Washing the floor with a miele is very difficult!
As Brisnat said Miele machines will only open the door under the following circumstances:
1) The water temp. has not reached 60C
2) The water level is below the door.
3) The programme has not been "locked-in" i.e. on the novotronic models, if you press and hold the start button the door locks and machine allow any adjustments to the cycle. It's designed to prevent kids from playing with your machine during a cycle.
Basically, if you forget something during the first few mins of the wash, you can throw it it.
If, and this is incrediably unlikely, you need to empty the machine manually due to a breakdown, there is a little hose attached to the filter at the front. You pop the door open, turn the filter a quarter turn and the water starts flowing out of this little hose. You can stop/start the flow as necessary and empty the water into a pot/pan or alternatively, hook a hose up to it and run it out the door! The machine will drain out by gravity.
Also, there's an "anti-syphoning" system in Mieles that prevents the machine from draining even if the drain hose is flat on the ground. This allows you to drain the machine via a floor level drain, should you wish to do so.
Other features (Novotronic models... other models are more advanced again)
You can:
Add extra deep water to any wash and add extra rinses via the programmable "Water Plus" option button (it has at least 4 options)
Add a pre-wash to any cycle (Except wool)
Add a soak to any cycle (except wool)
You can also add both (prewash happens first, then a long soak)
The soak time is programmable.
You can adjust the wash temprature for the first few mins of the wash. After the first few mins, the novotronic controls will lock the temp to prevent "tampering" by kids / others.
You can skip part of the wash cycle by turning the control to "Finish" and then back to the cycle it was on. The machine will then skip e.g. from Wash to Rinse.
Spin speed is freely selectable, although the machine will not let you add an inappropriately fast spin to wool / delicate cycles.
Other than that: minor features:
You can have the machine fill using both the prewash and the mainwash parts of the drawer for every wash, if you so wish.
It's an incrediably programmable / user controllable machine.
