Glue/cement to use?

[Harry Bloomfield]

Hotpoint Aquarius whasher/dryer which has developed a leak at the front corner, by the soap dispenser. I have traced it to the wide black rubber pipe, leading down from the soap dispenser, between the soap dispenser flange and the black pipe. Rather oddly - It doesn't leak on filling, but on spin when I guess water is thrown back up the pipe.

The black pipe is a soft plastic rubbery type of material fitting over a hard plastic spout on the soap dispenser. Both show signs of having been sealed or glued together in manufacture and the plastic spout looks as if whatever glue was used partially dissolved the plastic as in the cement used to join the old Airfix kits.

What glue should I use to repair it please?

[Harry Bloomfield]

Harry Bloomfield formulated the question :

I decided to fix that problem by binding it with thin galv steel wire, but it is still flooding on a fast spin, via the soap dispenser door - which means water is being thrown up the black pipe from the drum,, so my next question is....

WHY?

I've managed to remove the pipe at the drum and from what I can see there are baffles in the bottom end of the pipe and inside the spigot on the drum to prevent it flying back. All seems clean and baffles are moulded in. Water fill level is just nicely onto the lens of the glass door, so I don't think that's the problem.

....and no it is not the motor brushes :-)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Hotpoint spare parts are dirt cheap (compared with most other makes, and providing you don't choose a rip-off supplier). Just order a new one.

CPC is usually very good for Hotpoint spares, but you have to phone the order line (01772 654455) as most of their white goods spares are not online or in the catalogue, and even if you know the CPC part number, they can't be ordered online.

It's like a big centrifugal fan.

[Martin Pentreath]

problem about two weeks ago - one of the symptoms was a leak from the drawer. The filter (which is well hidden) was blocked, and when the machine tried to drain, water from the drum couldn't get out fast enough and was getting forced back up the small tube from the soap drawer that you're talking about. To get to the filter you need to take the back off the machine, and you'll find it inside the black rubber "funnel" (near the bottom) connected to the drain from the drum. Unscrew the large jubilee clip and inside there you'll find a plastic arrangement which is the filter. (It's a pretty awful design, having a filter that for any but the adventurous needs an engineer call-out to unblock).

Cheers!

Martin

[Steve Firth]

"Hotpoint"

[Weatherlawyer]

A blocked filter can throw off pipes due to the pressure. It's the first thing to check and never the first one to be checked.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Weatherlawyer expressed precisely :

My thanks to both. An after thought about the problem was that it perhaps didn't ought to be trying to spin with the drum still containing some water - the filter slowing down (but not stopping the water going out) might seem to be a logical cause. I had heard that there was a filter, but I have yet to actually find it.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Harry Bloomfield formulated on Saturday :

Spot on, thanks :D

2x bra extender thingummies, 2x wall plugs, 2x £1, 1x 20p, 5x 2p, 4x 1p and a mush of cardboard that might have had some bank note mixed in with it. All working fine now. Should anyone be suffering similar...

There is a plastic moulded panel at the bottom rear, held by two screws. Drain as much water as possible out of the machine first by lowering the drain hose and raising and propping up the rear to improve access. Then loosen the large jubilee clip to the right of the motor, to release the filter. The filter is in the large black flexible hose and once released simply pulls out.

[JimK]

start spinning til water level is appropriate....?

Cheers JimK

[Harry Bloomfield]

JimK presented the following explanation :

You would think so, but it seems not. It seems to just rely upon allowing enough time for the water to be pumped out, then starts the spin. It seems to have sensing of two levels only - which I assume are the water levels for a full load and the other for a part load. No sensing at all to prove there is no water in it.

The machine is out of the way in the utility room, so problems tend to go unnoticed. She has complained for several weeks that it had been flooding. I traced the flood to around the area of the soap dispenser so I wrongly assumed it was due to the fill water rushing in too quickly and restricted the flow - which did seem to cure it. Since then she has complained that it keeps stopping mid program, which had me assuming the machine was assuming the water level wasn't being achieved in a quick enough time. Readjusting the flow didn't seem to help and the stopping problem got worse.

Then it started to flood again this past couple of weeks as well as the stopping, so I thought I would take another look at it. I'm fairly convinced I have sorted the flooding, but I don't have an explanation for it stopping. Since cleaning the filter I ran it through several problem free cycles.

[spamlet]

stopped by surprisingly minor things (on our Electrolux they are easy to take apart and unclog though...- on a Hotpoint I recall it requiring flooding the kitchen to get at,)

Oh, and we found that Sainsburys green 'bio'sachets (put in the drum with the washing) made foam spew out of the 'soap dispenser' tray whether the filters were blocked or not. Some detergents are just different from others,

S

[Martin Pentreath]

Glad it worked out for you. In my case (where there were various other symptoms) I was all set to declare the machine past the end of its natural life and buy a new one until I found that well hidden filter rammed with five years worth of crud. Unfortunately my job was not so lucrative, I only came out of it with two corroded five pence pieces.