"David L. Martel" wrote in message
...
Rocky,

If the fabric softener that you use advises you to put the softener
into
the bleach dispensor during the rinse fill and doing that caused glop then
notify the fabric softener's customer service folks. They will be
interested
in your problem and may send you some money to help buy some pants.

Good point. I am about to contact my fabric softener's customer service
folks because several bottles have "lumped up" to the point of being
unusable without adding really hot water. The bottle says that might happen
if the stuff gets below freezing, but it hasn't. It's a pain in the ass to
have to "de-lump" the FS every time we do a load of laundry. I tried
heating the whole bottle in a hot water bath, but it quickly reverted to its
former lumpy self in short order.

I just had a softener related failure - after about ten years (and possibly
because the FS had become thickened and I had not noticed) the fabric
softener dispenser gooed up to the point of failure. An overnight soak of
the easy-to-remove dispenser on the top of the agitator in warm vinegar
solution and a workover with a power steamer cleared up the problem.

--
Bobby G.