Why you should NEVER add water to a TL washer

[niclonnic]

I learned the hard way that it's NOT a good idea to manually add water to my Frigidaire FFTW1001PW top-load washer, which automatically senses the right water level for a load.

About a week ago, I was washing my bed pillows in there, and the water level was too low, so I decided to add more water myself. Since my laundry room upstairs doesn't have a sink installed, I took a Lowe's 5-gallon bucket, filled it up with hot water from my bathtub, hauled it over to the laundry room and added it to the washer. I had to do a few trips, but on my second one, I filled up the bucket a bit too much, (not to the top, but a little ways below it), and when I went to add it, the water splashed all over the machine! I had to take a towel and wipe it all up. Eventually, I got the tub filled to its near-maximum capacity. But the rinse water was still low, so I just left the washer alone.

And now, the washer is leaking water all over the place after every cycle. My dad and his SO were trying to figure out the cause of this leaking, and I confessed to them that I used the Lowe's bucket to add water to my pillows in the tub. We've been using a towel to soak up the water on the floor.

How do we stop this leaking from occurring again? For one thing, I'll never wash pillows again in that washer, as TL machines cannot wash them effectively anyway. I'd like to find a blueprint or schematic of my machine, if that's possible.

 

[launderess]

Days of top loading automatic washing machines with good to generous gap between inner and outer tubs is long gone. Thus by adding more water than inner tub was supposed to hold you may have sent water down into cabinet or other places where it shouldn't go.

Easy way to tell is pull washer out and take off the back panel (assuming this is possible), and see if there is still water at bottom of cabinet. If so get some towels or whatever and carefully start mopping up excess water.

Remember water will always seek its own level. So whatever splashed at top of machine is going to work its way down to bottom. Once there it will "leak" or whatever out until either removed (wiped up) or evaporates.

How to prevent this from happening again? Don't pour buckets of water or otherwise fill washer with more than it does on its own.

 

[DADoES]

 
Adding more water would reasonably cause leaking only on that one load, if you overfilled it to the point it splashed out or ran over the top of the tub.  There's nowhere in the mechanism it can retain excess water for leaking on a later run.

Spilling water over the the top and around the tub when pouring it in, would run on the floor immediately ... although the lower edge of the cabinet is possibly formed into a channel for structural strength which could hold some small amount of water that may drip out.

Water weighs ~8.3 lbs per gallon ... 5 gallons in a bucket is 41 lbs of sloshing to handle.

Agitator toploaders suck for handling pillows.  Calypso works much better. 

Frigidaire FFTW1001PW Parts Diagrams @ AppliancePartsPros.com

Frigidaire FFTW1001PW Parts Diagrams @ SearsPartsDirect.com

 

[niclonnic]

The culprit

Yesterday, we pulled the washing machine away from its normal spot so we could find out where the leak was coming from. While the washer was washing clothes, the drain hose was moving back and forth and leaking right where it connected to the machine.

So this morning, my dad unscrewed 8 screws on the back of the machine and removed the back cover so he could take a look inside. The drain pump motor was somehow dislodged from its mounting spot on the back corner of the washer. The previous homeowners must have tampered with the machine somehow. So he screwed the pump back onto the machine with 2 screws, and now the wash water is draining a lot better than before. But there IS a small hole in the drain hose, next to the pump, so we might have to cut off part of the hose to prevent leakage.

The fact that I added water to the machine exacerbated this problem, just as I suspected.

 

[DADoES]

 
<blockquote>The fact that I added water to the machine exacerbated this problem, just as I suspected.</blockquote> Stop beating yourself up. 

Adding water didn't dislodge the pump or cause a tear in the drain hose.  All that had already occurred.  Consider it as a positive event for revealing the problems, the leak from the drain hose would have gotten worse anyway.

 

[yogitunes]

I think I would shorten that drain hose as well.....that is an excessive length on there...

 

[pinkpower4]

Washing pillows

I wonder if it was the weight of the pillows and water was aggravated a problem that was waiting to happen anyway. If they are not perfectly positioned, it can really thrown one of these hung suspension washers in an out-of-balance very quickly. Those jerky movements can dislodge a lot.

It is just my opinion, but I don’t think today’s washers can handle washing bed pillows except maybe the SQ TC5. I would take them to a commercial laundry mat next time if it were me. Then I would buy some covers (mine are wateproof/allergy ones). Then you just have to wash the pillow case and occasionally the cover as the pillow inside is completely protected.

 

[pinkpower4]

Adding water...

I add water to my portable washer, a Magic Chef, all the time. A two-gallon bucket fills bring the “large” water level selection to 3/4 of the tub. I’ve never had any issues with leaking. These HE recommendation were well intentioned but poorly researched. Less water means more loads, which use more electricity and time.

I know where the adjustment lever is to “fix” this, but it looks like an iffy plastic piece that is not exactly easy to get to.

 

[DADoES]

 
My AquaSmart can handle one pillow sorta reasonably OK.  Delicate cycle, which operates in non-HE mode but the item still has some contact with the impeller.  It won't turn over for both sides to get some action but can be manually turned over a few times.

I washed a couple pillows once in the Neptune TL ... they were mangled to the point I never could get the stuffing back into reasonable distribution.