John Lewis washing machine and nappies

[Washersaurus]

Right I have replaced crappy Hoover machine with spanking new JL one - so why the hell won't it clean DS' nappies, any ideas?

I have tried the prewash and stain and intensive washes and even have done an extra rinse and STILL there are poo crumbs in there!

I can't keep washing for hours like this, I mean the machine is fab generally but does have incredibly long wash cycles without having to keep rewashing pooey nappies.

It is only the nappies I seem to have this problem with. Even my crappy old one was better at poo removal than this . DH will be cross after spending so much money on it.

Noooooooo! I have just bought a JL machine since people on here seem to love them. It arrives tomorrow, I shall report back on the nappy wash!

I shall continue trying different programmes, but would have thought the 60deg cottons with a prewash should have done the job.

I wouldn't worry, tis probably operator error ...when yours arrives could you tell me if it will let you run a quick wash on the Eco programme. The manual says it will but when I try it the machine says ERROR (story of my life) hehe.

Hey, probably a stupid question, but are you rinsing the poo out first? I once washed one of DSs poo-filled liners with a nappy wash and the whole load of laundry came out covered in poo.

Beacause newer mashines use less water in theis washing cycles they aren't apparently as good with nappies.

are you using disposable liners (comes in roll, is biodegradeable). i used to rub mothercare's nappy soak directly into the stain (this is after i had removed as much of the poo as possible) - then wash at 60 with some nappy soak poured into dispensing drawer, then was again at 40 - always worked

My other washing machine was only 3 years old - it was just very unreliable, so we replaced it with a newer one. My old machine always got the nappies clean regardless of the poo.

I have been using washable nappies for over 4 years and flick and flush as much poo as possible. DS2 has horrible sticky poo that doesn't all come off the fleece liner so I have always just bunged that in the wash too.

I no longer use sanitiser in the wash as is just an extra expense and I'm not bothered about stains tbh. I use the minimum amount of washing powder and I always run a prewash and 60deg cottons wash. The machine was only half full with 2 buckets worth of nappies - I used to stuff 3 buckets worth into my old machine .

I'm a bit sad about it as DC3 is due in May and obviously we will be using our old battered nappies on him/her. I don't want to have to wash them twice every time.

Even with a bit of poo on them to start with I would expect my nappies to come out clean after over 3 hours in the washing machine!

Will your machine let you do a rinse cycle first?

If possible do a cold water rinse and THEN put the wash cycle on. That should help.

But shouldn't the prewash negate the need for extra rinsing?

It is supposed to make my life easier, I don't want to be hanging around waiting for cycles to finish, so I can restart them.

The other day I ran a prewash, 60 deg cottons wash, and an extra (hour long) rinse cycle and still there were poo crumbs. It took another 45 min wash at 60deg to get them clean. I think with washing like that regularly, disposables would be a cheaper option!

hmmm that does sound odd.
i usually do a prewash then a regular wash and they come out fine
we do have to scrape persistent poo off though, or rinse first

I sluice most of the poo off the nappies in the toilet before they go in the bucket, but to remove all of it would be impossible.

I don't know what cycle to try next...they are mostly pre-programmed so you can't really adjust it to your needs, annoyingly....

I run a rinse cycle on my machine with no spin then wash at 60 cotton and mine come out clean. Have never used the prewash function as I don't feel it's necessary. I haven't got a JL though mine is LG.

Ok I will try that next time. I'm annoyed though, I would much rather just turn the damned thing on to wash and have clean nappies at the end, without any intervention required from me (even if it is just button pressing).

My washing machine is located in the old outside toilet so it isn't as easy to keep an eye on when a cycle has finished as if it were in the kitchen .

I've just put my first load of nappies inthe shiny new JL machine so in 135 mins I shall report on their state!

You cannot do a quick wash in eco mode though. I assume because in eco it actually extends the washing time but uses less energy overall.

I've put them in on eco 60C this time, the next nappy load will go on 60C quick wash when the dcs have filled the bucket again.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it does on food stained clothes from the dcs at 30C, our old machine had to be run at 40C to get them clean.

Oh my word I am turning into a washing machine bore

Well I'm perfectly happy with the cleaning, everything seems fine but it was walking around the kitchen and making a heck of a lot of noise during the spin! Having moved round a lot of rented places this is the only machine I have owned but the 7th I've used in 3 years and I have never had a machine go quite that mental during the spin cycle. I don't mind a noisy spin, that comes with buying a cheaper machine but that relly takes the . I have the JLWM1200 by the way so the cheapest JL one.

my hotpoint always does the job first time lol but thats not really what you want to hear is it!

i always do a cold rinse before the wash- saves you washing the nappies in diluted wee iyswim! but i would imagine that a pre-wash is the same thing. is it ok on normal loads?

Indith - I think you need to take the time to balance it out to stop the movement during the spin - DH spent ages setting ours up because we didn't do it with the last one and it used to move around a lot. I don't actually know what that involves btw .

Our new machine is so incredibly quiet and actually washes much better than our old one - I just don't understand its problem with the nappies.

I don't know the model number, it is a 8kg one - one of the more expensive ones with 5yr guarantee.

I didn't try the Eco cycle with the nappies as I thought the 60deg cottons would be a more thorough wash - maybe I will give it a try next time and see how it goes.

Thank you all for offering advice on such a mundane OP

Checked it with a spirit level, it is pretty much bang on. I'll get dh to have a play tonight but I'm a bit annoyed really. It seems great otherwise, I love that it continues doing the cycle it started even if chil;dren press buttons and turn dials! Who needs to pay extra for a child lock

I have made a special effort to sluice as much poo from nappies before putting them in the bucket. Today I ran them through on a cold rinse (1hr) then put them on the Eco wash at 60deg (2.5hrs) and they still had poo crumbs on them, so I have had to put them back on the 45min wash .

Also there were bits stuck to the door which I left as an experiment; they were still there after I ran the next Eco wash at 40 deg with a prewash.

I don't know what to do, this is a nightmare - DC3 due in May and will most likely have 2 in nappies

Hmm I suppose so, I was worried about them thinking that I am some kind of washing slattern with poo crumbs in my washer

The thing is that it actually seems to clean other items more effectively. My old hoover machines weren't as good but we never had this problem with them when washing nappies.

It isn't very energy efficient to be washing for over 4 hours.

I was also a bit worried that DS2 might have some kind of indestructible poo that won't wash out .

My life is so dull, I wish I had more exciting things to post about....

can you go into JL with a camcorder? the look on the poor salesman's face when you start telling him about poo crumbs is going to be priceless

i've never had a poo crumb problem with either a hoover or a hotpoint. If its washing other things better, is it maybe overloaded? ie the nappies need more space to circulate or something, i know these new-fangled modern eco-washers use about a thimbleful of water to do a load these days. tbh i've put my nappies on a rinse cycle before and forgotten to actually wash them and there was no evidence of soiled bits def worth contacting them, maybe its faulty in some way (maybe the poo crumb extractor is broken ) good luck in finding a solution!

Hehe I'm not sure it is a conversation that I want to have with anyone in RL.

Machine is definitely not overloaded - is 8kg capacity. I used to stuff 3 buckets full into our old 7kg one and am only washing 2 buckets worth at the moment.

If I were having problems with other loads I wouldn't hesitate to contact them, but everything else seems to wash much better than better.

Maybe I just need to find a wash cycle that uses shed loads of water - I shall consult the manual.

*much better than before

Hope you have some luck with it! My machine is def washing very well. Dh even managed to make it stop walking around the floor on spin by erm, well, actually following the installation instructions this time, we hadn't undone the bolts at the back and it is nice and quiet now Maybe it is indestructable poo, perhaps I should feed dd a dozen kiwis and see if it still manages to remove poo!