Clothes Washer Smells Terribly of Mold/Mildew

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wipe out the gasket every time your take out a load.

Leave the door and detergent drawer open when you're not using the machine.

We do this and we've never gotten mold, and our clothes are clean.

Laundry should not be this difficult or involved.

Just get a basic top loader. You will be amazed at how much cleaner your clothes are compared to the front loader HE machines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wipe out the gasket every time your take out a load.

Leave the door and detergent drawer open when you're not using the machine.

We do this and we've never gotten mold, and our clothes are clean.

Laundry should not be this difficult or involved.

Just get a basic top loader. You will be amazed at how much cleaner your clothes are compared to the front loader HE machines.

Agree with this. Hard to find those with the full height agitator though. The other kind with the small one at the bottom don't work as well.

An industrial size front loader is nice if you have a lot of heavy laundry, but just going to a laundrymat for using a front loader is more economical for most.

[Anonymous]

Run few vinegar loads, wife rubber seal gasket with vinegar, then switch to Sal Suds for laundry - 1 tablespoon hot/warm, 1.5 cold. Will need to pre-treat stains. Leave door ajar when not in use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wipe out the gasket every time your take out a load.

Leave the door and detergent drawer open when you're not using the machine.

We do this and we've never gotten mold, and our clothes are clean.

Laundry should not be this difficult or involved.

Just get a basic top loader. You will be amazed at how much cleaner your clothes are compared to the front loader HE machines.

If you find this "difficult" or "involved" I'm not sure you should be trying to live independently.

You were going to have to open the drawer before you did your next load anyway. Just do it now.

Swipe the bottom of the gasket to make sure nothing is blocking the drain holes.

Do you have trouble cleaning out the lint filter on your dryer? This is easier than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wipe out the gasket every time your take out a load.

Leave the door and detergent drawer open when you're not using the machine.

We do this and we've never gotten mold, and our clothes are clean.

Laundry should not be this difficult or involved.

Just get a basic top loader. You will be amazed at how much cleaner your clothes are compared to the front loader HE machines.

Agree with this. Hard to find those with the full height agitator though. The other kind with the small one at the bottom don't work as well.

An industrial size front loader is nice if you have a lot of heavy laundry, but just going to a laundrymat for using a front loader is more economical for most.

OP here. I have no room for a top loader (my washer and dryer are smaller sized and stacked) and I'm sure as hell not driving my laundry to a laundromat. Nobody has time for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know you need to drain your front loader, right? There's a little tube behind the small front lower panel to drain the excess water. Watch a YouTube video

When my washer smells terrible, it's always this. And it is totally foul and messy to clean and somewhat finicky to put back together. (Make sure you don't mess it up or you'll end up with water gushing out of the machine.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know you need to drain your front loader, right? There's a little tube behind the small front lower panel to drain the excess water. Watch a YouTube video

When my washer smells terrible, it's always this. And it is totally foul and messy to clean and somewhat finicky to put back together. (Make sure you don't mess it up or you'll end up with water gushing out of the machine.)

OP, we have been draining that. It's not the problem in our situation, the gasket it is. But yeah, anyone with this issue should definitely make sure they are draining that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a front load machine this is a problem. It’s
The gaskets that get moldy and smell. We finally got rid of the one in a house we bought (no wonder they left it for us) and replaced it with a top load. Say what you will about a top load I couldn’t take the smell of the other

+1

Owners left us a smelly, moldy front load machine. We realized soon after moving in we couldn’t save it and replaced it with a top load machine and always leave the lid open when not in use.

[Anonymous]

OP - you may be able to replace just the gasket. Google your brand and model number.

[Anonymous]

Frankly it sounds like you need to 1) look at your pipes, they sound filled with mold and 2) replace the machine. If you cannot fix or replace what sounds like terrible mold in your pipes, the same thing will happen to the next machine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you have a front load machine this is a problem. It’s
The gaskets that get moldy and smell. We finally got rid of the one in a house we bought (no wonder they left it for us) and replaced it with a top load. Say what you will about a top load I couldn’t take the smell of the other

+1

Owners left us a smelly, moldy front load machine. We realized soon after moving in we couldn’t save it and replaced it with a top load machine and always leave the lid open when not in use.

You have to leave the lid up? How complicated!

[Anonymous]

Ditch your washer buy a speed queen top loader

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My clothes washer has a strong smell of mold/mildew. I have run the self-clean cycle on it and left the door open overnight and it smelled ok, but then washed something in it (which did smell ok) and once it was wet it smelled again. I ran the self clean cycle again with about a cup of bleach poured into the drum, and when I opened it, it still smelled like mold. Running it now with about two cups of vinegar, but given that the bleach didn't work, I'm concerned.

Is there something else I can do? I've googled it, but the internet is really just telling me to run it with bleach or vinegar. FWIW, what I washed in there was sheets, and they smell fine. But I don't want to put anything else in there with it smelling like this.

We just moved into this house and this was my first time trying to use it. Do I just need a new washer? I don't want to deal with that hassle if I don't have to. The folks who sold the house to us were getting up there in age, and I think they were a bit overwhelmed and couldn't keep up with home maintenance.

You need to get the pipes checked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My clothes washer has a strong smell of mold/mildew. I have run the self-clean cycle on it and left the door open overnight and it smelled ok, but then washed something in it (which did smell ok) and once it was wet it smelled again. I ran the self clean cycle again with about a cup of bleach poured into the drum, and when I opened it, it still smelled like mold. Running it now with about two cups of vinegar, but given that the bleach didn't work, I'm concerned.

Is there something else I can do? I've googled it, but the internet is really just telling me to run it with bleach or vinegar. FWIW, what I washed in there was sheets, and they smell fine. But I don't want to put anything else in there with it smelling like this.

We just moved into this house and this was my first time trying to use it. Do I just need a new washer? I don't want to deal with that hassle if I don't have to. The folks who sold the house to us were getting up there in age, and I think they were a bit overwhelmed and couldn't keep up with home maintenance.

You need to get the pipes checked.

Do you mean copper piping is the source of the mold? Or just inlet hoses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My clothes washer has a strong smell of mold/mildew. I have run the self-clean cycle on it and left the door open overnight and it smelled ok, but then washed something in it (which did smell ok) and once it was wet it smelled again. I ran the self clean cycle again with about a cup of bleach poured into the drum, and when I opened it, it still smelled like mold. Running it now with about two cups of vinegar, but given that the bleach didn't work, I'm concerned.

Is there something else I can do? I've googled it, but the internet is really just telling me to run it with bleach or vinegar. FWIW, what I washed in there was sheets, and they smell fine. But I don't want to put anything else in there with it smelling like this.

We just moved into this house and this was my first time trying to use it. Do I just need a new washer? I don't want to deal with that hassle if I don't have to. The folks who sold the house to us were getting up there in age, and I think they were a bit overwhelmed and couldn't keep up with home maintenance.

You need to get the pipes checked.

Do you mean copper piping is the source of the mold? Or just inlet hoses?

DP but they don't know what they mean, just idle talk. No mold in the high pressure water pipes full of chlorinated and fluoridated water.

However changing your washing machine hoses is a good idea, as you don't want one to burst. Get the stainless looking braided ones, good quality ones.