SOT: washing machine

I suppose some delicate fabrics might not like long term immersion in hot water. But normally the programme wont proceed if the water level sensor is not satisfied. possibly the worst case would be water failure during washing as the content would sit un-rinsed until first rinse water is available.

Worse is loss of power as modern machines lose where they are in the programme and can only be started from scratch with manual intervention whereas an old mechanical programmer would restart with no problems.

Thanks. I thought the claim about 'damage to my flat' was an exaggeration.

Would this involve 'rinse and drain' then starting again, possibly with new detergent depending on the stage of the interruption?

automatics have always coped with loss of water supply

depends on design of machine

I doubt it, and it will go cold

no chance of that

if the machine is not designed to remember, yes. The one here remembers & continues.

NT

The general rule is that CMOS and cams remember. But I could believe that modern smart machines might well try to recover with minimum damage to contents by draining and then running a rinse and drain cycle.

Some modern machines are fine, mine will happily work with an external time switch.

Chris

Well my Panasonic stops if the pressure drops when its going to do a fill, then it waits and bleeps a bit, then it pumps the water out but does not spin and I'm told displays an error on the lcd, but that is lost on me. Its only ever happened once. I assume that the draining is a safety feature, so by definition when the water comes back on one supposes you have to reset the program and the powder/softener if its used it and do it all again. Brian

Thanks, everyone. It sounds like my neighbour's workmen cutting the water off once in a blue moon is nothing to worry about. Glad I didn't join the argument as I have now met the new neighbours and they are very nice, and my other neighbour likes to rant a lot. I may be looking for alliances in the future social dymanics of the building!

The thing is, surely the two premises do not share one stopcock do they? I have a water meter and its in the footway under the pavement, so I would assume that most premises use this approach. There is always a stop c*ck for the one dwelling where the meter is, so how you get to cut others off is a little bit odd. I do have a friend who is supplied from a bore hole in Wales and this can be affected by a farmer down the line using a lot of water, but its right out in the sticks somewhere. Brian

Actually, historically all eight flats shared the same stopcock (or toby as we called it) under the pavement near the common entry. Over the years, it has been considered best practice to install an individual valve for each flat when opportunity arises.

Electricity is not dissimilar. The three phase supply enters the building with a triple fuse box in the common close. One phase goes to three flats. Second phase goes to three flats. The third phase goes to two flats (making a total of eight). In the next close the

Our last house a 1957 semi shared a single supply with next door a pipe came up our drive round the back of the house with a branch off to the kitchen and what was originally a wash house before proceeding next door to do the same. My neighbour on the other side lived in what was originally a vicarage and discovered he had a water supply branching from his that ran across the side garden to supply the first in a row of cottages, turned out it was originally the servents quarters. He had an interesting waste water system consisting of a trench lined in the bottom with slate tiles, two side walls built either side and covered over with more slate tiles. Fortunetly this sewer ran fairly straight so when he re-did the underground drainage he was able to push plastic down it directly into the main sewer in the road something like 20m.

Richard

I've seen houses where a dozen of them share a single stopcock. I can only assume none have ever been cut off for nonpayment!

NT

As regular readers will know, we shared our stopcock with the brothel in the back garden. One day we came home to no water - they hadn't paid their bill and the water company didn't realise it was shared.

Did the girls at least have a packet of wet-wipes then?

Seriously though, your water can't be turned off for non payment can it?

They also weren't letting anyone in to read the meter. And they had no letterbox!