Why does the washing machine take a long time to wash? The main causes of the malfunction

Depend­ing on the mode, wash­ing can last from 15–30 min­utes to 1–2.5 hours. The norm is that the wash­ing machine does not turn off 5 min­utes after the start of wash­ing. But when you set the pro­gram for 30 min­utes, and the wash­ing machine con­tin­ues the process for more than 2 hours, this is not nor­mal. In this sit­u­a­tion, it is impor­tant to under­stand why the wash­ing machine con­tin­ues to wash much longer than it should be accord­ing to the regime. In this arti­cle, we have ana­lyzed eight of the most com­mon caus­es.

Fault table

Washing machine overload

If you put more laun­dry in the drum than it is writ­ten in the instruc­tions, then it will be very dif­fi­cult for your unit to dis­trib­ute it even­ly and gain the nec­es­sary speed, while the machine will con­stant­ly make a con­stant effort, and it will seem to the host­ess that the laun­dry is being washed, but very slow­ly. Lumpy laun­dry can also cause pro­longed dis­tri­b­u­tion in the drum.

The prob­lem is solved sim­ply — try run­ning the wash with less laun­dry.

Problems with the collection (supply) of water

Wash­ing does not start, as the wash­er is not able to draw the right amount of liq­uid. The process takes longer. There are sev­er­al rea­sons why this prob­lem may occur:

• low pres­sure in water sup­ply pipes. If this is the case, then wash­ing should be post­poned for a while­un­til the pres­sure is nor­mal;
• valves are not ful­ly open. You just need to check and ful­ly open the tap that goes to the wash­ing machine;
• the fil­ter mesh on the inlet valve is heav­i­ly clogged. In this case, it is nec­es­sary to clean the fil­ter or replace it with a new one;
• the water inlet valve has failed, it will have to be replaced.

Slowly drains water (hangs on the drain)

The wash­ing process may be delayed if the water leaves the machine very slow­ly. This may cause pro­longed wash­ing. We check the nodes and ele­ments of the drain:

• we check and clean the drain fil­ter, which is locat­ed at the bot­tom of the front pan­el of the wash­ing machine, read how to drain water from the wash­ing machine.
• check if the impeller is spin­ning;
• clean the pipe that is attached to the pump. Dis­con­nect the wash­er from elec­tric­i­ty and turn off the water. Care­ful­ly lay it on its side so that the drain pump is acces­si­ble. Then we loosen the pipe clamp, if there is a block­age, we clean it, install it back;
• check the drain hose, it may be clogged. Clean or install a new one.

Constantly picks up and drains water: the washing process does not start

If there is good pres­sure in the sys­tem, you have cleaned all the fil­ters and at the same time the pump is work­ing, but water is drawn in and imme­di­ate­ly leaves, there are two rea­sons for this:

Wash­ing machine con­nect­ed incor­rect­ly

If the con­nec­tion to the drain is incor­rect, the fol­low­ing hap­pens — the water is drawn up to a cer­tain mark and begins to go down the drain. As a result, the right amount of liq­uid does not enter the machine — the wash does not start. It is nec­es­sary to raise the hose 60 cm from the floor. On many mod­els there is a mount on the back wall into which the hose snaps into place. Check the posi­tion of the drain hose in rela­tion to the lev­el of the wash­ing machine.

Faulty pres­sure switch

Pres­sure switch — a sen­sor show­ing the water lev­el. From his task is to give a com­mand to the machine that it is time to start wash­ing when there is enough water in the tank. If it fails, then the unit does not under­stand whether enough liq­uid has accu­mu­lat­ed and whether it is there at all. The process will be end­less — if the tank is full of water flows into the sew­er, while the machine will start to draw water again. You can fix this prob­lem by sim­ply replac­ing the water lev­el sen­sor.

Faulty intake valve

With this break­down, the valve may work inter­mit­tent­ly — it does not open com­plete­ly, or it com­plete­ly freezes. You can solve the prob­lem by replac­ing it with a new one.

Malfunctions of water heating (heater, thermostat)

This group of rea­sons is very com­mon — seri­ous break­downs that require the inter­ven­tion of spe­cial­ists. You will have to repair or change var­i­ous parts. In this case, the water heats up much longer, which means that the wash­ing process increas­es.

Scale has formed on the heat­ing ele­ment — it heats water for a long time

Of course, the break­down is not as glob­al as it is shown in the adver­tise­ment, but the qual­i­ty of the water leaves much to be desired and over time scale appears on the heat­ing ele­ment. The first sign is a grad­ual increase in water heat­ing time. Try clean­ing the machine with a spe­cial descaler or cit­ric acid. If after that no changes occur, then you will have to change the heat­ing ele­ment, or remove it and clean it man­u­al­ly.

Hangs at the water heat­ing stage (heater burnt out) — the wash­ing machine freezes on water heat­ing

Usu­al­ly, with this break­down, the wash­ing machine does not even start to spin the drum, and the cor­re­spond­ing error code is dis­played on the dis­play. In this case, you need to replace the heat­ing ele­ment with a new one. Be sure to check the heat­ing ele­ment with a mul­ti­me­ter before replac­ing.

Faulty ther­mo­stat

In this case, there is no infor­ma­tion that the water has heat­ed up to the desired tem­per­a­ture, since the sen­sor can­not deter­mine it. As a result, the wash either does not start, or it con­tin­ues for a long time, as the “brain” of the machine decides that it takes a lit­tle longer to heat the water. The unit can wash for a very long time — wait­ing for the tem­per­a­ture to reach the desired lev­el. We check the ther­mo­stat, if there is a prob­lem, we change it to a new one.

Problem with the control module or programmer (drum spins for a long time or freezes)

If the con­trol mod­ule fails, then the machine starts to set pro­grams incor­rect­ly, or turns them on one by one, or sim­ply does not turn on. In this case, wash­ing con­tin­ues indef­i­nite­ly or stops right in the mid­dle of the process. Deal­ing with this prob­lem on your own will not work. Only the mas­ter will be able to deter­mine whether the mod­ule is repairable, or a com­plete replace­ment may be required.

Finally

These are the main rea­sons that the wash­ing machine began to wash longer than spec­i­fied by the pro­gram. Some of them can be fixed on your own. If there is no desire to mess around with repairs, one call to any ser­vice cen­ter and a mobile mas­ter will solve a sim­i­lar prob­lem.

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