Good heavens.

Now the washers are attacking us!

;-)

In all seriousness.. that is awful.

I was thinking the same thing! I have a Duet also and sometimes it does make loud noises. However if I hear howling & whistling I’m getting the heck outta there in a hurry!

Yikes! I'm in MN with a year old Whirlpool Duet. Just when we thought there was enough in the world to fear.

Some years ago a spring from my garage door opener shot off like an arrow and narrowly missed me. I could have been impaled. I'll never forget that!

A number of different brands and models of front load washers have a similar problem where the stainless steel drum is supported at the back by a cheaply made cast aluminum bracket that they call a "spider". Since the spider is in direct contact with the stainless-steel drum, when is it exposed to water a "galvanic action" occurs causing the aluminum to corrode badly. When the spider weakens sufficiently even a slightly unbalanced load will cause the spider to crack and fail catastrophically, usually at the highest spin speed.

I'll bet that is what happened here.

I wonder if they were washing some kind of plastic like a shower curtain or a windbreaker type garment. These should not be washed in a FL and have caused explosions before in FL'ers. A pocket of air forms than when it meets the high spin speed of a FL boom. I think most manuals say not to wash plastics or windbreaker type fabrics.

She was washing her daughter's clothes. The machine was on spin cycle. And then, she says, it exploded.

The Op has a link to the article. It is hard to see.( Kare)

Wow! My first response is an obscenity, WTF?

I read that about the daughters clothes but still they could have had a windbreaker in the load.

Wow.

I’ve never heard of that about the plastics or the windbreakers MP, you’d think that if something like that can cause an explosion, they’d make the warning a lot more noticable than just mentioning it in a manual that very few people read.

I didn’t know about windbreakers either. Do they have to be hand washed?

The idea that washing plastics or a windbreaker being able to cause a front-load washing machine to be somewhat unbalanced does make sense. However the idea that it could be unbalanced to the point of the washing machine catastrophically failing and effectively exploding seem ludicrous. That seems to me more like something a manufacturer would use as an excuse to avoid liability, deny warranty claims, and shift blame to the user of the machine rather than to the engineers and the management who direct the engineers to cut every corner they can.

We have a front-loader that is maybe 15 years old, and it will start to spin, determine that it is unbalanced, slow down, and stop, rotate slowly to shift around the load, and try again to spin. After a few cycles of this, if the load is still unbalanced, it will give up, sound a buzzer and stop the cycle. When that happens it is slightly annoying to find the clothes soaking wet rather than mostly dry. But I would think it would be much more annoying for the washing machine to try to kill you or for you to find your washing machine destroyed and your clothes thrown through the wall into the next room.

One thing I'd note is the article says:

• Sara says there was no warning of what was about to happen.

But it also says:

• A strange, different, high, howl, whistling noise called her into the laundry room.

That noise was the warning. Although when my machine made a similar "different" noise, I reacted the same way that she did and went to the laundry room to see what was wrong.

Bob, mine is the same. It will try to re-balance the load 3 or 4 times. If that doesn’t work it just ends the cycle. It might beep but I don’t hear it. I go down to put the load in the dryer and find the clothes drenched. I do specifically try to make sure the load is always full enough for it not to go off balance even if I have to add some clean towels.

Failed bearings don't come shooting out of their case like shrapnel. If they were that bad the washer would have been making a lot of noise long,long they failed. A single unbalanced load will not burn them out either. If the spider failed the drum would disengage. If it were spinning at a high RPM it would certainly damage and dent up the washer and maybe the door would fly open if the hinge or lock were damaged in the process. But the idea that bearings and 'shrapnel" would shoot out like an explosion sounds a bit far fetched. Especially the bearings. Maybe falling out if the assembly cracked but not shooting out. The bearing is a sealed and BEHIND the drum. She sounds a little odd in her interview. Also notice there was no mention of the clothing flying out.

I think this was simply a drum failure due to a machine that was majorly unbalanced , probably due to a failing spider that destroyed the shroud and insides. But her story is a bit over dramatic IMO.

There are other washers that have exploded I think Samsung and can't remember which others.

Is that REAL news? These days, you can never be sure.

When mine was making that noise, I determined that it was the motor rather than the drum (by taking off the belt and rotating each by hand). I ordered a replacement motor, and since the motor was going to take about a week to arrive, I lubed and re-installed the old motor so we could do laundry in the meantime. It is still running fine with the old motor, and the new motor is sitting in its shipping box next to the washing machine.

Edited to answer the question posted below:

Yes it is a front loader. Frigidaire Gallery if I recall correctly.

Bob...was your a Front loader??

Different make and type, similar events:

Samsung recall of a year ago

If my washer ever attacked me like that, I'd probably begin sending laundry out ;0)

Holy mackerel - my washer makes lots of noise, not as bad as when we first were able to use it after at least a month disconnected while the floors were being replaced and so on...but it’s not a pleasant sound. Kinda a squeak and thunk over and over and the loads are balanced. GE is not my choice and we plan to replace both the washer and dryer early next year.

I think the word explosion is being being overused by the media. Maybe it's just me.

Can washers come apart under stress from vibration or a part disengaging? Yes. Can this cause injuries to people nearby? Yes. But I really dislike the term explosion. I mean a blown head gasket or radiator on a vehicle could be called an explosion going by the washer talk guidelines. But we don't call it that to gain attention to failing parts. We reserve the term for exploding fuel tanks in an accidents. We don't call failed fuel tanks that come apart "explosions".

Anything under pressure can "explode" but I think using the term so loosely is rather alarmist. Watch out for flying champagne corks. ;-)

Watch, I do see your point. I think the word explode can be used as an attention grabber or they really didn’t have another word to use.

Here’s what the thesaurus says as alternatives for explode, not sure these are any better.

Synonyms: backfire, blast, blaze, blow to kingdom come, break out, burst, collapse, convulse, detonate, discharge, erupt, flame up, flare up, fracture, jet, kablooey, let go, mushroom, rupture, set off, shatter, shiver, split, thunder.

This just doesn't set right with me. So many things don't seem to fit. And somehow, picturing her crouched calling her husband on her Apple watch just strikes me funny. ("Six-two and even, over and out")

"...that's what scares my husband and I the most" And she's a teacher. (sigh) That's what scares I the most.

For those interested you could question exploding washers in the laundry room. Theres some people there that understand it. Or try automaticwasher.org

Reading about the Samsung customer whose lid on the top loader blew off with such force it injured them severely in the face, head and other areas for which they need reconstructive surgery kind of seems like an explosion rightly labeled as such.

This isnt “rainmaggedon” as the weather reporters call even a light sprinkle out in California, and people stopped listening when they didn’t make a huge deal just like they did when severe weather risk reports were made often with no actual severe weather happening. 24/7 news has desensitized us to our peril.

Whether that peril is in the laundry room or the storm rolling in.