You can easily either overload or underload a washing machine. Ideally you should just put the right amount of laundry in the drum but it’s easy to get it wrong. Overloading or under loading will cause different problems, which are discussed in this article.
Overloading – or overfilling the drum
If you overload a washing machine it can cause physical problems, but it will also affect the efficiency of the wash. An overfilled washing machine results in the laundry moving round in one large mass. The clothes will not agitate against each other and the washing machine detergent won’t be able to circulate or dissolve properly.
The washing will not be washed properly. With some liquid detergents there can also be potential serious consequences – Baby badly burned by washing machine detergent.
Overfilling the drum could potentially even cause the door glass to shatter according to manufacturers although as far as I know none of them warn about this directly to customers.
There have been over 90 cases reported to Whitegoodshelp over the last several years – Washing machine exploding door glass danger so make sure you don’t overfill the drum.
However, you do need to fill the drum in order to get the most economical use from your machine and to prevent under-loading, which is also bad.
Under-loading the machine causes problems by making the weight of clothes more likely to accumulate on one side of the drum.
This can make the load out of balance and cause violent banging on spin. (see below)
How much laundry should I put in the drum when loading a washing machine?
Try to fill the drum for economy, but pat the clothes down lightly and make sure you can feel a good gap between the top of the clothes and the top of the drum. Bear in mind that the drum may look really full, but once water comes in and the drum turns, many items will shrink in bulk.
I would try to fill the drum around 80% full so that there is plenty of room for the laundry to move around. The laundry needs space to fall into when the drum revolves.
Check your instruction manual to see if there are good instructions for your machine.
Under loading the washing machine
Under loading the washing machine can also cause problems. In the old days it often resulted in violent out of balanced loads causing damage to the washing machine. These days under-loading is more likely to result in the washer simply refusing to spin so you end up with a finished cycle but wet laundry..
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If you have experienced some loads reaching the end of the cycle and not going into fast spin, then one possible explanation could be if you have under loaded it or are trying to wash and spin just one or two items (Won’t spin single items or small loads).
The best way to avoid unbalanced loads in a washing machine
If you try to wash a bulky item that is heavy and absorbent the washing machine is unlikely to be able to balance the drum. Or if you put just a few large towels or a heavy item in amongst some very light fabrics. The heavy items can bunch to one side of the drum and the lighter ones won’t be able to counter-balance their weight effectively.
There should be enough items to fit all around the drum. If there’s only enough to fill most of the drum, but a section is empty, then it can get out of balance on spin. If the items are all light that may not cause a problem. However, if some items are heavy they may cause violent banging on spin. Or the washing machine’s out of balance detection system may just refuse to allow a spin.
Make sure you fill the drum well. Counter to expectations, the worst violent spins are caused by under-loading – not overloading. Heavy bath mats are notoriously difficult to balance and should ideally be washed with other items. If they gather on one side of the drum it will upset the balance of the load. However, some people (understandably) don’t want to mix the bath mats in with normal washing.
If this is the case and you do get problems with the bath mats getting out of balance I suggest you use old towels or sheets to even the load up. With most modern machines though a heavy bath mat is more likely to just not get spun rather than be allowed to spin out of control and wreck the machine.
Sometimes you can get an unbalanced load by sheer chance, with loads you have successfully washed many times before. The occasional bad load is inevitable but constant bad loads and violent banging on spin should be looked into.
People can seriously overload washing machines
I once went to a customer who had rammed a sleeping bag into her washing machine. She then found it didn’t work and she couldn’t open the door to retrieve it.
I couldn’t believe how jammed full it was and I had to break off the door lock to get the door open. I even had a struggle pulling the sleeping bag out which was well rammed in place.
When I asked her how she had even managed to get the door closed she admitted she’d used her backside and full weight to force the door shut! That’s a very extreme case of overloading but many people do put too much washing in, which can cause various problems, not least poor wash results. Check out the related links below for more information.
Related links:
- Laundry comes out of washing machine badly creased? (includes maximum weight loadings for types of laundry)
- Compare how a duvet fits into a 5kg drum to how it fits into a 7kg or 8Kg drum
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Hello Lynne, I’ve never heard of that. Bath towels can be the worst things to wash though because they can get very heavy and bulky when wet. We mix ours in with towels and wash at 60 degrees.
Hi Andy
Thank you for this and your other related articles. Theyve helped me resolve the balancing problems I’ve been having with my new washing machine. It’s a 9kg load model , and even though I wasn’t overloading, i couldn’t understand why it was jumping about. your advice on correctly loading the machine has helped sort this out,
many thanks
Thanks Sam.
What advice can people give on loading a wash load of light bedding – sheets, duvet covers, and pillowcases? Should they be crumpled and loaded together, or folded and placed round the drum, or something else entirely?
My manual says to wash one item at a time, but I can only assume that’s for heavy blankets and duvets, not sheets (can’t imagine washing a single sheet at a time!). It’s an 8Kg drum.
Hello Kevin. Yes it must mean for a big heavy thing. Just open them out so they aren’t folded and shove them in. The main concern is if you don’t put enough in and they all clump together on one side of the drum or there is one item that is much heavier (when wet) and that unbalances the load. The actual loading of laundry isn’t so critical as what the load is you are putting in.
Just bought a brand new Bosch washing machine and several times the machine has failed to spin after a wash, I presumed the out of balance load has activated this is really annoying, I then have switch the machine onto a 12 min spin which seems to be fine so Why when I start the 12 min spin the out of balance does not activate ???
Before I bought the new machine I had another bosh for 8 years with no such problems, is there nothing I can do to prevent this problem ?
Hello Gary. It sounds like it’s because there isn’t enough laundry inside as described here – Washing machine won’t spin just one item or very small load
Hi Andy
Thanks for replying but it doesn’t explain why the machine will carry out the 12 min spin and no out of balance sensor will activate but refuses to spin after a normal wash,
Can I deactivate the sensor ?
Hi Andy
I didn’t say it’s only on small loads it happens on larger loads too but it’s only intermittent
I suppose I can return the machine for a different brand
Hello Gary. You can’t do anything with the out of balance system. It’s all built into the wash cycle software. It’s possible that the fault you have is nothing to do with out of balance. But, as you seem to have this issue only with a “small load” it seems likely to be related to being out of balance – especially if it has a large drum. It’s possible for a small load to be unable to be balanced during the end of the wash cycle but trying again on the spin programme results in a successful spin.
I wonder if the default RPM for your normal cycle and that of the 12 minute spin are different? Perhaps the 12 minute spin is slower, and hence more tolerant of unbalanced loads.
Assuming the machine is well balanced on a firm floor, I’d be tempted to run a load of similarly absorbent, similarly sized items (e.g. pillowcases, shirts, t-shirts, etc.) If it fails on that, then I’d declare a fault.
Yes, that’s a fair speculation. I would definitely say if it only happens occasionally for small loads then out of balance detection is the most likely cause. Small loads that don’t fill the whole of the drum can’t be balanced easily and sometimes not at all. If there was for example 2 or 3 t-shirts and a pair of jeans then the jeans would be extremely heavy and be on one side of the drum. Even if the washing machine could get the other items over on the other side of the drum they are too light to balance the load.