Washing machine flood: what to do

Stop it safely

1. Do not walk through water to unplug the machine. Switch off the laundry circuit at the breaker panel first.
2. Close the hot and cold supply valves behind the washer. They are usually on the wall, in a recessed box or above a laundry tub.
3. If you cannot reach them or they will not turn, shut the main water valve.
4. If the machine is mid-cycle and full, leave the door closed. Opening a front-loader releases the contents onto the floor.

Where the water came from

A burst supply hose. The most damaging cause. The hoses are under full household pressure all the time, whether or not the machine is running. A rubber hose that splits will run until someone turns it off.

A drain hose that came out of the standpipe, or a standpipe that is blocked. The machine pumps its whole load onto the floor.

A blocked or slow drain. Water backs up out of the standpipe or the laundry tub.

A door seal or pump leak. Usually a smaller, slower leak.

Too much detergent, causing suds to overflow, particularly in high-efficiency machines.

A failed water inlet valve, which lets the machine keep filling.

How far it travels

Laundry rooms are often on an upper floor or beside finished space, and the water moves quickly:

• Under the machines and the flooring
• Under the wall plates into adjoining rooms and closets
• Down through the floor to the ceiling and walls below
• Into heating ducts through floor registers

Check the rooms next door and directly below, including inside closets. A ceiling below a second-floor laundry room is the usual place the damage shows.

First hour

• Extract standing water with a wet vacuum on a protected outlet, or mop and towels
• Pull the machines forward to get the water behind them
• Remove rugs and anything on the floor
• Take photos of the hose or the source, and of every affected area
• If the ceiling below is bulging, keep clear. Switch off the power to that room at the breaker panel first, because water collects around light fittings. Then, if it is safe to reach, release the water through a small hole at the lowest point

Wash water is not clean water

Water from the supply hose is clean. Water that has been through the machine, or that came back up the drain, is grey water. It contains detergent, soil and bacteria. It is not sewage, but affected carpet and underpad need proper cleaning, and it becomes more contaminated the longer it sits.

Drying

• Lift floating floors and remove wet underlay in the affected area
• Remove baseboards and check the base of the walls
• Open ceilings below that are saturated
• Run dehumidifiers and air movers until moisture readings are normal

Vinyl and tile laundry floors look unaffected while the subfloor beneath is wet. A moisture meter tells you.

Preventing the next one

• Replace rubber supply hoses with braided stainless steel, and replace any hose that is bulging, cracked or more than several years old
• Turn the supply valves off when you go away, or after each wash if they are easy to reach. A single-lever shut-off makes this simple.
• Do not run the washer when nobody is home or overnight
• Leave a gap behind the machine so that hoses are not kinked
• Secure the drain hose in the standpipe
• Fit a drain pan under the machine, piped to a drain, particularly on upper floors
• Add a leak sensor on the floor behind the washer, ideally with an automatic shut-off valve
• Use the right amount of high-efficiency detergent

Insurance

A burst hose is the kind of sudden and accidental loss most home policies cover for the resulting damage. The hose and the machine themselves are not covered. In a condo, a leak from your washer can lead to the corporation charging its deductible to you, which a unit owner policy can cover.

Upper-floor laundry rooms

A laundry room on the second floor is convenient and carries more risk, because everything below it is finished space. If you have one, the drain pan, the floor drain, braided hoses and an automatic shut-off valve are worth having together. Check that the pan’s drain is actually connected and clear. A pan with no outlet only delays the water by a few litres.

Stacked units and laundry closets

Stacked machines in a closet are hard to pull out, so leaks behind them go unseen and hoses go unchecked for years. Put a leak sensor on the floor, and when the machines are serviced or replaced, have the hoses and valves renewed at the same time.

The laundry tub and the standpipe

Where the washer drains into a laundry tub, lint builds up in the tub’s drain and trap. A lint trap or mesh sock on the end of the drain hose, cleaned regularly, prevents the tub from overflowing. A standpipe that overflows every time the machine pumps out has a partial blockage further down and needs a plumber.

After the cleanup

Before you use the machine again:

• Have the cause identified and repaired
• Replace both supply hoses, not just the one that failed
• Check the drain hose for splits and that it is secured
• Run a short cycle and watch it fill and drain
• Check behind the machine again after a few loads

More: burst pipe and water damage.