Washing machine smells mouldey

financegirl

HI can anyone help?

After I put a wash in the machine it smells damp. I have checked to see if there's no water stuck in the seal and have run it on a hot wash of 90 degrees with washing powder.

I don't know why it smells - can anyone advsie what to do .

Thanks in advance

Ebe_Scrooge

Sounds like you've checked the obvious things - water in the seal is a favourite. Is the waste pipe emptying properly ?

It's also worth removing the soap dispenser drawer and giving it a good scrub with bleach & hot water, also wipe out as much gunge as you can from the place where it slots into the machine.

Try a hot wash ( empty ) with a bit of bicarbonate of soda in the machine, this should help freshen it up.

Bungarm2001

Have you tried cleaning out the filter? It usually smells pretty bad if you leave it a while. It's something people don't think of (including me!)

bookduck

there is another thread like yours a few months back, might be worth a search.

The question is do you ever do a hot wash? Is the smell on the inside, or when the water pumps out? If the answer it no, to the hot wash, then every month or 6 do the hottest wash with no items in the machine. Don't use powder for this wash, but washing soda. Put about 4 cups of the soda in the machine and put some more of the soda where the soap dispenser is.

If it when the water pumps out, then at worst the micro bateria sludge build up may mean you need a new hose

coolagarry

Lots of ideas here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=80598&highlight=washing+machine+smells

bailey_kc

I used to have this problem and no matter what I did I couldn't get rid of the smell. Then I read this article about using soda crystals in every wash to reduce the amount of laundry detergent needed. So in every wash I add half a cup of soda crystals (you can get a bag at all grocery stores and is cheap) to every single wash and I only have to use half the laundry detergent that I normally do. The point of all this is that about a week after I started doing this I noticed that the machine didn't smell at all. I also find that the clothes smell better too. Six months later the machine remains odourless. I think what it does is cleans out all the build-up from the soap that we use. Good luck!

bobinbognor

The smell is probably coming from bacterial growth. If you use a liquid detergent this is most likely the case. Liquid detergents do not use any bleach so germs live and grow in the dark and warm machine. Try running a wash with just some household bleach in it. This will kill off the germs and leave the machine nice and fresh. You couls also go back to powder detergent which has bleach in the formula.

Nile

coolagarry wrote: »

Lots of ideas here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=80598&highlight=washing+machine+smells

Hello financegirl

I posted in the thread that coolagarry gives in the above link:

We keep the door open and pull the dispenser drawer slightly open too when the machine is not in use, to give a constant air flow through the machine. Our Zanussi washing machine is 11 years old and has never been smelly/mouldy or broken down.;)


I'm pleased to report that our Zanussi washing machine is now almost 14 years old and still going strong, no smell or mould or break downs.:cool:

As above, my moneysaving tip (which costs you absolutely nothing) is, leave the machine door and soap dispenser drawer slightly open.;)

Regards

Nile