Last updated on February 3rd, 2017
Is your washing machine’s drum covered in a greyish white coating? It might be probably caused by limescale. To remove it try adding about 20 grams of citric acid into the washing machine and wash on a 90 degree wash cycle with no laundry inside. You may need to try it more than once.
The best method is to put the washer on the 90 degree wash cycle and add the citric acid into the soap dispenser drawer whilst it is initially filling up. Let it fill for 10 seconds first because the first lot of water goes into the sump hose under the drum and is sealed off. Alternatively try buying a limescale removing product designed for washing machines.
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.