Grey Spots On Clothes And Build Up Of Grey Mush In Drum

[KevinR]

Bought a Hotpoint WMUD843P last year. We've only ever had Hotpoints. This is our third in 25 years. After a few weeks using the new machine we noticed the odd grey spot on washed clothing. The spots are on the surface of the clothing and are not grease because you can rub them off with your nail. Then after several months we noticed a build up of grey mush in the drum. It wipes off with a cloth. I recently cleaned the filter and found more there. In appearance it looks like mastic but was easy to pull off lumps which break up when squeezed between fingers. I could rinse the filter clean no problem. If left in the air the lumps dry out and shrink. I've run auto-clean. The machine does not smell and there is no mould. We've been in the same house for 20 years and are using the same powder we used in our last machine. The only thing that has changed is the machine. Any ideas what the grey spots/mush is.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Could it be anything to do with this? Grease marks on clothes after washing

[KevinR]

Thanks for the link. It mentions overloading (we definitely don't), using too much fabric conditioner (we don't use any), use a good quality detergent (we use Fairy non-bio) and using enough detergent (we measure it out per Fairy recommended usage). It also says the stains are difficult to remove whereas our stains are not greasy and can be scraped off the garments after the wash has completed. It also refers to dark stains on coloured garments whereas ours are grey stains more noticeable on light coloured garments. So I don't think this is the problem. We were using the same detergent in the old machine (which was also Hotpoint) and never had this problem. Any more suggestions?

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Check the door seal where it's close to the revolving drum in case clothes are catching on it getting trapped between the gap between the drum and door seal.The only source of grey is the door seal and grease and grime from the machine. Check this article out too Causes of grease, slime and black mould inside washing machines

[JetSystem]

Hi Kevin,

A few thoughts:

- don't wash on low temperatures. Stick to 40 and above and run regular maintenance washes through your machine
- keep the door ajar between washes and don't leave wet washing sitting in the machine for long periods of time
- stick with a powder detergent. These contain oxygen based bleaching agents which will give you better washing results and keep your machine clean

Just a heads up, Hotpoint are no longer the company you remember. I have so many conversations with people saying "we had our Hotpoint for X amount of years so we bought another", but that company doesn't exist anymore. They were bought out by Indesit in the early 2000's and all their machines are now built to Indesit specifications.