smelly laundry

Help! Our clean laundry smells like stinky moldy towels- only bleach loads come out ok. This is the SECOND new machine in about a year, so I wonder if it could be caused by a plumbing problem. Any ideas?

I've seen this problem when using a low quality detergent (bulk or no name brand) combined with large laundry loads. What happens is that the detergent does not fully dissolve and the large load causes the frothy detergent to splash around the upper parts of the laundry machine where the rinse cycle does not normally cleanse. Over time, the detergent collects in the upper parts and remain damp for extended periods. This is a great place for mold/mildew to eventually grow and give you a sticky moldy towel smell. Now every new laundry load cycles some of this mildew into your clothes and give you a nice clean smell ... NOT! This explains why your bleach loads comes out okay. The bleach kills the mold/mildew.

If this is your problem, you'll always have the dirty towel smell even when you are not doing the laundry. Just take a sniff around the top innards of your laundry machine and you should be able to smell it.

The solution: I had to open up the metal housing of the laundry machine and get at the outer tub to clean it thoroughly with water and bleach. The guck was quite thick. Then I switched to a better detergent and lowered the size of the load so that I don't get a build up on the upper parts.

Note: It is possible that the bulk brand detergent I was using didn't have anything to do with my problem and it was just the fact that I kept running overly large loads. I'm not sure but I switched detergents anyways. Haven't seen the problem since.

Hope this helps.

Jeff

P.S. Hmmm .... it must get expensive to switch laundry machines every year

jeffc said:

I've seen this problem when using a low quality detergent (bulk or no name brand) combined with large laundry loads. What happens is that the detergent does not fully dissolve and the large load causes the frothy detergent to splash around the upper parts of the laundry machine where the rinse cycle does not normally cleanse. Over time, the detergent collects in the upper parts and remain damp for extended periods. This is a great place for mold/mildew to eventually grow and give you a sticky moldy towel smell. Now every new laundry load cycles some of this mildew into your clothes and give you a nice clean smell ... NOT! This explains why your bleach loads comes out okay. The bleach kills the mold/mildew.

Click to expand...

Precisely why we use only liquid detergents!

Thanks for the help- The smell isn't in the machine itself as far a I can smell, but I will try to look for "gunk." We usually use liquid Tide with or without "touch of Downy" but since I always use fabric softener, there may be a buildup.
As for the machines, the first time we got a loser machine! We didn't do the research first, and bought a Kenmore Calypso action machine. We later discovered there was a class-action lawsuit and many complaints about the smell problem and other problems. It was still under warrenty, so Sears exchanged it for a different machine, a front-loader that is supposed to be wonderful, no complaints that we can find online.(This time we got the extra but overpriced warrenty, just in case!) However, our sour-towel smell went away for a few weeks when we got the new washer, only to return worse than ever! It is too strange that we get the same problem with 2 different washers. All they have in common is Kenmore and HE. The hoses are new, so I can't see how it would be the water lines, and the drain hose seems to work fine, no odors there or in the machine.
We are now testing with another washer- a friend had on old but functioning machine they were getting rid of, so we'll use it for a month or so and see if the smell comes with that one- at least then we'll know it's something in our house!