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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Hi – just got a Servis M6312X second hand – has both hot&cold pipes, but I only have a cold tap to connect to. Doesn’t seem to be working if I just leave the hot inlet completely unconnected (no error on display, just doesn’t do anything at all)
I assume I need to do the Y-valve method as described above. Has anyone else tried this with this particular model? Does it work? Any faults (ie water not heating on certain programmes)?
Thanks in advance
Yes Astrid. It works for every washing machine, you need to connect a water supply to the hot valve even if it’s only cold water. Use a y-piece and everything will work as described in the article.
Hot and cold washing machine but only cold inlet. It’s proving v difficult to attach the y-piece to the inlet. It’s screwed on (very) hand tight but water still gushes out when the water’s switched on. Is it just a matter of getting the mole grips out and tightening up or is it something I’m missing. The rubber washer looks intact. To be honest I’m not keen on the y-piece as it seems an obvious risk of leaks but needs must…
As long as it has a good seal in then it shouldn’t leak. I would use mole grips or pipe pliers to nip it up but only very carefully, and only so it’s a little bit tighter than you can do by hand. If you over-tighten you cut into the rubber seal and make it leak.I normally tighten up as much as I can by hand and then nip it up with pipe pliers only so that it turns maybe 2 or 3 more millimetres or so.
Make sure it’s not got a hairline crack in it that could account for the leak and try swapping one of the rubber seals from one of the hoses to see if that one seals.
I have a hot and cold fill washing machine but my hot feed is being used by the dishwasher. The cold feed is fine and can be connected to the WM. Can I T piece the hot water feed so the washing machine has both hot and cold feeds, or is it best to T piece the cold water feed and just supply the WM with cold water?
Hello Neil: I would just connect the cold feed because you couldn’t control how much hot water went into the machine. You could end up wasting a lot of hot water for little if any benefit or hardly any hot water would go in because of the power of the cold supply overwhelming it.
I have a cold fill washing machine but have since found out the water pipe in my garage is a hot water pipe will this hurt the washing machine in anyway?
Anonymous: This article should answer your question about connecting a washing machine to a hot water supply – Don’t connect the hot water supply to the cold valve on a cold-fill washing machine
This seems to be a common theme! I did as you suggested and bought a ‘Y’ fitting, fitted it all together, started the machine and the pipes were making the most awful noise. I isolated the hot water feed and all sounds ok now. I have a gravity feed (renting so cant make any changes) does this mean that I can only wash in cold if only the cold supply is being fed?
Alison: Connecting both valves to one cold supply can’t cause any problems with a washing machine. I can only assume presumably you have low water pressure? Maybe splitting the water between two valves was too much for it to supply them both.