Homemaking Tips – Cleaning Your Washing Machine Amy Smith, March 2, 2020April 5, 2024 Cleaning and sanitizing your washing machine will help it perform better and allow you to have clean and fresh-smelling clothes. When you do laundry, things like dirt, debris, and potty accident stuff leave a film of mold, mildew, and bacteria along with detergent residue on the interior of your washing machine. Over the course of time, this becomes a nasty and smelly mess inside your washing machine. Sanitizing the inside of your machine will help destroy and get rid of mold, mildew, and bacteria spores all while keeping it smelling clean and fresh. Sanitizing your Washing Machine You should sanitize your machine, clean soap scum build-up, and clean washing machine trays at least once per month. Using a damp cloth, wipe the dirt and debris from inside the washer. Next, you are going to run a wash cycle but do not put clothes in the machine. You want to run a large load cycle with hot water and your normal amount of laundry soap. In addition to the laundry soap, add a cup of bleach to the cycle. Once the washer has completely filled with water and agitated a few times, stop the wash cycle and let it sit for 20 minutes. This will give the bleach time to do its job of disinfecting the washer. Then, let the machine complete the wash cycle. Cleaning Hard Water and Soap Scum Build-Up Hard water will dirty your washing machine in a hurry. Soap scum build-up is caused by residue from your laundry soap. Did you know that soap scum is one of the main culprits that dull clothing? This task is almost the same as the sanitizing one above but the difference is that instead of bleach, you will use 4 cups of white vinegar. Do not add laundry soap as you did for the sanitizing step. You will run the same cycle, stopping when agitated a few times and letting it sit for 30-45 minutes. This will allow the acidity in the vinegar to get rid of the residue. Cleaning Trays and Dispensers Fabric softener and bleach dispensers as well as detergent dispenser trays can get pretty dirty and may even become clogged. If your trays and dispensers are removable, take them out and wash them in the sink with hot water and dish soap. You can use an old toothbrush to get crevices and hard-to-reach areas. If your trays and dispensers are not removable, you will want to flush them out with hot white vinegar. You don’t want to get the vinegar too hot as most trays and dispensers are made of plastic and may melt. Image Source: FreePik Share on FacebookTweetFollow usSave For the Home Cleaningtipswashing machine
I like the recommendation to sanitize the washing machine. It makes sense that this could be a good way to keep it clean because there wouldn’t be any residing bacteria that could cause problems. It’s something I’ll have to keep in mind for after I have it repaired because it could be good to keep something that is meant to clean other things, clean itself.