smelly washing machine

[Trevor Smith]

A friend of mine's washing machine has started to smell like a stagnant pond which is strange as she uses it at least twice a day and always leave the door open when she has finished with it. I have checcked and there is a trap on the waste pipe which rules out smells from the drain coming up the pipe, also there appears to be black mould in the aperture where the soap dispencer goes. We both at a loss to think whats causing this and wonder if any of you knowledgeable people can think of anything. Regards Trevor Smith

[ben]

Her husbands underpants?

The smell is prolly coming from the soap tray as these never get cleaned regular by many women.

Take the soap tray out and give it a thorough cleaning(should be done regulary), also if you can take the pump out and clean that as well...I have known all manner of objects to get caught in the pump even when it's supposed to have a filter on it.

[RedOnRed]

We always seem to get the black mould as well.

In order to remove it you should use an anti-bacterial cleaner and gloves. You should be a bit careful as the mould can pose a small health risk to some people.

You could also try running the machine at its maximum temperature for one wash to try and flush it out.

[Bob Smith (UK)]

ISTR bacteria are usually to blame for smells. Try something anti-bacterial (demestos multisurface cleaner, dilute bleach) to kill the buggers. Bleach should also kill the black mould.

Bob

[Bob Eager]

Soap residue etc. caused by only ever doing cool washes. Try a really hot wash or three, just add soap and no clothes.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Bleach will damage many of the plastics used in washing machines. All that's required is to wash the old fabric conditioner residue out of the soap dispensor and drawer runners.

[ben]

Wow! I didn't know that? I clean anything plastic that is dirty or has ingressed grease or dirt, so I beg to differ.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Bleach makes some plastics go brittle. Sometimes you won't notice, but that would be particularly bad for a washing machine outer drum, given the very high stresses on it during operation.

Bleach doesn't clean things, it just makes some types of dirt invisible. (Some bleach preparations will also have detergent and/or salt in them which will perform the cleaning, depending on the nature of the dirt.)

[ben]

Now your going of the track...we are talking about cleaning the soap tray which has nothing to do with the internal outer drum, and the drum is not made of plastic, it's fiberglass.

Your talking bollock's Man.

[Ian Stirling]

Well, yes. What do you think is around the glass fibers? It's not pixie dust.

[Rob Morley]

Hint - the P in GRP stands for plastic.

[GlintingHedgehog]

I recently had a very similar problem with my own washing machine. I wash almost everything in cold water, which was almost certainly at least part of the cause. A google search came up with a number of suggestions, so I took the ones that made most sense to me, and ran the empty machine through a hot water cycle with a bit of dishwasher detergent. (Given that dishwasher detergent is designed to remove dirt and crud from dishes, it made sense to me that it would do the same for bits of a dishwasher.) It took two cycles, but the smell was gone, and hasn't come back. HTH.

[Trevor Smith]

Aparently it only started smelling after she did a boil wash which she does not normally do, she will try the dishwasher cleaner and if that don't work we will strip the pump and pipes out and give them a good clean, thanks for your suggestions

[Bob Smith (UK)]

I thought washing powder had bleach in it, except the "colour saving" varieties.

Bob

[ben]

Hint - the P in GRP stands for Glassfibre Reinforced Polymers

[bigcat]

After you've boil washed, do a 2nd boil wash with citric acid, and preferably switch the power off once its reached bioling, and let it resume next morning. This is as thorough a descale as you can do with a washing machine, short of dismantling the machine.

The problem is normally a combination of muck scum bacteria moulds and limescale. Detergents are physically blocked from getting at much of the muck by the limescale, and dont affect limescale. Equally the muck blocks the citric from getting to all the scale, but alternating them every now and then steadily strips it down. Ideally one should do such a pair of boils every couple of months.

NT

[Andy Dingley]

I find this unlikely (although not impossible).

Yes, there are plastics that will suffer from contact with bleach. But who's going to specify those for the insides of a _washing_machine_ ?

My Hotpoint manual for one specifically states, "if smelly, run bleach through it on a hot empty wash".

IMHE (which is getting more extensive in recent weeks, not that I want it to) there are four places to get smells inside a washing machine: the soap dispenser tray, the bottom of the door seal, the pressure bottle/pump area (especially on a Zanussi) and finally the outlet hose into the drain stack.

Use some measure of common sense to go at all of them. Bleach for starters, toilet cleaner for more poke on thick scum buildups, and toilet limescale shifter for fecking Zanussis that lose track of their level sensing (a hideous design and impossible to clean easily).

[Owain]

That's good enough for me :-)

Owain

[Doctor Evil]

How much bleach?

[Rob Morley]

Yeah right.