My front-end washer, about 6 months old, is starting to smell like mold and going on my towels. Is it okay to use OxyClean to fix the problem? Thanks...Marilyn
Sorry to say but your washer will need a complete tub tear down to clean out the odor. The reason this has happened is because of excess detergent usage. It's not mentioned in the owner's manual but most manufacturers say to use only 2 tablespoons of detergent per wash. But since most people are used to putting in a lot of detergent, the excess suds has stuck the upper half of the tub assembly and the front loaders are not designed to rinse that off. You will need to call a repair technician to have the unit completely torn down and cleaned out properly.
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We had a similar problem, that actually had several causes.
1) Washer ate a baby sock. We cleaned the filter and drain line and found that the washer had sucked up a baby sock. Washer was still functioning normally, but the sock was absorbing all the dirt and detergent and stunk! We also found $35 in the filter, which made the problem seem that much more inconsequential : )
2) Door Gasket has an second layer that attracts all the leftover grease and grime (and smell). I found that after pulling the gasket back and wiping the gunk out, that seemed to help too.
3) The best solution that I found was when I switched my children to cloth diapers. At that time, I also switched detergents. I switched from a liquid detergent to a powdered detergent called Charlie's Soap. It cleaned every amount of residue and smell out of the washer. Unfortunately can be a bit hard to find. I ran out last week and changed back to Tide liquid. Smell returned almost immediately. Will be sticking to Charlie's or another powdered detergent (Whole Foods 365 worked well too). Tried bleach and that only lasted about 4 days before the smell returned.
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