How to Clean your Washing Machine

Not all home projects are glamorous. In fact, most are dirty and lack that beautiful “final reveal” element, but as someone who has now lived without a washing machine for a month, I can say with complete confidence, there is nothing more beautiful than the sound of a washing machine buzzer.

What started out as an adventure in repairing a clog, became a much needed lesson in how to clean a washing machine.

I am not sure how many of you have ever seen the inside of a washing machine.  I am not talking about the part of the drum that we see daily, but the outside of the drum and the inside of the tub that it rests inside.  Unless your machine is brand new, you are probably in for a surprise.  It does not matter how sparkly clean you keep the outside of your machine, if you have never cleaned the inside I can guarantee there will be A LOT of hidden grime and the most disgusting looking sludge. (Think years and years of build up)

Here is a quick look at ours. (More disgusting pictures later in this post)

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Today I am going to review how I took the machine apart, cleaned it, fixed it, and put it back together.  (With a little help from my new favorite internet washing machine repair guy, Matt)

Tools Needed:

Spanner Wrench

Screw Driver

Hose Clamp Pliers

Lid Switch Assembly

Putty Knife

Towel

Scrubbing Brush

Vinegar and Baking Soda

All Purpose Cleaner

Boiling Water

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Before doing anything always disconnect the power, and remember appliances can hold power even if the primary source is disconnected.  So be mindful to also disconnect any of the electrical clips that are under the cover.

***If your washing machine is broken start with step 1.  If you just want to clean your washing machine you can skip ahead to step 3***

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Step One: Empty The Washer

As I recently learned, your washing machine will probably never break when it is empty.  That would be too easy.  Instead, it will break mid cycle with a tub full of soapy clothes.  Or if you are like me, you may catch a break and have it malfunction mid-rinse spin.

At least I did not have to deal with soap!

After removing all of the clothes you will need to get rid of the water.  This top load washer has an agitator in the middle so I found it easiest to use a quart measuring cup.  If you do not have an agitator to work around you could definitely use something bigger.

This is a bit of a tedious task, but the more water you get out now, the less you will have to clean up off the floor when you disconnect the drain hose.

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Step Two: Identifying the Issue

All of my research pointed to a clogged drain hose or a clogged filter.  Clogs are one of the most common culprits when your washing machine won’t drain.  This is because all of those small socks and other unmentionables 😉 have a tendency to sneak through the tub and get themselves stuck.  So I set out on a mission to unclog our drainage hose.  With a back up plan of checking the filter if the drainage hose was clear.

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Step Three: Opening Up The Washing Machine

Sometimes you find instructions so perfect that it doesn’t make sense to make your own.  This is one of those times.  Check out this video.  This man is a great teacher and walks you through the process of taking apart the machine, step by step.  Unless you are actually replacing the outer tub, you do not need to watch the whole video.  I simply cleaned the outer tub while it was still attached to the balancing springs.

Once you have removed the drum from the driver block you can move onto Step 4 or keep reading below if you are checking for clogs.

If checking for clogs you can follow this video.  He walks you through removing the filter from the pump.  Prior to removing the pump on my machine, I removed the hose to check for a clog there as well.

In order to do this you will need clamp pliers (which make this a heck of a lot easier than regular pliers….trust me).  All you do is squeeze the clamps and slide them back up the hose.

Let the hose drain into a bucket, and using a flash light check the hose for any clogs.  If you are not able to get a good look inside you can take any long object and wave it around in there to check for obstructions.

My favorite go to is a metal coat hanger, although, I am sure they make actual tools for this 😉

If the drain hose is clear you can make your way on over to the filter.  As you can see in the video, it is fairly easy to pop this out and spin the fins to check for clogs or breaks.

Notes on taking apart your machine:

Some video’s, including this one, claim that you can use a flat head and a hammer to move the spanner nut.  This may be true, but after an hour of frustratingly hitting it in the manner explained I gave up and ordered a spanner wrench offline.  This delayed fixing it for several days, but it is a very useful tool to have!  I highly recommend ordering one and having it on hand, it does not seem to be widely available as a stock item in stores.

Once you have removed the spanner wrench, the drum may still be stuck in years of filthy buildup.  This takes a bit of strength to jiggle and pull off.  I found that a little WD-40 helped loosen things up.

Lastly, make sure that when you put the clamps back on the drainage hose, that you do so tightly.  We did not have CLAMP PLIERS at first, and I uttered the words “looks good enough”.  Needless to say, if you are making that statement you are probably wrong.  Slight leak, and had to take the cover off again and tighten the clamps.  Lesson learned.

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Step Three and a Half 😉: The part of the process where you realize that you have a very dirty tub and no clogs.

While this moderately aggravating process led me to clean my entire washing machine, I was the 5% of people who do not have a clog or broken filter, yet it still would not drain.  Keep reading and I will let you in on a secret…

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Step Four:  Cleaning the drum and washing machine tub

This step was perhaps the most satisfying part of this project.

I used my bathtub to clean the drum, but after realizing that I had scratched our new bathtub, I highly recommend taking the drum outside and using your hose to wash it down.

Depending on how old your machine is, and how often you do laundry, you may find varying degrees of buildup.  As you can see in the pictures, ours had a significant amount that has probably been accumulating for years.  (It came with the house!)

Start by placing the drum upside down and removing the filter on the bottom of the drum.  I found it easiest to slowly pry it off with a screwdriver, working your way around it until it pops off.  Be careful not to break the fins.  This may take a few loops around, as with everything else the plastic is likely encrusted in gunk which has fused it to the drum.

Fair warning….it might not be pretty.

Using some elbow grease and a putty knife I scraped off what I could.  I then coated the drum in baking soda and spritzed it with vinegar.  I let this sit for a bit while I went and boiled some large buckets of water.

After letting the baking soda and vinegar do their job, take your scrubbing brush and really rub the mixture into the surface.  Once you have sufficiently scrubbed, you can take rinse it with boiling water.  (feel free to use regular water if the sludge is coming off.  Mine was exceptionally sludgy and really benefited from the hot water) Now using boiling water can be a little tricky, so be careful!  I recommend standing on something to protect your feet, and wearing rain boots or something that any splashes will run off of.   Slowly pour the boiling water over the drum to ensure it goes where you want and does not splash.

Repeat this cleaning process until you have removed all of the buildup and any rust that may have been present.

Once your drum and filter are sparkling you can leave them to dry, and move on to the washing machine tub.

Again, from the pictures, you can see that this had a nauseating amount of grime built up in it.  The bottom two images can give you a better idea of how thick all the sludge was.

To get this gunk off I sprayed this entire tub down with an all purpose cleaner, let it sit, and then used the putty knife to scrape it clean.  I recommend having a trash bag nearby, as it is helpful to remove the loosened gunk with paper towels as you go along.  I found that the smooth plastic scraps clean pretty easily!  In under 10 minutes I went from what is pictured above to this….

Once all the pieces are clean and dry you are good to reverse the steps in the video and put everything back together!

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Step Five: Fixing the Actual Problem, the Lid Switch Assembly

Low and behold, I never had a clog.  While I am glad that I now know how to find one (as I am sure it will happen someday) I am even more happy that it gave me the opportunity to clean my washing machine.

After determining that there were no clogs, I dug a bit deeper on the internet and found that the lid switch assembly will also prevent proper draining.  Of course I poked the switch to check it and it instantly broke into two pieces.

It took 5 days for the wrong size part to arrive, another 5 days for the right sized part to arrive, and all of 3 minutes to replace the broken one.  And just like that, I had a cleaning, spinning, draining washing machine again!

Here is a great video with instructions on how to replace the lid switch assembly.

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This one month fiasco kind of felt like when you check all of your symptoms on WebMD, diagnosis yourself with three days to live, only to find out that its allergies and you will be just fine.

Want to prevent this buildup in the future?  The trusty internet recommends doing a warm water vinegar wash every month can help!  Happy Cleaning, and enjoy your nice clean washing machine!

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