Do you have a hot and cold fill washing machine, but only have a cold water supply available to connect it to? Well, you can still connect it up and use it, but you will need a y-piece connector. If you just connect the cold water hose to the cold water tap and leave the hot water hose unconnected, then some wash cycles may not work.
The y-piece connector is a plastic connector shaped like a Y. It splits a single water supply into two. You may be able to buy this part from a DIY store like B&Q, or Amazon – y-piece connectors (affiliate link).
This photo shows two washing machine hoses connected to a single tap using a y-piece connector. The tap shown is hot (red), but ignore that. You need to connect to the cold (blue) tap. Connect the single section of the y-piece to the cold water supply tap. Now connect the hot and cold water hose pipes to it and your washing machine will work on all wash cycles.
What if you just leave the hot fill hose unconnected?
You could just connect the cold water fill hose directly to the cold water tap, and leave the hot fill hose unconnected. But without a water supply to the hot valve, some wash programs may not work. This is because on a hot and cold fill washing machine, some wash cycles may only fill with hot water. So with no hose connected to the hot water valve, the cycle will fail, or produce an error code.
Some cycles will work without a water supply to the hot valve
Some washing machines may work OK with only the cold fill hose connected. You could always try it and see. It may be that some programs work, but others don’t. The worse that will happen is the washer could either stick on the odd wash programme or may abort with an error on some. This would happen if you select a cycle that only fills up with hot water. But if you only use one or two wash cycles, and not the 60 or 90 degree cycles, they may work OK.
The washing machine may now use slightly more electricity, but it shouldn’t be significant unless you use a lot of 60 or 90 degree washes. This is because modern washing machines use very little water on wash.
Try to use a y-piece connector
It is better to use a y-piece if possible so that water is supplied to both valves as designed. The washing machine will not know the difference between hot and cold water. It won’t know there’s no hot water coming in. But as long as water is coming in, it will just heat up the cold water to the correct temperature.
Cold fill washing is usually better
Manufacturers argue it’s more efficient to fill with cold water only, and to slowly heat up the water. Especially on the most common wash cycles at 40 and 30 degrees. You can see a detailed explanation of this in my cold v hot water article below –
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excellent guys, hi ho, its off to B&Q we go
cheers
Yes thanks for this info. Mine is an old ( -ish) hot and cold fill Bosch washing machine and doesn’t run on any programme over 30 deg if I merely disconnect the hot supply (I tried it).
I want it to run on just cold supply now (otherwise it uses up 59 litres of my hot water from my tank). Problem is I already have a Y-piece connector on the cold supply for a dishwasher so I’m not sure if I can fit a 2nd one there….any suggestions?
James: You could fit a second y-piece on the end of the cold hose to the washing machine and fit another 2 cold hoses onto that to supply both valves of the washer. It’s not ideal because it means the plastic y-piece is going to lay on the floor behind the washer somewhere. It also introduces another potential source of leaks. However, it will work OK as long as the dishwasher isn’t running at the same time.
Even if the dishwasher was running at the same time the only issue would be if there was enough water pressure to supply water to 3 valves from one tap.
Have a hotpoint washer 9yrs old have recently moved it to outhouse with cold supply only.Manual says cold spply fine using y-piece but water not heating up-any ideas?
Hello Andrew: Not heating the water isn’t related to the water supply apart from it potentially making the wash take a bit longer. It sounds like you have a fault –
Washing machine isn’t heating up the water
I have a very efficient new combi boiler right next to the washing machine, which has hot and cold supply. Unfortunately, I have a problem with my Hotpoint WM74 washing machine and its such as shame but I think the old (circa 98) dear will have to go as I cant get it fixed at reasonable price (Hotpoint want £120 min, which is reasonable I guess but I can get a new 520P for £215!) Thought it was the door lock as the info bubble kept saying (close door). It happened one day and it made the power trip. I changed the interlock but still says same message. PCB problem perhaps. And they’re £100. Anyway. All these new washing machines are all cold fill only so my combi wont be used. Is this sensible? My combi boiler can provide 40 degrees C water a lot more efficiently than a washing machine, cant it? Could I not connect my combi boiler hot water to cold water fill? It would use a lot less electricity to heat it up then.
Hello Joseph: Answers to your questions can be found here –
Don’t connect the hot water supply to the cold valve on a cold-fill washing machine
Excellent advice, Thank you.
I have hot & cold fill but want to buy a cold fill only washing machine. Do i have to do anything as we are not very good at these diy things?
Hello su: You just connect the new cold-fill washing machine up to your existing cold tap, and blank off the hot tap – What should I do with the old hot water tap when connecting a cold fill washing machine?