What to do if there is a lot of foam in the washing machine?
When we start the wash on an automatic washing machine, we usually go to another room to do our personal business. Few people observe the entire wash, rinse and spin cycle, with the possible exception of small children and cats. And just imagine the picture: after some time you approach the washing machine, and foam comes out of it. Foam clouds are everywhere: around the body of the washing machine, in the drum and even on the floor. What to do in such a situation, and what is the reason for this phenomenon, we will discuss in this publication.
The reasons for this phenomenon
If you see that your washing machine is covered in clouds of foam, there is no time to talk about the reasons. It is necessary to immediately disconnect the “home assistant” from the network so that the electrics or electronics do not short out; if this happens, then expensive repairs to the machine will be provided. After turning off the power to the washing machine, you need to remove any clouds of foam from the control panel by carefully wiping the selectors and buttons with a dry cloth. If the drum opens, then we take out the things and start the rinse mode so that the foam is washed out of the tank.
If the door does not open, then interrupt the washing mode and also turn on the rinse mode only without spinning. We do this several times until the foam is washed out. After this, breathing a sigh of relief, we begin to look for the cause of the problem.
There is no reason why there is a lot of foam in the washing machine, but this does not mean that such a problem can be treated negligently, because it may well lead the “home assistant” to the landfill.
- Low-quality powder (manufactured with violations of technology or counterfeit).
- Hand washing powder was used by mistake.
- Significant overdose of powder.
- We washed bulky items with a lot of powder.
- When washing occurs in high quality soft water.
For your information! In softened water, the powder dissolves better and foams better.
It also happens differently: there seems to be a little foam, but it poured out along with the water and spilled around the body of the washing machine. This situation directly indicates a serious breakdown, which can be associated either with a leak in the hose, pipes, tank or pump, or with depressurization of rubber gaskets, especially the hatch cuff. Read about how to dismantle and replace the hatch cuff in the corresponding article on our website. The cuff tore in the washing machine - what to do??
It's all in the powder
Absolutely anyone can run into low-quality powder. Before you have time to look back, a lot of foam is already coming out of your washing machine and it’s not clear what to do in such a situation. What's the matter?
Many users can swear that they buy only the most famous and proven brands of powders for their “home assistant,” and some people even use cleaning gels. However, when you buy a pack of powder with a well-known label for an automatic washing machine at a retail outlet, you cannot look inside and check the chemical composition of the contents. Moreover, even after unsuccessful use of cleaning chemicals, you will be able to prove little and, in the end, there will be no one to compensate for the damage.
Bringing to justice manufacturers of counterfeit household chemicals is accompanied by a complex legal procedure, and compensation for damages in civil proceedings is unlikely.
Unscrupulous powder manufacturers, as well as manufacturers of various types of counterfeit products, take advantage of this. At best, they buy the cheapest powder in bulk and then put it in packs labeled with expensive detergents. At worst, they take industrial components and somehow mix them, making the powder not only dangerous for the washing machine, but also for humans. Accordingly, when foam comes out of the hatch of your beloved washing machine, there is no reason to be surprised that low-quality powder is to blame.
If we were talking only about counterfeit powder, we could end the story within the framework of this paragraph, but here everything is more complicated. Often the user himself is to blame for the fact that his machine begins to spew out a lot of foam. The simplest example is that a user blindly or in a hurry confuses a pack of hand washing powder with a pack of automatic washing powder.
In such a situation, if the dose of powder is small and the washing program is not intensive, nothing critical will happen, just a little more foam will form in the drum. If the dose is large, then so much foam can form that it will lead to breakdown of the washing machine.
Why only hand washing powder? If you put too much machine wash powder in the dishwasher, the effect can be similar - a lot of foam and a lot of problems!
Special things or water
There are situations when you seem to have put the correct powder as usual and poured it into the desired compartment of the washing machine cuvette, but an unusually large amount of foam is formed. Why is this happening? There may be three options:
- the drum is filled to capacity with bulky, light things;
- you moved the washing machine to a new place where the water is softer;
- you simply installed a filter to purify and soften the water.
If you are used to dosages of powder when washing things in hard water, it is not surprising that using the usual dose when washing in soft water, you get a more than “foamy” result. About the same thing will happen if you decide to pour in the same amount of powder when washing tulle as when washing cotton shirts. Be careful!
How to prevent foam clouds?
Summarizing the above, we will briefly note what needs to be done in order to avoid periodically contemplating beautiful, but dangerous for the car, foam clouds.
- There is no need to use hand washing powder if you are going to wash things in an automatic machine.
- Try to use a high-quality powder; if in doubt, check it before washing by pouring a teaspoon of the product into the washing dish and run the program with several rags in the drum.
- Don't put too much powder in the machine. Experts recommend even slightly reducing the dose of detergent, but certainly not exceeding it - be economical.
- If you wash things in soft water, use half as much powder as the manufacturer recommends.
- Do you wash bulky items? Add 1/3 of the powder, and then the washing will go without incident.
So, we have looked at all the main options in which your washing machine suddenly suddenly begins to “foam.” Do everything according to the above rules and this problem will no longer affect you!
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1 reader comment
Thank you, I fixed the machine with your help. It became clogged with foam from the children's foam gel, which stained things. I set it to rinse without powder (at least I was smart enough for that) and the drum became clogged with foam, as a result the machine turned off and would not turn on at all.