Speed Queen Frontloader Cycle Pause

[DADoES]

 
Someone on another discussion board advised regards to their new SQ FL that it fully drains the water before unlocking when a running cycle is paused to add an item and refills when the cycle is resumed, which results in loss of detergent.  Is the normal fill level high enough for a spill risk?  Or, is draining a safety function for some other reason?

 

[gansky1]

Annoying Drain Routine

 

 

Mine does this.  Not sure of the reason, but I'm usually using hot water washes so it stands to reason it's for a safety concern.

 

[neptuneguy27]

Mine too

I can confirm that my 6 month old SQ FL'er does this as well. But it will do it regardless of water temp selection. I have observed that the water level stays below the door but the water level does start to climb when the washer pauses between tumbles. I guess it's conceivable that if left standing long enough, the water as it drains out of the clothes could cause the water level to increase enough to spill out if the door was left open. Now on the Sanitize with Oxi cycle, the water level comes right up to the bottom of the door glass so you'd definitely wouldn't want to open the door.

 

[imperial70]

Every front loader I've encountered does this
- on a cycle that fills to a point where the water shows up on the door and would spill out if the door was open.
- on a cycle with hot or extra-hot or sanitize
But my experience is with Frigidaire and GE.

 

[DADoES]

 
The few with which I've interacted (Duet, Neptune, Samsung) don't drain.  The cycle pauses but the door doesn't unlock in the case of high-temp/heated water on the Duet and Samsung, or a higher water level for Delicate or some such cycle ... no draining occurs either way.

 

[brisnat81]

My euro Duet and the Mieles won’t open the door once there is a certain amount of water in there or if the water temp is over 55degC. Generally you can open the door at any point on a cottons or permanent press cycle, but if you have a large absorbent load, it won’t let you break in, because even though the water isn’t visible, once the tub stops, it would over flow.

Otherwise the door will generally always open during a wash or rinse portion.

With the machines that never open without draining, do they have a shallow lip from the drum to the boot? Is that have they’ve increased the door opening, made the edges of the drum shallower, which means less room for water without overflowing?

 

[golittlesport]

that is crazy

I agree Speed Queen front loaders are built like tanks and will last longer than other brands, but I would not buy one. The fact that they do not offer a model that heats water was the deal breaker for me. And now that it seems you cannot open the door to add an item without draining the water is a second deal breaker that I could not work around.

 

[jbellafesta]

So what do you all do in this case? The first time this happened to me i actually wanted to pause the cycle and had no intention of opening the door. So I was pissed when the water was drained. It seems odd the manual doesn't address how to proceed. Are you supposed to add more detergent, and if so, how much? Since I'm complaining, another gripe I have is that you have to unplug the machine to clear a fault and therefore you are also left in the same situation where the water drains mid-cycle. I often turn my cold water valve down to increase the temp of the water in on the warm cycle. If i forget to open the cold valve all the way, it won't have enough water pressure to fill and the machine goes into fault status, so I've had to deal with this situation of the involuntary drain several times.

 

[henene4]

Recovering from fault status is intentionally often not possible.
So you are supposed to restart the cycle.
It's ment to "protect" you and your laundry in cases where rinsing is aborted for example. That is basically industry standard.

The draining after pausing is kind of annoying. My machine does that after opening the door if the laundry drips off some water and the level ends up higher than allowed for an open door. It's ment to prevent water leaking out.
If my machine does that, I add a minimal dose if the washer was already has saturated and sissolved the detergent. I ususally add about a fith to a third max of what I used initially.