Washing Machine Hacking

One of the many selling points on the house I’m currently renting in Seattle was the washer and dryer. We had them in while I still lived in Iowa, but I didn’t want to take up that much room on the moving truck with bulky appliances. A couple of months ago the cold water function on the washing machine stopped working. This effectively made the cold-only rinse cycle dead and made hot-only washing an unattractive option for dark clothes due to color bleeds and fading. The landlord opted not to fix the washing machine, instead suggesting we buy one we could take with us when we move out. At the time, I went shopping for a machine but the one I wanted was out of stock so I blew it off.

I hate laundromats, so in the short term I came up with a hack to solve the problem (the hack worked well enough I didn’t purchase a new machine until the one in the house died this week).

First I turned off the water and disconnected the hot and cold water hoses from the machine. Next, I got a Y-adapter meant for attaching to outdoor garden hose spouts and connected it to the hot side. I connected the hot and cold hoses to the Y-adapter.

I capped off the cold water side of the machine with a cap designed for outdoor faucets. Despite it not working - it still had a means of leaking water during cycles.

This provided three temperature cycles depending on whether I had hot on, cold on or both hot and cold on for a warm wash cycle. For rinsing clothes, I simply re-ran a shorter wash cycle with cold only and no soap. Spin worked as expected.

While I would recommend this for a fully functional washer, this solution will extend the life of a washing machine that costs more to repair than replace.

garden hose, laundromats, outdoor faucets, washing machine