Miscellaneous washing machine topics

• Who owns who? (Who really makes your washing machine)
• How to wire a plug properly

Who owns who? Who really makes your washing machine?

Many washing machines are no longer made by the companies shown on the logo, or they have been taken over by bigger companies with a different ethos. These global companies usually keep the old brand name for tactical marketing reasons. In a way, it shouldn't matter who makes which brand, but there is a concern that should be considered.

If a customer is very unhappy with a product, or the service provided by a manufacturer, they are likely to want to avoid purchasing from that company again, but they may well end up purchasing virtually the exact same washing machine with a different logo - complete with the same company service engineers as well as the same company ethos. Examples of this are Hoover and Candy, who used to be totally different companies, but are now both owned by the Candy group. However, there is little difference between these two makes these days, and the guarantee repair work is carried out by the same engineers. Similarly, Hotpoint, Indesit and Creda are all owned by the same company and there isn't an enormous difference between these washing machines either, with Hotpoint being slightly better and offering more features.

Eventually, all washing machines are likely to be made by just a handful of companies and in fact we aren't that far off from this scenario already. Note that some brands retain all their original differences but are just owned by a rival company and some are virtually the same machine inside with different logos and trimmings. Here is a sample of some of the household names who are owned or made by the same company.

Electrolux: own well over 50 brand names (though not all of them washing machines) Among the more well known ones are AEG, Tricity Bendix, Zanussi. Currently, The Electrolux group also make the John Lewis brand washing machines.

Candy: own Hoover, Zerowatt and Kelvinator among others.

Merloni: own Ariston, Indesit, New World, Philco, Hotpoint, Creda, Cannon, GDA, English Electric,Thorn (and many others)

How to wire a plug properly

The most common mistake in wiring a plug is making each wire the same length. As all pins are not equidistant, this makes the brown wire, which has the shortest distance to reach, far too long. This in turn causes the current carrying wires (instead of the main outer cable) to be clamped in the cord grip. It's important to ensure the outer cable is secured by the cable grip so that wires cannot be pulled out. This is even more important on things like vacuum cleaners and irons where the lead is constantly being moved and pulled during use.

Once you have cut away the outer cable to expose the live, neutral and earth wires you will find they are all the same length. Hold the cable in position over the cord grip and cut each wire to length. After stripping back approximately 5 mm of insulation on each wire, push the outer cable under the cord clamp (or between the cord grip depending on type of plug) and wire the plug.

BROWN to the LIVE (L) terminal;
BLUE to the NEUTRAL (N)
GREEN/YELLOW to the EARTH (E) terminal.

More on next column ...