this box if you don't want your details passed to third parties" double-damn!
- posted
18 years ago