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bradecho

Washing Machine Using Hot When Set to Cold

bradecho
10 years ago

I recently had a strange problem with my Kenmore front loader washing machine from 2006 after we had our hot water heater replaced. My wife did a load of laundry on Cold, and when she took them out the washer it had washed them on hot.

Before anyone says that the hoses on the washer were wrong, don't bother. The installer never even touched them (I was there) and the hotwater heater is installed correctly and the pipes aren't reversed.

The one anomaly was the hot water setting on the hot water heater. Installer set it to "A" which apparently has always been 120 degrees. However, after the installer and his boss came back and consulted the manual, the "Hot" setting on the water heaters thermostat is now 120 degrees and the 4 settings above it are all hotter.

In my case "A" (which is just above "Hot") was 144 degrees when checked with two different thermometers (the plumbers and mine).

When the heater was put on the "Hot" setting the water did cool down to 120 degrees.

Since changing the setting we have not had any problems with our washer. I'm just wondering if the extra hot water could have messed with the solenoids in the washing machine. An appliance tech I had out to check out the washer told me that even when set to cold wash / cold rinse that the front loader still inject a "small" amount of warm water into the soap dispenser to clean it out.

Hot water heater is an AO Smith 40 gallon with a Honeywell thermostat.

Just curious if anyone else ever heard of such a problem.

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