Unplumbing washing machines for dummies

[HonourableKortonRepresentative]

Moving house this coming Tuesday. Removal men are coming first thing Tuesday morning and I've only just realised I need to unplumb the washing machine If I can't find someone to do it for me, is it possible to do myself on the morning/day before? (Though I'm not sure I can even move the bloody thing!) And roughly how long might it take for a complete nobhead novice like me to do?

It's really easy. Unplug the machine and pull it away from the wall and you will see there is a flexible grey pipe attached to the back of the machine that leads to the water pipe (usually copper, sometimes plastic). On the pipe there should be either a small lever which you turn to shut off the water or, occasionally, there are metal valves that have a slot that you fit a flat-head screwdriver into and turn to shut off the water. (If you can't see either of these, abort mission.)

Once you have shut off the water supply to the machine, you disconnect the flexible pipe - it just twists off, may need a firm hand if it's been in there a while. If it is an older machine there may be two (one for hot, one for cold, just repeat the steps with the second pipe).

Finally, there is a thicker grey corrugated tube that carries the waste water away, pull that out of the pipework it is attached to (sometimes it goes straight into its own little piece of plastic pipework, sometimes it has been attached to the pipework under the sink if it is in the kitchen so it may feed through to the sink unit and be connected to the waste). Get a bucket and drain any water in the wastepipe into it - there may be a bit of a smell.

Job done.

Two additional points following on from lala's instructions - if you've disconnected the waste from the pipe work under the sink you may need to cap that off or every time the sink gets used water will spill out try to find the transit bolts that had to be removed when the machine was delivered and plumbed in. They go into the holes in the back of the machine and stop the drum from moving and getting damaged when the machine is being transported.

Seriously it is fairly straightforward.
Have a look behind it all first then Youtube a couple of videos.

Many belated thanks for your help, I unplumbed it with no problems and plumbed it in at my new place, and it's working fine (so far anyway!).

Thanks again

Posting to show up in my list of threads so I can find it when I need this. Thanks to the expert plumbers.