Detergent dosing & Over Sudsing

[roscoe62]

I heard my washer slow down about half way through the spin from the wash cycle to start the first rinse. It looked like the machine couldn't pump out the water that was kind of frothy, so I'm thinking it could have been too much detergent.
I have a little iron in my water so I use borax with the detergent (Tide HE) and vinegar for the softner dispenser. The measure I use for borax & detergent is a coffee scoop of each, which amounts to 1.5 TBS per scoop.
The load size was 6 (30x50) bath towels.
I can't get my head around this as it's only happening with towels, if I put 6-8 pairs of jeans in the machine just goes through the cycle, but periodically it happens with towels.
So is there too much of both , causing a build up over time?
Thoughts or help anyone. Tks

 

[DADoES]

 
Towels can be more tricky to dose detergent than other fabrics, and more likely to cause sudsing and carry suds into the rinse periods.  The thick, absorbent fabric tends to retain more residual detergent.

I don't have that problem with my towels, TBH.  My bath towels are smaller and less-plush fabric than the thick, beach-sized towels that are popular nowadays.

RJ's dryer went down last week.  He brought over a Bobload® of towels to finish.  The load needed to be rewashed (for reasons).  No suds-lock occurred but I noticed considerably more residual froth in the deep rinse than I've ever seen on any of my loads, which led me to run an additional rinse.

 

[roscoe62]

Additional rinse

That being said,an additional rinse and moderate the detergent, the borax as a booster should be fine, if not time will tell. Thanks for your help.

 

[mrboilwash]

Apart from being more absorbent than many other fabrics and thus carrying more detergent laden water into the next rinse after each spin a towel load often contains only a fraction of the body oils and soils of an average load of clothes that have been worn all day long. So less detergent may be needed than on other loads.
Waterlocks triggering a washer`s sudslock routine may happen on towel loads too due to their absorbency even if there isn`t excessive sudsing going on.

 

[lakewebsterkid]

Extra Rinse

When we had our old Kenmore DD, I knew that there was too much build up of detergent in the towels if there were issues with the frothiness after the wash spin. Typically we would run a second warm rinse and it would clear it right up, and no issues for a few washes. That machine certainly needed an extra rinse with towels. The spray rinse after the rinse cycle was also pointless and didn't help either.

 

[rolls_rapide]

Towels and persistent suds

Maybe that's one of the reasons that machine manufacturers tell you to mix towels in with other garments... due to the foam created?

The other usual reason I always assumed - for towels in with other articles - would be to try to prevent an unbalanced load occurring in the first place.

 

[launderess]

When possible like to do all towels/wash cloths in one load for several reasons.

One of course is that they often aren't badly stained (well hand/face towels can be.. boys will be boys and all that), but also can use very hot water to sanitize (140F or above).

Older Miele was nearly useless for this because if too much water and froth came out at start of first (and only) long spin after several rinses, pump would choke and machine would slow spinning down. If spin cycle timed out before machine could get back up to speed, tant pis.... In fact owners manual for this Miele clearly states when doing "absorbent" loads it is best to only half load tub.

Now more modern AEG Lavamat has no issues; since everything is computer controlled it will vary spin and pump action to suit water/froth conditions, and still give a good wash.

Don't do heavy thick cotton blankets in either, they go into the Maytag wringer. The things simply hold too much water and become very heavy which often results in unbalanced spin cycles.

 

[DADoES]

 
I run towels with all the other "whites" items ... other bath(room) items, socks, and kitchen linens.  Always hot water, STPP, and chlorine bleach (or less often oxy bleach).

 

[sudsmaster]

Try running a full load of towels with NO detergent. There might be enough residual detergent in them to get the clean.

Also check the Borax label carefully, It may contain surfactant (detergent) which may be high sudsing.