Learn how to get rid of the smell that develops in your upright clothes washing machine. Once your machine is no longer stinky, learn how to keep it that way! Also find out reasons why a stinky washing machine is even ‘a thing’.
Watch this Video: My washing machine smells great!
For those of you who would rather read the transcript:
I really love my front loing washing machine! It does a great job. It’s easy to use. But when I bought my first one I had no idea they have one big problem and that is they get stinky pretty quickly. So what do we do about that? Well if your machine is already stinky, we need to clean it and if it isn’t stinky yet then there’s a way to maintain it so that it probably won’t get stinky.
So why do the machines smell in the first place? Part of the reason is that the design of some washing machines is such that underneath that drum, there are places down within the machine where water can pool and if you have a machine like that it, you pretty much are going to have to clean it every once in a while. But the other reason that they start to smell is that this big rubber gasket that surrounds the door collects water. The water that sits down in the bottom of it can get smelly when the door is closed. So what do we do about all of that?
What to do when your front loading washer already smells
First let’s talk about how you get your machine clean if it’s already gotten smelly. To clean your machine what you can do is you can use something like this Affresh washer cleaner product and you just follow the directions on the back of the package. A more affordable way to do it is to use chlorine bleach.
The way you use chlorine bleach to get the smell out of your machine is you take at least a half a cup of bleach and I pour some of it in the bleach area, some of it in the liquid detergent area, and some of it in the fabric softener area. I use all the available areas in the dispenser because then as you run a cycle, it’ll get a little bit of bleach through each part of the cycle.
Once you’ve done pouring the bleach, you just want to set it for a hot water and a heavy setting so that it it’s going to run for quite a while. Then you start that up and let it cycle all the way through without any clothes in the washing machine or you know maybe you could throw one white towel or something like that in it just to help it splash the water around. After you do that you should have a nice clean fresh smelling washing machine.
What Causes a Laundry Washer to Smell Anyway?
Let’s take a look at what’s going on inside of the washing machine. I just got rid of the clothes that I washed and put them in the dryer and we can see that the window of the washing machine is wet of course. The the drum is not too bad – it drains pretty quickly. But where we really see a lot of water is in this door gasket. it it sheds off of the sides pretty well but if I close the door on this, this water will sit in here for a couple of days and that’s what starts getting the smell going.
So the real simple solution here is that you take an absorbent rag (I happen to like old cloth baby diapers because they’re some of the most absorbent kinds of cotton cloth out there) and I just wipe as much of that water out of the drum as possible. Another very absorbent thing is just your standard paper towel you can get that down in there and really soak out the water out. I kind of hate to use them because they’re not so eco-friendly, but what I tend to do is use that to get everything quite dry and then I just hang the paper towel over the sink and use it again for some other cleaning task (it really isn’t dirty it’s just wet).
So now I have my door gasket pretty darn dry, but even here in Colorado I’ll leave this door open for a couple of hours if I can or at least just cracked a little bit. Sometimes I also get the water that has beaded up in the window of the washer to get that out of that water out of there too. Then we just leave it a little bit open for a couple of hours. You know if you live in somewhere that’s pretty humid you might have to let that sit for a day or so.
If you do this drying process after the last load that you run and don’t shut that door, the machine will just not get smelly. I’ve been doing this for a year and a half on this machine and it still smells great I haven’t had to use any cleaning products in it to get rid of a smell.
Products Mentioned in the Video
This is the washing machine cleaning product mentioned in the video.
Also mentioned in the article above, here are the paper towels.
I have chosen not to include a link to Chlorine Bleach because that just seems like a really bad thing to ship through the mail. Sorry! Bleach is easily available at grocery stores, big box and membership stores.
What if You Still Have a Stinky Washing Machine?
I’ve learned since I recorded the video that some types of front loading washing machines are designed so that they are very hard to clean throughly. Here are some other ideas about what you can do.
Clean the Laundry Soap Dispenser
Some machines have Detergent/Bleach/Fabric Softener dispensers that have cavities inside and underneath them that capture lint, dirt, unused detergent and more. If you have one of these machines, you usually can pull the drawer out entirely. You might need to push on a tab to release the drawer. Then completely clean the drawer – start with soaking it in a sink and scrubbing with a small brush that can get into the cavities like a tooth brush (lame pun intended). While it is removed, see if there are any deposits that you can see or reach while the drawer is out.
Replace the Door Gasket
Some older machines may have the big rubber-ish ring around the door that is starting to break down. If the smell is coming directly from the ring, these can be replaced. Sadly, I learned from the last washing machine repairman that I hired to fix a machine, that the industry is designing them to only last 7 to 10 years at this point. If your machine is already that old you may have to replace it soon and you might not want to spend money to fix a smell.
Table of Contents
“Laundry Stinks” photo by benjamin lehman. Humorous photo by Thomas Dumortier.
While on the subject of laundry, be sure to see the article Best Laundry Stain Removal Product for a tip about how to removed stains in clothing – even old set-in stains can be removed, particularly if they were caused by oily food.
