Washing machine door won't open

[Nick]

This afternoon an elderly neighbour telephoned to ask for help. Her washing machine door would not open. I know they have electromechanical door locks but haven't got involved with them for many a year. The machine is a Hotpoint Aquarius of some desc., about 2 years old. Nipped round to have a look. Filled with washing & no sign of standing water. She said that she had run the cycle twice, in case that would help. No lights showing on control panel. I turned the control knob to 'pump out' (or similar) and pressed the power button. Lights on the dashboard and it started to pump. A couple of minutes later there was a click & I opened the door. I can only presume that she had pressed the power button to off between end of cycle and time delayed door release.

Am I right in this or is it a sign of impending problems?

Thanks, Nick.

[Gordon Henderson]

Possibly a sign of impending problems with your elderly neighbour... ?

Gordon

[Bob Minchin]

Normally the door lock is a thermal timer that heats up to lock when power is applied by asking the machine to do anything then when power is removed, it cools and opens a couple of mins later. So once the machine has been static for a while it should be openable

It is just possible that newer electronically programmed machines might just do the door lock in software but the old thermal ones are cheap and reliable and usually fail safe and I would not expect them to have been changed in latest machines.

[Mr Pounder Esquire]

On ours if I want to abort a washing cycle I press and hold the power button in for about 20 seconds. Dunno if that helps.

[Michael Chare]

With my Hoover washing the problem was caused by the machine not emptying itself properly because the elderly water pump no longer delivered enough flow.

[Tim+]

Good point. It would be well worth checking the pump filter for buttons, coins, hair grips etc. in case the pump is just struggling to pump out in its normal allotted time.

Tim

[Thomas Prufer]

Very, very occasionally I have had this type of lock not open when cold (once on mine, and once someone else's in a newsgroups). A gentlish thump on the machine next to the lock and it opens...

Thomas Prufer

[Brian-Gaff]

Sometimes they can get stuck and do kind of get out of sync with the programs. I would watch it and see if it does it again. I have a feeling they are on a time delay, but it could just as easily be that the part that should have finished the job did not action for some reasons. Was it one of the mechanical programmers as they can and do get stuck, but surely not after just two years unless this person washes the kit for a team of footballers every day !

Brian

[Adam Funk]

Do you mean "fail *safe*" in the sense that they fail locked (safe in some sense, but annoying) or that they fail open?