Washing Machine Maintenance

[davemcwish]

Hi All,

Despite my efforts and Penguin45’s very helpful advice, my efforts to get my 7+ year old machine have failed (cue meloncholy music).

While I peruse this forum to decide between ISE10/AW23/Something Else I thought I should ask about maintenance of modern washing machines.

I know there’s been a lot written in the past (see here, here and here).

In summary it seems to be:-

1. (Big box) powder correctly dosed – dissolves quicker
2. Monthly maintenance wash @ 95C with powder containing bleaching agent – to kill bacteria
3. No additives (Calgon/Vanish)
4. Er…..that’s it

On trying to fix my machine I noticed that there’s was relatively little scale inside (just a thin coating on the heating element and that was it). As I’ve never had a problem with smell either, just black marks around the seal I thought that it might have been due to the maintenance I did which was:-

Calgon every wash (there’s only 2 adults) and HG Engineer 4 times a year in a hot 60C/95C wash.

As we live in a hard water area (17 -23 Degrees Clarke according to the water Co) I felt the need for the little tablets each time as a washing machine is a costly & essential device.

In speaking to a friend, he said that he doesn’t use Calgon as it fades colours very quickly (he does have young children but I can’t say I’ve really noticed this myself).

As some of the articles above were written a few years ago, I thought I should ask the dumb question if this still the current advice and how big a problem scale *really* is.

What I don’t want to do is be ‘careless’ and not look after the new machine however I’m equally unwilling to spend money on things that really don’t work.

Thoughts ?

[Author]

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