So we bought our washing machine on KSL, secondhand, for $75 dollars. Almost as soon as we brought it home we realized it had a mold problem. It was leaving our clothes smelling like mildew. Kyle wanted to throw in the towel and buy new, but we were poor, and my idea to try and clean it first prevailed. I found a tutorial online from a whirlpool washer maintenance man, and I’ve used it ever since. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very detailed tutorial, and now I can’t find it at all, so I thought I’d write my own. So, here you go: How to clean a top-load whirlpool gold washer like a pro.
First, wipe down the inside with a towel and some mild bathroom cleaner. I use softscrub and a magic eraser. Don’t be afraid to scrub way back under the lip of your washer as far as you can reach. Here’s an example of what it might look like before you clean it.:
Second, turn you washer on. Some washers have a cleaning mode. This will keep the water very hot. If you don’t have something like that, just use a hot water setting. Keep the lid up until the washer fills as high as it will go. You’re going to need to fill it higher than that. Take a bucket or bowl and fill the washer up with hot water above the first lip. Here’s a picture of that lip. I’m pointing to the water line just above the lip.
Now that the washer is full of water, let it go through the first spin cycle. It will swash the water around in there and shake loose a bunch of the mold you can’t see. I usually add a cup of vinegar to the load at this point as well. Once the washer has drained the water, pop open the lid and start taking apart the gadgets inside.
Set these pieces soaking in a hot water bath. You’ll need to wipe them clean too, but I usually let them soak for a few minutes first.
Then go back to the washer and clean out the inside you just revealed by removing those other two pieces. I wipe it down and then rinse it our with a couple buckets of water.
Once all the pieces are clean, put them back the way you found them.
The soaking water will probably be pretty gross.
After this let the washer run through the rest of the wash cycle, which should include another rinse and spin. And there you have it! A clean-smelling (and looking) washer.
