Is your washing machine’s drum covered in a greyish, white coating? If this happens, there might be a simple explanation. A build up of limescale can cause this. To remove the white coating, try adding about 20 grams of citric acid into the washing machine, and set it to wash on a 90 degree wash cycle (with no laundry inside). You may need to try this more than once.
Don’t just pour the citric acid into the soap dispenser. Doing so will let it run into the sump hose at the bottom of the drum. This will seriously dilute the acid and reduce effectiveness. Instead, put the washer on the 90 degree wash cycle and let it start to fill up with water. Add the citric acid into the soap dispenser drawer after it’s been filling for about 10 seconds or so. This will let the first lot of water fill the sump hose up instead and will seal it off.
Alternatively, there are plenty of limescale removing products designed for washing machines that you might try instead of citric acid.
Limescale is very bad for washing machines
If you have this problem, be aware that it could just be the tip of an iceberg. Limescale can not only cause a coating on the inside of the drum, but it can accumulate in many parts inside, where you can’t even see it. It shortens the life of your washing machine by rotting hoses, corroding parts of the drum and damaging the heating element.
Learn about limescale and washing machines
In theory, you should never have any issue with limescale inside a washing machine, but millions of people do. Not using the correct amount of detergent is the main cause. Here is my article on the topic – how limescale affects washing machines and what to do about it. You might also be interested in – should I use Calgon in my washing machine?
Tumble dryer drums can also be affected
You can also get this limescale build up on a tumble dryer’s drum. In this case, it can cause the drying sensors to malfunction, although the limescale will not get inside the dryer like it can on a washing machine. For full details see – my tumble dryer is not drying as efficiently as it used to
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Do ALL machines seal the first few seconds of water off? If so, this must be very wasteful on detergent!
This would explain why my Miele W865 seems to post the first few seconds of water into the prewash compartment, even when no prewash is required.
Hi Riccardo. The practice is designed to save detergent. Yes they take water into a different compartment first before washing the detergent into the drum. In the past they used to always just flush the water straight onto the detergent washing it into the drum. Then someone realised that the water which goes into the sump hose containing some of the detergent stays there and this detergent is wasted.
Now sump hoses usually have a plastic ball inside them and the first bit of water runs into the sump and the ball floats up sealing it off. Then the detergent is flushed in.