How does your washer handle Sudslocks?

[electron1100]

Tesco

This is a bit ironic as I was taking the piss out of Tesco powder back then, but nearly two years ago Mat (Cardiff) recommended Tesco powder as being a good cleaner but also having very low suds, I had found that waitrose powder had the same qualities.

It took me a long time to actually buy some Tesco powder, as I had always used Persil/Daz/Ariel all of which cleaned well but produced too many suds in all my machines.

Once I tried it out and found that its cleaning power is as good as the expensive powders and also no suds lock on towels or anything I haven't looked back it is now nearly two years down the line, and whilst my washing powder collection is dull as there are only two types of powder there Tesco Bio/colour they are all I need.

I forgot to say about Robs tip using fabric conditioner helps, Mike told me this aswell and indeed it does help with sudsy powders

 

[washer111]

Miele...

I think we get a water-lock more than anything - since the Miele tries ramming its "I got no respect for my surroundings" attitude down the pump's throat.

So - it ramps up for spin, then you start to hear the thing strain for about 10-20secs, then it stops pumping AND spinning (which is silly). Does a quick flush/tumble of water and tries again.
I've never seen what happens if/when it can't manage to cope with this. I know we have triggered 'Check Detergent' at least 3-4 times - typically on loads of towels or dog blankets (The latter of which require a long, hot wash that might "encourage" excessive sudsing). So the machine thinks we're idiots, when we are really not.

Personally, I'd prefer it if the Miele took to spinning up more gradually then just "Going for broke," particuarly on the Minimum Iron, Automatic Plus and Cottons cycles.

Some friends of mine have some "Daewoo" POS - which can barely recognise Sudslock. Its so loud though you can clearly make out when it does that in (every) cycle. However, it will spin for at least half a minute before its braindead "logic" kicks in, and forces the next rinse on.
Unfortunately, that means that by the final rinse, everything is covered in thick suds, and you'd think you were washing in a Unimatic!!! Glad to report though that fabric softener at least takes care of the bubbles for them

 

[iej]

We'd a De Dietrich machine that would just stop for up to 15 mins then, pump, fill, tumble, drain until it was happy the suds were under control when it would move on to a slow spin before completing the cycle.

It seemed to work.

How do they detect suds ?

 

[haxisfan]

Oh... this is my kinda thing

When I get a new machine, the first thing I do is a suds test. I achieve this by doubling up the recommended dose of detergent. I'm impressed by both my Hoovers as they both came up smelling of roses having created some severe conditions.

I tried with the Hoover Nextra years ago where I almost triplicated the detergent load. As expected, the machine filled with bubbles, and it sudslocked on the interim spins, however the spin was halted and it was followed by a couple of minute pause. This situation triggered the emergency water level, which is not an additional rinse, but just a high water level rinse which should theoretically help to dilute the detergent further... and it did! This behaviour was repeated twice and, by the end of the cycle (3 rinses altogether), the suds were all gone. More recently I tried another sudsy experiment by using high sudsing top loading washer detergent in it... again, it got really messy inside... but only inside... until it was all clear (I used the extra rinse facility this time and the washer carried out 5 rinses).

I tried a similar experiment on the Hoover Dynamic where I quantuplicated the recommended dose of detergent, and she too, came up trumps... and most astonishingly... with only 1 high water level rinse followed by a normal medium water level one. I was so proud

 

[chaskelljr2]

Maytag Bravos High Efficiency Top Loader..

I now use a Maytag Bravos High Efficiency Top Loader with the "Low Rise" Agitator on the VERY bottom of a Stainless Steel Tub.

I use either Arm & Hammer or Tide HE Liquid Detergent. I use according to load size. So I haven't experienced any Suds Lock at this point. Now, I have used Front Loaders before. And what they tended to do attempt to do a Suds Kill by injecting additional water inside the Wash Drum, and then do additional tumbling until the condition is cleared up.

So suspect that's what the Maytag Bravos may do as well. Do an additional fill and agitate with water only, then proceed with a final Drain & Spin once the condition clears up.

The Maytag Bravos did JUST that last Saturday, but not because of an Oversudsing Condition, but because there was an Unbalanced Load inside the Tub.

I use HE Detergents with this machine, so Suds Lock should not become an issue as long as I am using it.

I use Woolite on my Football Jerseys and my expensive Ralph Lauren Polos. Tide on everything else.

--Charles--

 

[electron1100]

Tesco Powder Update

Further to the comments I made about Tesco powder being very low suds, I have taken two pictures of a load on the first rinse just to show how few suds there are.
The first picture is of the machine having just filled with water after pumping out the wash water, the second is the load tumbling.
As you can see suds are not a problem with this powder
Why the brand leaders cannot be like this puzzles me

Gary[this post was last edited: 9/2/2014-06:58]