Washing Machine Leaking Water? How to Find the Source
A puddle on the laundry floor is easy to spot but not always easy to explain. Water can travel a fair way before it pools, so where you see it is not always where it is coming from. The key is to work methodically and figure out whether the leak happens on fill, during the wash, or on drain, as that tells you a lot.
How do you fix a washing machine that is leaking?
Work out which part of the cycle it leaks on, because that on its own narrows it to one or two parts. Water that appears while the machine is filling is the inlet hoses or their washers. Water during the wash is the door seal or the detergent drawer. Water on drain is the pump, its filter housing or the drain hose.
Once you know the phase, most of the cheap fixes are within reach at home: a new hose washer, a wipe-out and reseat of the door seal, a cleaned drawer, or a pump filter screwed back in properly. What is left after that sits inside the machine, and that is where it stops being a towel-and-torch job.
Turn off the taps first
Before anything else, turn off the water supply taps at the wall and unplug the machine. It is safer, and it stops a small leak becoming a flooded laundry while you investigate.
Check the fill hoses
Pull the machine out and look at the inlet hoses where they connect to the taps and to the back of the machine. Worn washers, loose connections and perished hoses are one of the most common leak points, and they are cheap to replace. If the hose is more than about ten years old, it is worth replacing regardless.
Check the door seal (front-loaders)
Inspect the rubber door gasket for tears, and for trapped coins or grit that stop it sealing. A leak that only appears during the wash, running down the front of the machine, usually points to the door seal.
Check the detergent drawer
If you overfill with detergent or softener, or the drawer is clogged, water can back up and spill out the front. Clean the drawer and cavity, and use less product.
Check the drain hose and pump
A leak that shows up during the drain phase often comes from the drain hose or the pump area at the bottom of the machine. Cracked hoses and a worn pump seal both leak here.
A note on where water pools
Because water runs to the lowest point, a leak at the back can appear at the front. Lay paper towel across the floor under the machine and run a cycle, then see which section gets wet first.
Washing machine leaking water from underneath
Water showing under the machine has usually started somewhere higher and run down the casing, so treat underneath as the last place it was seen rather than where it came from.
The faults that genuinely leak low down are a drain pump filter that was not screwed back in tight, a perished seal on the pump housing, a split sump hose between the tub and the pump, and on older machines the outer tub itself. Check the filter first, because it is the one people create themselves after clearing a blockage.
The test is a dry floor and a wash with nothing in it. Towel the floor, run a short cycle, and watch when the puddle turns up. On fill it is the inlet side. Part way through the wash it is the boot seal or the drawer. Right at the end it is the pump or the drain hose. A tub that has rusted through leaks steadily the whole cycle, and on most machines that is the end of it rather than a repair.
When to call a professional
If the leak is coming from inside the machine, from the tub, pump or internal hoses, that is a job for a technician. Chasing an internal leak without pulling the machine apart correctly usually makes a mess and can damage electrical parts.
Wollongong Service Company repairs leaking washers across the Illawarra and South Coast. Book a repair or call 02 4229 3777 and we will find the source and fix it properly.
