Silly question around here really but...
Washing machine about 10 years old, been hammered a bit (2 young kid etc). Already had a new doorseal (thanks to guidance from this group). Been repaired "professionally" twice. Still stops occasionally mid cycle and refuses to open the door, when it does spills 50 litres of water and washing into the garage.
Is it time to replace or is this symptomatic of a stupid thing like a sensor or something?
Tony
Could be something simple. Could be the programmer, I suppose. Either way, it could cost a lot to find out!
If you can DIY it or get it repaired cheaply, I certainly wouldn't throw it away just because it's 10 years old. Our current machine (Zanussi) must be getting on for 20. We replaced the previous one (Hoover) after about 10 years - but that was because the casing was rusting badly as a result of excessive exposure to nappy fluid - rather than mechanical failure.
Incidentally, most machines - when they stop mid-cycle or fail to pump out for some reason - can be emptied with very little spillage by unclipping the output hose from the back and pulling it down into a bowl.
Try cleaning out the pump and associated pipework, probably coins in pump.
Or socks: had a few cases where toddler's socks got into the lint-catching filter (unscrewable from the front on our Bosch machine) and once where one got stuck in the rubber funnel which connects between the outer drum and the pump etc pipework. Also had a case where the machine filled and filled until water reached and gushed out of the soap dispenser, due to blockage in the branch of rubber pipework from this funnel bit to the pressure switch which senses the level of water in the drum. A thorough cleanout of the gunge in this funnel+pipework area sorted it.
-- John Stumbles
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-+ The astronomer married a star
Our old Whirlpool started to stop mid-cycle and it turned out to be the programmer. Not stop exactly - it got stuck on whatever it was doing when the programmer cut out.
I got a reconditioned exchange unit from some place I forget, but will dig out the details if you need them. ISTR it cost about £35 for our model. Took a day to fit it though! The programmer had an insane number of wires atached to it - getting on for 100 I think. Frightening just to look at and contemplate meddling with. Labelling them all up with the terminal numbers took the morning. Reassembling the ball of spaghetti round the new programmer took most of the afternoon. I was skint but had time on my hands so it was worth it. Otherwise...
W.
young kid etc).
group). Been
cycle and
water and washing
like a sensor
coins in
I'd expect socks and the like to be a showstopper; coins seem to cause the "occasional mid program stop" symptom. Often advancing the controller by hand can get it going for a few washes. I'm guessing a partial blockage slows the emptying enough to confuse the logic.
The Hoover w/m I have owned have had water level sensors with a tube going to the bottom of the drum. The tube sometimes gets blocked and needs cleanng out. This causes a mid cycle stop.
Michael Chare
My 1997 Whirlpool used to stop mid-flow but it just needed a manual advance to the next click on the program. When we moved it to another house we noticed the floor underneath was soaking wet, so obviously leakage, and after some exploration with a torch and some kitchen roll I discovered the hose that goes from the powder hopper to the drum had split and was dripping. £7 later and it's all fixed again.
There's nowt complicated in a 10 year old washer, and looking at our Dyson there's nowt complicated in that either apart from the contra-rotation gears. I'd be inclined to examine the pipes first for blockage like others have suggested.
You haven't said whether you can manually advance the programmer or not, but even if it's a computerised one there'll be a way of nudging it on - I was concerned with ours that if it decides to stop we've got no way of doing that, but you can switch it on with (I think) the spin button pressed to start Test mode which lets you go through all the cycles by pressing spin.
-- cheers,
witchy/binarydinosaurs
There are two appraoches here - its teh same with cars as well.
Buy new, buy cheap, and sell after warranty expires.
Buy good, keep forever, and maintain until so obsolete that not worth repairing anymore.
Its hard to get a decent quality machine these days tho. Unless you like disassembling and fixing, buy a cheap new one, flog the guts out and sell it after two years.
Precisely. What is your time worth?
Be ruthless in cost benefit analysis of all home tasks.
Cost to get a man in to replace a single screw - 50 quid? Cost of you to go down to shed, rummage arond and find similar screw - in my case problay an hour elapsed time, and a 25 mile round trip at 30p a mile, say 7.50 plus and hur of my time - say 30 quid 37.50. Cost of doing same if you already have the screw? 5p?
I would expect to dismantle and thoroughly clean and fix a washing machine is several elapsed hours, plus the cost of locating and purchasing spares. OTOH if you online ordfer a new one, it will be delivered to your door, the old one removed and the new one sntalled with less than an hours effort on your part.
Your choice.
In article , The Natural Philosopher writes
Yes, but you forget two things:
1) this is uk.d-i-y2) the satisfaction from fixing something yourself is often well worth the time you have had to put into it - and you have learnt something about how the widget works.
Repaired... 10 mins. Cable tie holding the filler hose had snapped. High quality stuff obviously!
Cheers
And you where going to scrap and buy a new machine just because a 2p cable tie had given up the ghost. Mind you I bet that there are hundreds of domestic appliances that are heaved into the back of dust carts every day with similar simple faults. What a waste of resources...
Option 3: buy good quality second hand, a couple of years old. Now you get good quality goods at a fraction of the price of cheap new ones.
Our society has gone bonkers with newness disease, and used goods are an all time bargain. Its easy to get stuff thats as good as new very very cheaply.
Regards, NT
Should all be collected up and given a look over and fixed if possible then sold to the vultures on Ebay. ;-)
Mark S.
There is always a silver lining though!
1: Keeps the dustcart people in work. 2: Keeps the supply chain in work. 3: Keeps the manufacturer in work.Downside:
4: Keeps one or more sales people in work.PoP
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But none of those are plus points. If all the work involved in manufacturing and disposing of domestic appliances were halved, half the employees would be available to do more useful work, some of the stuff we actually do need doing. Short term there'd be job changes, and as always some would win some would lose, but in the long run we'd be much better off for it.
You only need to look at practically every example of this happening through history to see that society becomes better off.
Re the scrapping of decent kit, its a crazy system. A significant percentage of the stuff doesnt have anything at all wrong with it. Maybe local authorities could have a warehousing area where folks can come along and buy stuff for say 2 weeks before it gets landfilled. Theyd need to emlpoy a safety tester. I gather some tips do this to some extent, but all should, its just silly to bury such stuff. We live in a society where most folk are victims to advertising, and believe they should buy things, throw them away and buy them again. A bit of education wouldnt go amiss.
Regards, NT
Have you seen what a standard refuse collection truck does to a washing machine? Not much resale value after that treatment. B-)
It's probably down to our remoteness and abscence of a local tip that the dust cart takes *anything* from white goods to sofas along with the black bags.
And another collection system, though I think they have a legal requirement to collect fridge/freezers etc now to recover the CFC's. Doesn't stop old fridges etc getting lobbed into the back of our dust carts and crushed though...
I was about to comment that this doesn't happen.....
.....and then I read the rest of your reply :)
Around these parts (we live in an estate like most civilised folks) you get one green bin picked up each week. Anything more, tough. You are supposed to take it down the tip.
If it's a washing machine or similar that you can't dispose of then you pay the council for them to send a truck out - usually a small flatbed transit or similar.
PoP
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I used to do PAT testing for such a project. Biggest problem technically was cookers, most of which will not pass an insulation test. Occasionally it's just a faulty ring, but usually all the internal wiring is leaking, I suspect due to damp and grease infiltrating the woven high temp insulation used.
But the real problem is cultural, not technical. Those who can least afford it are the worst for having a real hangup about second hand or "old" stuff. They'd rather sign up for years of repayments they can't afford than accept a cheap s/h item even if it's immaculate.
I used to live in a rundown scheme, and I never bought a washing machine. There was a regular supply of immaculate units left lying in the common access areas when they developed small faults. If it was better than the one I had, I'd whip it in and fix it.
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