Washing machine smell

Butterfly_Brain

Snorkypants wrote: »

Thanks Rainy-Days, I tried this last night and it seems to have done the trick. I did a 90 degree wash with a little bleach followed by a 40 degree wash with a load of bicarb in the drum and white vinegar in the draw (I fount that bit of advice online).


My washing machine didn't smell after that so I did a wash load this morning and the washing machine still smells fine and the washing smelt good too.


I won't make the mistake of using liquid detergent again!

Please be careful, NEVER mix bleach and vinegar, you will get chlorine gas and it will kill you

Snorkypants

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Please be careful, NEVER mix bleach and vinegar, you will get chlorine gas and it will kill you

Thanks, I did read you shouldn't mix them but didn't find out why - it's good to have the info here. I did the vinegar in a separate wash so they weren't mixed. I was guesstimating that the machine would be totally free of bleach before the vinegar got into the drum as I had put the vinegar in the conditioner bit of the drawer on the second wash.


So the bleach was hopefully washed out on the first wash, but as a back up there was more water pushed through in the second wash before the vinegar would have come out of that draw towards the end of the second wash.


We're still alive so I think my guesstimate was right! Either that or I'm a ghost and just haven't noticed yet...that sounds like the start of a film....


I've put your message in big red letters to make sure other readers of the thread spot it.

Shrimply

I don't know, but I kind of suspect that unless you mix substantial quantities of bleach and vinegar in the machine drum and stuck your head in you are probably going to be OK.

I don't think for a minute that using bleach in a main wash and then vinegar as the fabric softener will result in enough of the two combining to create dangerous amounts of chlorine gas.

Baring in mind that bleach can give off chlorine gas all by itself. If it was that dangerous at low volumes it would be banned altogether.

And products that contain oxygen bleach, such as washing powders, used regularly will keep things smelling clean and are much safer to combine with vinegar etc.

Butterfly_Brain

My husband is a B.I.C.Sc member and he knows of many instances where a cleaner has died when mixing toilet cleaner with bleach

FluffityBunny

have you checked the filter, could be full of mouldy fluff and goo.

Purple_kitten

Wilko's and others. do a "service it", I think it's Dr Beckmanns we run one through the washing machine every few weeks as we do have a lot of animal bedding to go through.

Make sure you get the liquid one rather than powder though, it's far superior, I think it's in slightly longer packaging in comparison to the powder.

zippychick

this older thread may help or this one on cleaning a washing machine

let us know what works

Zip