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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I’ve been told by Bosch, that all new washing machines are cold feed only….because its more economical. Is this true?
Hello Lee, yes they virtually all are cold fill but it’s not as simple as saying they are more economical as it depends very much on how it’s used and what the plumbing is like, read this Cold fill washing machines
Thanks Washer help. I’ve found that now I’ve this new cold fill washer machine, it takes slightly longer to do a complete cycle on 30 degrees.
At least this new one doesn’t dance about the kitchen as the old one did.
:-)
Yes modern washing machines take a lot longer to wash but it’s only partially down to being cold fill. You might find this interesting
https://www.washerhelp.co.uk/forums/topic/182-wash-times-too-long/
Thanks again, explains it all doesn’t it.
I’m confused, my water inlets do not show me which one is which as they both do not show me what colour they are. It’s odd I think they are old that’s why. To turn on the valve I have to turn this round thing but I don’t know which one is cold. My new Hotpoint WMD962 is a cold feed only and I don’t know which valve is the cold one. Sorry if I’ve confused you.
Hi Washerhelp, I’ve read all of the above but can’t find a specific answer to an issue I have. I’ve got a cold fill only hotpoint which has worked fine for 18 months but now no longer gets warm. Hotpoint want £120 – £180 to set up a service contract to sort it. I’m a bit handy so ordered a new element to try but when testing the current element with a multimeter it was fine. So to was the temperature sensor. I suspect that the error must be the temp dial, or motherboard. either way I’m out of my league. As a work around, could I use a Y hose to feed hot and cold into the machine? We never wash anything that needs to be a precise temp, if it was between 20-60 degrees I’d be happy. Is this a cheap fix or should i get it looked at properly?
Any help welcome.
Thanks
John
Just to add, I’ve since read your Don’t connect the hot water supply to the cold valve on a cold-fill washing machine page and comments. Whilst I see the reasons against, my situation is, the machine doesn’t work with cold water. We are a ground floor flat so the cold water is very cold. We also have a combi boiler within a 1.5 metres of the washing machine giving out 63 degree hot water. With the difference in water pressure from hot and cold, presumably a Y hose would favour the cold over hot? We use non-bio washing capsules so if it was too hot it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Ill wash any delicate stuff by hand. (were 3 men and don’t really do delicates!) at the moment the machine is only washing cold, this means the detergent isn’t dissolving and doesn’t get stuff clean.
Hi John: You could connect them both and experiment with pressure to hopefully get a reasonable temperature but it will use a lot of hot water because each time the washing machine rinses it will also take in hot water. A wash could drain all the hot water unless you turned off the hot tap once the washer was happily washing. It would be a lot of messing about though.
Hi There,
I have a cold only feed washing machine. My problem is that the un-used hot feed is dripping slowly when fully shut off. I have read i could cap it off witha fitting but i have some other info that i shouldnt do thuis if i have a combi boiler, which i do. My question is can i just cap it off and forget about it orwill there be an eventual problamatic build up of pressure?
Thanks
Hello Ben. I’ve not heard of this advice. My question would be, how can there be a build up of pressure if the leaking water (which is not at any pressure) fills up the blanking cap and can’t go anywhere else? It would presumably be exactly the same pressure created when the hot tap is turned off?
I suppose the perfect answer would be to fix the leaking tap. However, I don’t understand what difference there would be between the hot water not flowing because of a blanking cap, and because the tap is shut off.
If your tap is one of those with the red plastic lever, unscrew the plastic lever and try turning it properly off with some pliers.
Hi!
Do you have any advice to what can be done if we have a cold fill washing machine but only a hot water pipe? The pipe is marked blue but it is in fact hot and ‘hot’ is 80 degrees. The machine or clothes can not be touched for 15 minutes after a wash as steam are coming from them! Landlord is an asshole and doesn’t care.
Hello Mia. Yours is an unusual problem. You can’t connect a washing machine to the hot water tap for reasons described here – Can you connect a washing machine to the hot water supply? If the house is furnished, and comes with all appliances then clearly it isn’t coming with a washing machine because without a cold water supply it can’t be used. I’m surprised you haven’t ruined lots of clothes.