Hotpoint Washing Machine Drum Filling With Water Fix

The auto fill problem
I have written this as it may save someone bother and money with what may be a simple fix.

Has your washing machine filled with water on its own overnight?

It is likely water leaking past the main inlet (solenoid) valves / fill valves. One end of these are the threaded connectors your hot/cold water hoses screw too. The other ends have rubber tubes going to the soap tray. (Below the rubber tube is pulled off the near one.)

This examples is a Hotpoint WF860P, but I think most are generally similar.



Two left ones are cold, right one is hot.

My Story :- The cold ones had a lot of crud on the filter, and being as most of the water goes through them I assumed they were faulty and replaced.... Unfortunately it wasn't the problem - should have checked properly! Turned out it was the hot one - oddly the replacement part was twice as much. Decided I would take/smash it apart to see how it was constructed before ordering and having another week of having to drain the machine each time before use!

Exploded View


I spent along time removing the metal halves of the solenoid cage, which turned out to be unnecessary and a pain to get back together!

The filter bit just pulls out from the mains inlet end, the rest all drops out when unscrewed. Think diagram is self explanatory.



How it operates
You can see the rubber flexible washer sits over the small central hole (mains water inlet). When the solenoid activates the metal rod goes up, compresses the spring, the rubber washer thing can come up, water then flows over and out into the main body, then into the outlet via the black rubber tube into soap tray.

Dismantle properly
It turns out all you need to do to dismantle it is:

1)Force back the 4 leaf-like plastic bits at the top, the solenoid should then pull clean off the plastic tube bit (top).

2)Using the ends of long nose pliers, poke them into the splined top on opposing sides (the dots) and just unscrew. Be careful as the spring and washer etc will all come out.



Removed and cleaned the mains inlet filter bit - I then rinsed all the other bits under the tap, especially the washer and the bits it seats into, reassembled it, and hey presto, leak/filling of the drum stopped!

What caused it?
I suspect a tiny amount of crud/limescale was trapped under the washer somehow stopping it fully seating (It did all look clean though). As the washer flexes/only goes up and down, unlike a tap that twists and wears, I doubt the washer is going to fail from use. (This one is ~8 years old and looked brand new) I imagine that just cleaning it out may therefore be quite effective.

I wish I had looked into it properly first, saved wasting money on replacement cold fill inlet valve! I hope someone finds this useful as I didn't even think these valves came apart until I tried, I didn't find any mention on the interwebs about simply taking them apart and cleaning them - I naively assumed it was a sealed unit.

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