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9 Things That Damage Your Washing Machine

May 6, 2022 · 7 min read
washing machine
Photo by Rozhnovskaya Tanya from Shutterstock

Use too much detergent at your peril

You should expect to see some disappointing wash results if you’re using too much detergent. Even if stains might be tackled effectively, there will be a lot of detergents left lurking in your clothes following the rinse phase.

You might not notice it when it comes to light items, but if it is to talk about dark clothes, then the evidence of overdosing will be obvious. You’ll either see flecks of detergent powder on your clothes, or translucent stains of liquid detergent that are pretty obvious.

You can check your washing machine’s manual and see how much detergent you should be using. It will all be written and detailed on a program-by-program basis, for example, you will have to use more for a full load than you would do for a half load.

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8 Comments

  1. Helen says:
    September 30, 2022 at 8:56 pm

    certainly fail to see how mixing white and colored laundry in the same load would in any way damage a clothes washing machine…..
    as you point out, could turn the whites grey, but as for damaging the machine in some way—-makes no sense

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  2. Carol says:
    November 18, 2022 at 2:47 pm

    Some of us are not rich enough to have a new washing machine. I am still using 1 from 1974 and it works just fine I don’t need all those fancy buttons and programs. This machine has never failed to get my laundry clean!

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    1. B A Rotini says:
      December 11, 2022 at 6:02 pm

      Amen, sister! Not everyone in this country is of the super-consumer class! 🙂

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  3. Audrey Spaulding says:
    December 10, 2022 at 3:30 pm

    Depends on a front loader or a top loader. I have a top loader and I have never found it to have to
    be cleaned out. My top loader has a cycle to clean the machine. Like you all said. It seems the
    manufacturer has some opinions that don’t fit the narrative that they are pointing out. One size doesn’t fit all.

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  4. Tiffany Catelliee says:
    December 10, 2022 at 6:02 pm

    Where did they say that mixing colors & whites will ruin your washer? They didn’t say that did they? I only saw read about how mixing colors with whites can change the colors of your clothes (which is a given) -not damage your washer. I didn’t even see where they said it would damage your washer, so why would you sat that?

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    1. Sheila says:
      December 10, 2022 at 9:53 pm

      But that’s the title of the article.

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    2. Diane says:
      December 24, 2022 at 4:00 pm

      This was more of a laundry lesson. Many good points though, some about the machine and some about what is washed.

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  5. Mechelle says:
    December 24, 2022 at 8:24 pm

    TK Smith there is no miners at the bottom of the page and a arrow press the arrow and it will let you keep reading the story for washing

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