Smelly washing machine

[QueenofDreams]

Just looking for some tips:

My washing machine absolutely reeks. It has a horrible musty, damp smell to it that is just not going away.

Does anyone know how to get rid of this smell? It's making all my clothes smell as well

We have emptied the filter already, not sure what else to try.

.

hot wash with just a little soda cristals or bio washing powder.
leave the door wide open when mashine is not in use.

Thanks mousy will try that, although leaving the door wide open is difficult due to very narrow kitchen. Probably why it's gone musty in the first place!

I had that and was advised to do hot wash with white vinegar, and it worked.... and do try and leave the door open, even a little bit.

It can be because the waste pipe is pushed down too far so that it is touching the water in the U-bend iyswim. Pull the waste pipe out and if it is wet at the bottom then this is likely your problem. It can also be because of an unspeakable build-up of grey gunge in the waste pipe/u bend.

We treated the u-bend with some of those drain clear granules (nasty stuff - only to be used after pulling the hose all the way out) and we also pulled the waste pipe out a little so it wasn't touching the water.

It is about 90% better than it was, so I assume this did the trick. Before this I tried a boil wash on empty with bio powder more than once but this actually made the smell worse, we inherited this machine when we moved house and I'm afraid that once a ton of grey gunge has built up, little can remove it. I reckon the wash with soda crystals is good as a preventative measure.

I did a hot wash with some 'Zoflora' in it.

honesty oh god that's intimidating. I'm rather clueless about the anatomy of a washing machine But then so is DP.

Is this waste pipe round the back of the machine?

90 degree wash, clean filter.

If you use liquids rather than powders, they clog up the machine quicker and leave that nasty grey residue behind (and then the smell) so you need to do the hot wash thing regularly.

Okay, I'm not an expert so don't do anything based purely on my advice if in doubt. So, you will have a pipe coming out the back that on my machine looks like a vacuum hose, this will be different to the water input pipes as it will go into a drain that has a u-bend attached. Usually this waste pipe is just pushed into the drain but sometimes can be pushed in too far. Does that help?

I usually pour a tub of bicarb of soda into the washing machine and run it on the highest temperature setting without any clothes in. That usually does the trick.

We had a big problem caused by using washing liquid. Switched to powder tabs with no more problems, although you may need to do a clean out job first.

Oh thanks ladies - that might be it, we switched to liquids a few months ago having always used powders before.

honesty I will get DP to heave out the washing machine at the weekend (am pregnant, so don't think I can handle that at the moment )

Do you have hard water? I never had any bother till I moved to an area with v hard water, and got gunge, smells, etc.
I bought one of those anti-limescale balls (sorry, am not in the UK, not sure what they are called in English ) and put it in with each wash. Seems to do the trick.
Agree that liquids are worse for this than powders.

Like anonymous says, the liquid detergent is more likely to make your machine smelly. Our repair man said that we should use a tablet - just one, not the two the manufacturers recommend - and put it directly into the machine, not the drawer.

Has worked for us (and saves money).

You can get a washing machine cleaner from supermarkets just like you can for dishwashers. There's one called "affresh" tabs and there's another one I can't remember that's a liquid. Works really well.

Another vote for WHITE VINEGAR on a hot wash. We had a very smelly washing machine and it worked. Also, if you ever run out of conditioner white vinegar is a fantastic softener (must be WHITE, not malt) - and suprisingly, the clothes don't smell of vinegar. Fab on towels.

The other thing you can do is, after you have done a wash, dry off the rubber seal around the door.

You'll find water in there and it can become stagnant and smelly. Helps preserve the life of the seal too.

Then just leave the door open a little over night.

I never had any smell problems until I started using liquids and have gone back to powder now.

Well I read in a prima mag to run a hot wash with some viniger in it!!

this cropped up a couple of days ago

try

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/good_housekeeping/1040746-Random-smelly-items-after-washing

sorry, that link doesn't seem to work. I don't know if the Moderators would be kind enough to fix it. For now I paste below my earlier rersponse (I also agree about keeping the door and drawer open between washes to dry it out and prevent mould growth)

"the main cause is sludge, which moulders and festers and feeds bacteria and mould.
Be aware that bleach may kill the smelly bacteria for one day, it will not remove the soapy sludge they breed on.

Accumulation of soap powder and conditioner sludge inside the tub: This is caused by one or both of adding too much (twice what it says on the box will not get clothes twice as clean) or doing lots of cold or cool washes. To wash away the soapy sludge, do a HOT wash with whatever old cotton towels you can find but NO POWDER. If it foams up, you will know it is dissolving the old soap sludge. You can add washing soda if you want, this helps dissolve soap sludge.

Soapy sludge behind the powder drawer and in the filling pipe that runs down from it. Take the drawer out to clean. Black mildew is common here. Again it is caused by soapy sludge. You can kill the black mould using a kitchen cleaner with bleach, then remove the residue by scrubbing with a nylon washing-up brush and rinsing with hot water. If you can do a Hot Fill (many machines are cold fill only) it will help.

The Soapy Sludge problem can be reduced by using tablets or liquids.

Less often, there is a greasy sludge caused by clothes and towels that have skin cream, bath oil, baby lotion etc on them. I suppose it might also happen if you work in a chip shop or lard factory and wash your overalls. A hot wash with washing soda and Ariel Liquid will clean it off.

Hot water will wash away sludge, cold water won't.

The other cause of smelly washers is dirty water from the sink flowing down the drain hose, carrying fish heads, tea leaves, sour milk etc. This happens when the washer drain hose is attached to the sink waste (it will not happen if it goes into a stand pipe). To prevent this, look at the waste hose and make sure it is looped up so the the loop goes right up to the underside of the draining board. The loop MUST go higher than the water level in the sink when it is full."