No one wants to go down to the (polluted) river and wash clothes on a rock! Instead, we stuff the clothes washer with everything wearable, dump some soap in, maybe add a glug of bleach, push a button or turn a knob, and don't give the washer another thought--unless we come back to wet and soapy clothes! It's a good thing that, for their size, clothes washers are relatively easy to work on. You just need to know how to fix them. A washer is a better option than a rock!

How Does It Work?

Components of a typical top-loading clothes washer.

A clothes washer is a major appliance designed for washing clothes, bedding, towels, and other linens. Knobs and buttons on the machine's control panel send instructions to a timer and electrically operated valves. The wash cycle begins by filling the washtub with hot, cold, or blended-temperature water. In a top-loading washer, the agitator in the middle of the tub churns back and forth or up and down to clean the clothes. In a front-loading washer, the drum tumbles the clothes clean. In all washers, the spin cycle extracts water from the clothes, and a pump sends dirty water to the drain.

A direct-drive clothes washer uses gears on the motor to turn the agitator and spin the drum. A belt-drive washer transfers power from the motor to the agitator and drum using a belt-and-pulley system.

What Can Go Wrong?

The electrical cord may be faulty. Switches can fail. The timer can be faulty. The motor, clutch, and transmission can malfunction. Hoses can become kinked or leak. Filters can become clogged. The pump can fail. The agitator can break.

Fix-It Tip

Modern major appliances, including clothes washers, use digital rather than mechanical timers and other controls. Some include diagnostic tests that report operating problems as trouble codes. Check your machine's owner's manual for information on how to activate and interpret diagnostic codes. You may be able to fix the problem yourself!