Woman Purchases Miele Washer - Claims It Shakes House

[henene4]

Unfortunately, you didn't mention what exact model you have.

If your machine is level, even a very worn out machine just wouldn't walk, and after 2 years, I would be highly surprised if the dampers were worn out.
Their quality has gone down, programming unfortunately has become an issue, but not quite that level.
Make sure the counter locking nuts on the feet are secured - many forget those and they are more critical than you think.

Given it shakes something on the other side of the kitchen, it just has to be on wooden flooring.

If the machine is 100% level, the counter nuts are tightened and all other installation requirements are met, I think you have an unlucky situation on your hand.

Dampers wear over time which changes the entire behaviour of the swinging system.
The reason FLs really badly want really hard flooring is that if the floor has any give, it becomes part of the swinging system.
That might work out if the dampers are very new OR very old, but at some point, the machine will start to vibrate at a certain frequency that is a resonance frequency of your flooring.
And when that happens, all hell breaks loose, as EVERYTHING on that floor will vibrate. It basically amplifies any vibration.
The weight of Mieles actually become an enemy then, since more weight once swinging has way more energy.

You should be abled to tell that the vibration in the floor starts to get worse at a certain spin speed and then better again at a higher spin speed.
Depending on which model you have, and once you figured out which spin speed is the worst, there should be a setting in the service mode for "resonance frequency".
That setting changes the spin profile to avoid a certain rpm range in that set region, reducing any interaction with the flooring.

Otherwise, the options are the typical re-enforcement of the flooring with a big wooden square, relocating the machine to a corner of the room if possible, or going at it with parts.
Dampers are an obvious thing parts wise. Though unlikely (and I don't know for sure how this machine would be have) it also could be the 3D sensor these machines should have on the drum. If it then defaults to just motor based OOB sensing that might explain why it suddenly lets spins happen when it otherwise didn't.

The dryer thing actually sounds weird - never had anything get caught between drum and housing in any of my dryers, especially my Miele.

But yeah, if the motor still can turn, the machine won't know anything is going on.
I know exactly of one dryer that had an actual drum speed sensor, and that has been out of production for a few years now.

 

[bewitched]

Miele sure can't be blamed if there are people living in "three piglet style" houses. Here where are not such houses, nobody has this kind of problems no matter the brand of the washer. perhaps the complaining lady should place the washer outside the house on a concrete platform.

 

[washingpowder]

@launderess, it was more of a vent but I appreciate your advice
@Henrik, it is a wooden floor, but the sturdy pre-war Bronx kind. I’ve always expected some level of vibration but not this bad. Even my old Nexxt with completely shot bearings didn’t make such a mess.
The thing is that the machine essentially goes into a full speed with the drum violently beating about.
I do think you’re onto something though with the dampers that lost some of their prime. I’m more and more inclined it’s a combination of that and shoddy programming.
I attempted to finish the towels and after seeing it slowly ramp up and the drum being more less going ok, it stops, and starts the ‘distribution’ significantly faster, essentially creating uneven load, beats about, gives out, and after 15 rinse and repeats it goes fluffit I’m taking a walk. It actually bangs against the sides, imagine that ramping up to serious speeds. It reminds me of those silly videos of people throwing bricks in the machine.
I don’t know: I was thinking about buying those little silicone pads that are supposed to lessen vibrations. I’ll live with the noise, just not the moving about.

Speaking of the dryer, I just assumed that considering it has a sensor for absolutely anything that may go wrong, such a sudden increase of load on the motor should have tripped something.

Miele is slowly turning me to one of those grandpas. I’ve had 3 front loaders in the very same spot for 9 years, never such an issue. This machine was whisper quiet and stable with very minimal vibrations only on heavy loads for the first year.

 

[washingpowder]

Apologies, can’t edit

It’s a WWH860

 

[henene4]

The WWH860 does have a clear text display, so going into the service mode shouldn't pose any risk.

Have the machine turned off, door closed.
Hold start pressed, turn it on. The start button should flash rapidly.
Press the start button 5 times, holding it pressed on the 5th time.
After holding for a few seconds, the display will come on saying some text. Then release the start button.

Scrolling through the options should be pretty intuitive.
There should be a setting for resonance frequency. There you can set different rpm numbers. Trial and error if any help - again, guesstimating at which rpm the vibration starts is a good starting point.
While in there, you can check if there is a setting for OOB sensing. The setting equivalent to motor/tacho and sensor should be set.

Again, that can help, but isn't warranted to. And don't change any settings in there you aren't sure about. You can brick a machine if you set wrong things.

The dryer technically has a way to sense a stalled motor.
But if the belt starts slipping on the pulley, it can happen that motor runs "as normal" while the belt slips.
There is no belt tension switch on basically any EU dryer I know like there is on some US dryers.

 

[mrlaundry1011]

You could always use a slightly damp towel and start spin in service mode (M5 + M8 in component test), increase 100rpm steps until you find out where the vibrations are the most aggressive and easily find the resonance speed

 

[washingpowder]

That was so extremely helpful…kinda

I’m familiar with that menu because that’s how I increased some water levels.
Using MrLaundry’s advice (which is in the 3 button pressed menu, if anyone needs that info, I found out the banging started at 600, started banging at 700, and almost walked at 800. By 1200 it was running smooth enough for operation.
However, my resonance adjustments are only available between 1200-1600….

Speaking of the imbalance sensor settings, it’s set to Tacho+EZU. The other options are:
Tacho
Tacho+Imbalance sensor

Am I correct to assume that has to do with components of this particular machine, and changing it to tacho+imbalance sensor wouldn’t do much/fry some circuits?
Does anyone know what EZU is? Just curiosity.

Also, thank you all for contributing. I really want this machine at least workable, there’s no other that would be true to temp with actually delicate cycles.

 

[henene4]

That setting should be correct. As far as I know, the EZU is one of the control units that has certain sensor functionality.
As long as it's not just tacho, that's fine. Just haven't had a W1 under my fingers for so long that I didn't remember the possible settings.
However, changing that setting can't really brick anything AFAIK, worst it could do is store an error code or alter spin performance for the worse. You can always go back in that menu and change that back.
Maybe even try just setting it to tacho - it would probably use different OOB values for the more imprecise sensing which might end up giving a benefit in your specific scenario.

You could always try setting it to twice the speed you experience issues at, so maybe 1500rpm.
That however is a shot in the dark as that programming functionality isn't really documented in a publicly.
But resonances usually can appear at multiples of the base frequency, so I wouldn't put it off Miele programming in behaviour avoiding all rpm ranges at half and a quarter of the set speed.

 

[launderess]

My AEG Lavamat has a sweet spot with certain loads.

It will vibrate and shimmy at a lower spin speed with such loads, but as things rev up to higher rpms it quiets down.

Issue is that with final spin if rpm selected is lower than sweet spot one simply has to live with noise since machine won't go any higher.

 

[washingpowder]

@Henene, I’ll try and change it to tacho only and do a load, I’m curious now. It became a science project lol
The thing about using higher speeds is it still has to go through the 700-800rpm stage and that’s when things get crazy. It doesn’t accelerate that fast either, it seems to be staying in that range for a few minutes, then 1200 and only for the last 2 minutes of spin she goes to 1600.
I’m tempted to open the top and see that maybe one of the springs unattached itself or something. Will report back
@launderess, my Bosch did that exact thing, and it was actually kinda…cute? It would start slow, wobble itself for some time and then kick into full speed. It never really sent any vibrations to the floor or moved, it was the machine itself. I think I remember reading in the manual that it was normal. And truth be completely told..I think it washed better. It tangled everything into giant balls but I just feel like I’m not getting *just* the same result from the W1, regardless of the tweaks of settings. The Nexxt laundry was just whiter and rinsed better.
Don’t get me wrong, the quality of clean from the Miele is outstanding but it that 2% difference. I’ve felt like it since I bought it and for a good time was messing about with settings, then I gave up and accepted that some things will just stay the way they are.

 

[henene4]

That's something I haven't heard I think ever. The Bosch Nexxt machines were regarded as very mediocre on basically ANY regard as far as I am aware.

Haven't used one ever, but think that Mieles would perform better.
But I liked how my Miele performed without pany water level adjustment, so what do I know.

The resonance frequency setting does not avoid the vibrations entirely from what I understand.
They just shift rpm steps in the spin profile to not be at that specific speed. So basically, if a resonance happend at 1200rpm, and you set that, the machine would accelerate quickly through that speed range to lets say 1300rpm.
It would still hit the resonance speed, but minimise the time at that speed.

My theory then was that the machine only has such high settings because it not only avoids that setting, but also the half and quarter speeds of that.
Basically, setting 1500rpm, it avoids 750rpm and 375rpm aswell.

What I do know is that EU washers are just not designed for any wooden construction.
While US FLs go as far as sometimes offering 2nd floor guarantees (or used to at least with ELux), EU machines go as far as offering specific machines that can be ordered with adapted suspensions for wood floor installation (like VZug).

So 2 different design ideas: US FLs are designed with the knowledge that installation in US typical construction is likely.
EU washers are designed with EU construction in mind, where I lived in wooden housing once - and that was a farm building from early 1900.

 

[brisnat81]

Have you also checked that your legs aren’t over extended and that the locking nut is done up tight?

Our W1 has always been on concrete, but the earlier machines were on a wooden floor and would vibrate significantly. The best improvement came from screwing all 4 feet up to the base of the machine, then only letting them down just far enough to get level l, then tighten the nut.

The W5000 on concrete was vibrating significantly until I did the same, it’s feet were almost fully extended when I got it, with the nuts loose.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

My garbage disposal is taking on this wanting to make a frivolous lawsuit quality...

A Lego piece was the most unusual thing I'd put down in it via my kitchen drain and I believe it's been making a strange and struggling groaning sound shaking up my house ever since...

-- Dave