On Sunday, 17 February 2019 12:14:54 UTC, Kal Ico wrote:
Thanks again for your steer.

I'm with you, Roger, that I think I will have mis-measured. Yes, I was using a low voltage AVO multimeter. I have a mains tester and even an insulation tester but would have to read up how to use them. (I qualified as 16th Edition, years ago, but not made use of this stuff in a long time. What is it they say about the brain - if you don't use it, you lose it!)

If the heater element is most likely to be at fault, I can remove that (after draining down - not easy!) then test that. I expect they are not too expensive to replace, so worth a try.

My alternative is a new washer, which must be circa £350. This one has done about 8 years, so not bad. But I prefer to look after and repair stuff if I can. The modern ones are all so complicated, with LCD displays for goodness sake. It's a washer!

Mains voltage insulation tester will give a much clearer picture, but it does look like you've got bad insulation in there somewhere. Once you find it it will quite likely be fixable for anything from nothing to £30 or so.

Draining is trivial, pull the hose off the standpipe and lay it down in a bowl - water runs out.

You can also eliminate the element by disconnecting it at both terminals, see if it runs. That will cause the program to stall in wash mode.


NT