So you’ve put in your dirty clothes, soap and turned on the water to your washing machine. The cycle starts and off you go….only to come back twenty minutes later to find that the washer is still filling with water! If a slow to fill washer is plaguing you let’s take a look at how we can speed things up.
using your washer to fill so slowly?
As water comes into your washing machine, it expects to do so at its full potential. That means, you should first check that both hot and cold water is turned on all the way. These are the two handles directly above and/or behind your washer on the wall. If either of these valves is not open entirely, then the water that fills your machine may only be getting in a little at a time and your machine will not begin the washing part of it’s cycle until it detects enough water. And it will fill as slowly as it needs to until it’s ready!
If the water valves are open as far as they can go and your washing machine is still slow to fill up, then you may have clogged water inlet valve screens. Where your water comes into the back of your washer, i.e. where the hoses connect, are called the water inlets. At these connections are tiny screens, sitting just inside the inlets themselves. You may have to pull your washer out from the wall to get at these. Simply unscrew the hoses and then carefully pry out the screens with a pocket knife or awl. Once the screens are out, run them under water and remove any crud or corrosion that is on them with a brush. Use something like Lime-Away to help you remove any mineral deposits. These little screens are important, so 1) if you can’t get these clean to where water can easily flow through, replace them with new ones, and 2) be sure you either clean or replace these screen and put them back on your washer. You need these, or you risk damaging your washing machine beyond just filling slow.
To replace the screens, use a dowl or small pipe the size of the screen to gently press it back into place. Reattach your hoses and give it a try. Your previously slow filling washer should be filing normally now.