Often a sign of a growing clog. The door doesn’t unlock until the water sensor says there is no water. If the last bit of water is draining slowly, it can delay unlock.
Three places to check a front loader:
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The rubber gasket for the door has small holes in the folds that get clogged.
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The lint/large item trap is getting full. Most washers have a little door you can open and pull that out for cleaning.
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Worst is there’s a ball in the drain hose at the bottom of the tub where the tub connects to the drain pump. It works as a check valve. It can get clogged. You need to get access to the motor area of the washer. Often massaging that ball in the hose is enough to let it drain. I’m fully aware of what this sounds like.
Literally had to take my parents washer apart recently and remove the impediment that was blocking the recirculation pump which caused it to be very loud and not recirculating.
The fun part was the service manual inside the washer that explained how to put it into service mode and test each function. Quality machine.
What brand, model, and how old?
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I’m more confused by how my machine can say 40mins left but then 40mins later it’s still got 30mins and is actively washing.
That one is actually easy: because to spin it needs to balance the clothes, and if that is not easy because of large pieces or whatever then it takes a long time to spin up. It can even completely fail to spin, for example if you wash one pillow, as it can not balance that.
In the 90s, my mum’s washing machine would stop if you needed to rebalance it, and a “rebalance” light would come on to let you know. It doesn’t seem like newer washing machines still do that?
Then it will just retry and retry, wasting a bunch of water until you stop it and balance it
The older I get the more I appreciate usability over a cheap price tag.
Our current washing machine demands the gathering of an audience by loudly singing the song of its people a full minute or more before it will let you open the damn door. It also has no respect for human arms, requiring a traversal from far left (soap dispenser ), to far right (power on), to centre (program select), then back to the far right for temperature and spin adjust and finally cycle start. Put the damn controls in a logical order across the top of the machine for fuck’s sake!
It’s a growing clog. See my other post here on how to fix.
You can open top loaders while they’re running to add something you forgot. They’re simpler and so more reliable machines, also easier to repair.
But, if your cat likes the front loader, then you’re stuck with that.
Top loaders have had locking doors on them since 2015. In order to meet energy star standards, top loaders are no longer deep water agetators but are now load-weight-sensing fill heights for energy and water conservation efficiency. This also necessitated spin cycles > 50RPMs, which is no longer safe to coast-stop under UL certification. So now the lid needs to lock when the unit is in use, and that’s why they all have pause buttons now so the machine can safe-stop whatever it’s doing.
It’s also why people say they don’t work as good, because they probably are still setting their settings like they always have. Also I bet a lot of them actually suck ass.
Also I bet a lot of them actually suck ass.
Adjusted for inflation, the price of things like a washing machine is now far lower than they once were.
Partly that’s because of efficiency of manufacture. But largely it’s because manufacturers are cheaping out in a race to the bottom, because they know the price tag is one of the most important things consumers look at when buying a new appliance.
You can still buy expensive appliances that last forever, mostly in the form of commercial/industrial units. But be prepared to spend 10x more on it.
Our water company gave us a Samsung machine when we got our house to save water. It saves so much sometimes half the clothes never touches the water. You have to pour in water to soak the clothes before you start it to raise the weight to get enough water for it to wash right
I bought mine in 2019, it does lock but only when in spin cycle. When its just filling with water you can still open and toss stuff in
Love top loaders. When I was little the one we had would stay running even with the top open. I played with my horse figurines in the water by making them swim around and stuff, best time of my life
Not the new ones. (Not that one I use anyway.)
The machine beeps when the software cycle completes but often the mechanical process termination lags behind this due most commonly to sunspots. Happy now.
I definitely read that a women was keeping the door locked to the laundry room until the machine stopped… The internet has ruined me
