To quieten a washing machine?

[Mike Halmarack]

I have a washing machine on a concrete floor in my upstairs flat that I want to quieten so that I can use it at night when power is less expensive. It's currently inserted into a built in cupboard gap with an inch to spare at the top and an inch each side. I'm hoping to be able to add rubber feet or a mat and perhaps also some stiff foam sheets at the top and sides to further reduce vibration. Lifting the machine out and more trickily lifting it in again after adding rubber feet or mat is going to be my main problem.

I already have simple dolly rollers but I'm looking for something slightly more useful to lift and lower the machine. I've seen some expensive air lift devices on YouTube but I'm sure I've seen a much simpler mechanical device in the past that slightly jack up the appliance as well as rolling it but I can't seem to find one anywhere.

Any advice on the various aspects of this job would be most welcome.

[Thomas Prufer]

"door lifter" or "furniture lifter"?

Thomas Prufer

[Mike Halmarack]

Hope I'm not being a bit thick here but the lifters I've found recently seem to lift one edge of an object, then a roller device is shoved under each of 2 raised corners. This seems ok for some object out in the open but not so good for something that is fairly tightly boxed in. I'm sure that in the past I've seen something like a simple, low level forklift type device which rolls under the entire base of the machine then can be jacked up with a foot operated lever. Can't seem to find one though.

[Brian Gaff]

I had this issue a while back and mentioned it here. In the end careful placement of its feet seemed to do the trick, but of course if a load does get off centre at spin time no amount of work is going to stop it, the forces are too great. Brian

[Robin]

I've managed to move ours over the past 40 years by sliding 2 old sheets of laminate under the feet, then the w/m out on them. I should perhaps have developed the idea commercially since you can now buy slides for the same job - eg

NB you do need to be able to rock the machine to get them under the feet. Used to be simple and easy by hand. Now I sometimes use a plank to lever under the case.

[Theo]

If you already have a dolly, perhaps you could use air bags as used for lifting doors:

Slide the dolly under, inflate the airbags to transfer the weight onto the dolly, pull out the machine.

You can also use those airbags to lift corners to add wheels or other devices underneath (although harder at the back of the machine).

There also seem to be hovercraft-type devices, but not cheap:

Theo

[Michael Chare]

I have some thin strips of wood on each side between the washing machine feet and the kitchen cabinets. They have stopped the washing machine from moving.

[Joe]

Does it have any built-in wheels or rollers? Some appliances have rollers at the back, so only the front needs to be lifted. Considering that washing machines are extremely heavy and almost always a close fit in a fitted kitchen, they should be more common. Only fridges and freezers need fairly careful levelling and hence at least three screw-in feet.

I can recall a gas cooker that had rear rollers and a pull-out lever under the front edge which put down rollers there.

One of my furniture-moving kits does have something like a tiny forklift, plus a few dollies. I lost the box long ago. I think it's something like this, though it's not obvious how to get the rear dollies in place for a built-in item.

[Mike Halmarack]

It's not that this machine clatters about or is excessively noisy, except perhaps a bit on final spin. It's just that I may want to run it in the middle of the night and noise is not allowed between 23:00 and 08:00. I can normally hear the washing machine in the flat above and would consider this noise at certain times.

[Mike Halmarack]

I've been considering this but was wondering that if the drum was vibrating a lot and the rest of the machine couldn't roll with the punches, whether this might be potentially damaging.

[Mike Halmarack]

Great reply thanks. And simple enough for me to understand.

[Mike Halmarack]

I'll dig my dollys out and see if an airbag would slide between the bed of the dolly and bottom of the washing machine.

[Mike Halmarack]

I'll lift the front and give it a pull. It might have wheels at the back. Thanks

[Michael Chare]

Our machine does not try to move that much. It may of course depend on home much we normally put in.

[John Rumm]

Air bag lifters can be handy for making space to get other things in:

[Animal]

BTDT. The most efective approach didn't use anything under the feet.

[Thomas Prufer]

Some machines have a "no final spin" setting...

If yours does, you might wash at night, and spin in the morning?

Thomas Prufer

[alan_m]

Isn't that to do more with which wash cycle you select? For instance, a delicate setting may have no spin in the cycle but then the rest of wash may not be ideal for everyday use.

As a side issue, I'm currently in the market for a new machine and some of the early like for like candidates have been crossed off the list ruled out because of labelling on the controls. For instance, the Hoover brand seems to have abandoned words in English in favour of a dozen or so meaningless icons for the program selection. They seem to be part of the same group that make Haier which have labelled all the programs in readable English.

[Mike Halmarack]

The penny just dropped on this one. Ta muchly.

[Thomas Prufer]

I had a Siemens that had an explicit "no final spin" setting that ISTR would defer the final spin until a button press (or one had to set the machine to a dedicated spin cycle and manually started that -- I forget).

Useful for things that benefit from being taken out immediately after the spin to reduce wrinkling.

Thomas Prufer