It's a few weeks ago now that we were discussing wachine machine smells,
and following up on this I'm just reporting my success with Arfa's
suggestion of changing the liquid we were using.

We'd been on Asda's own for some time, most washes at 30 degrees, but
following a switch to Persil, IIRC, the smell improved over the space of
a week, and has now disappeared completely.

After doing teh rounds of high temp washes, bicarb, soda crystals a
simple change of liquid has made the difference for us.

Cheers, saved me stripping the machine back further.

David

On Oct 6, 9:15*pm, DM wrote:

It's a few weeks ago now that we were discussing wachine machine smells,
and following up on this I'm just reporting my success with Arfa's
suggestion of changing the liquid we were using.

We'd been on Asda's own for some time, most washes at 30 degrees, but
following a switch to Persil, IIRC, the smell improved over the space of
a week, and has now disappeared completely.

After doing teh rounds of high temp washes, bicarb, soda crystals a
simple change of liquid has made the difference for us.

Cheers, saved me stripping the machine back further.

David


I just did a particularly bad one that needed a total strip down. What
a pain. There was black mould and grey-white gloop everywhere in the
water path, top to bottom. No chemicals shifted it, it took strong HCl
plus rubbing to dissolve it all. How anyone used it like that I dont
know. Makes me wonder exactly what the chemical composition of that
grey-white gloop is. Lots of limescale, but what else thats so
resistant to all the usual cleaners?


NT

"DM" wrote in message
. uk...
It's a few weeks ago now that we were discussing wachine machine smells,
and following up on this I'm just reporting my success with Arfa's
suggestion of changing the liquid we were using.

We'd been on Asda's own for some time, most washes at 30 degrees, but
following a switch to Persil, IIRC, the smell improved over the space of a
week, and has now disappeared completely.

After doing teh rounds of high temp washes, bicarb, soda crystals a simple
change of liquid has made the difference for us.

Cheers, saved me stripping the machine back further.

David

Glad you got a result David. I had a felling that you might, following on
from my own experience. Bet you've won a cartload of brownie points now with
the missus ! She'll never chastise you for spending too much time glued to
the computer, again .... ({;-)

Arfa

On Oct 6, 11:17*pm, wrote:
On Oct 6, 9:15*pm, DM wrote:

It's a few weeks ago now that we were discussing wachine machine smells,

I just did a particularly bad one that needed a total strip down. What
a pain. There was black mould and grey-white gloop everywhere in the
water path, top to bottom. No chemicals shifted it, it took strong HCl
plus rubbing to dissolve it all. How anyone used it like that I dont
know. Makes me wonder exactly what the chemical composition of that
grey-white gloop is. Lots of limescale, but what else thats so
resistant to all the usual cleaners?

NT
I would bet it's polysaccharide produced by bacteria. Working in
a biochemistry lab, I used to use a technique involving buckets of
a 7% solution of a common detergent. I found that the solution would
ocassionally turn gloopy and on investigation it turned out to be due
to bacteria that were able to live off the detergent.

That doesn't lead to any particular suggestions for getting rid of the
goop other than that you may be better off with alkali rather than
acidic
cleaners.

leo

DM coughed up some electrons that declared:

It's a few weeks ago now that we were discussing wachine machine smells,
and following up on this I'm just reporting my success with Arfa's
suggestion of changing the liquid we were using.

We'd been on Asda's own for some time, most washes at 30 degrees, but
following a switch to Persil, IIRC, the smell improved over the space of
a week, and has now disappeared completely.

After doing teh rounds of high temp washes, bicarb, soda crystals a
simple change of liquid has made the difference for us.

Cheers, saved me stripping the machine back further.

David

That's good. I think it's still worth collecting your towells for a good old
boil (95C or whatever) wash at least once a fortnight - that does it for
us. Generally, you know that periodically, most of the nasties are well and
truely deaded, including all the inaccessible bits like the pump, filter
and pipework.

Cheers

Tim

On Oct 7, 3:31*pm, wrote:
On Oct 6, 11:17*pm, wrote:

On Oct 6, 9:15*pm, DM wrote:

It's a few weeks ago now that we were discussing wachine machine smells,
I just did a particularly bad one that needed a total strip down. What
a pain. There was black mould and grey-white gloop everywhere in the
water path, top to bottom. No chemicals shifted it, it took strong HCl
plus rubbing to dissolve it all. How anyone used it like that I dont
know. Makes me wonder exactly what the chemical composition of that
grey-white gloop is. Lots of limescale, but what else thats so
resistant to all the usual cleaners?

NT

I would bet it's polysaccharide produced by bacteria. *Working in
a biochemistry lab, I used to use a technique involving buckets of
a 7% solution of a common detergent. * I found that the solution would
ocassionally turn gloopy and on investigation it turned out to be due
to bacteria that were able to live off the detergent.

That doesn't lead to any particular suggestions for getting rid of the
goop other than that you may be better off with alkali rather than
acidic
cleaners.

leo

Thats useful to know, gives a basis for finding out more. Boiling
washing soda didnt touch it - is boiling caustic soda likely to be ok
on the machine? No aluminium anywhere in the water path, just hard
plastics, rubbery hoses, metal heating element - thats it really. I
guess it should be fine as long as the machine doesnt have a cast ali
drum.


NT

wrote:
On Oct 7, 3:31 pm, wrote:
On Oct 6, 11:17 pm, wrote:

On Oct 6, 9:15 pm, DM wrote:
It's a few weeks ago now that we were discussing wachine machine smells,
I just did a particularly bad one that needed a total strip down. What
a pain. There was black mould and grey-white gloop everywhere in the
water path, top to bottom. No chemicals shifted it, it took strong HCl
plus rubbing to dissolve it all. How anyone used it like that I dont
know. Makes me wonder exactly what the chemical composition of that
grey-white gloop is. Lots of limescale, but what else thats so
resistant to all the usual cleaners?
NT
I would bet it's polysaccharide produced by bacteria. Working in
a biochemistry lab, I used to use a technique involving buckets of
a 7% solution of a common detergent. I found that the solution would
ocassionally turn gloopy and on investigation it turned out to be due
to bacteria that were able to live off the detergent.

That doesn't lead to any particular suggestions for getting rid of the
goop other than that you may be better off with alkali rather than
acidic
cleaners.

leo

Thats useful to know, gives a basis for finding out more. Boiling
washing soda didnt touch it - is boiling caustic soda likely to be ok
on the machine? No aluminium anywhere in the water path, just hard
plastics, rubbery hoses, metal heating element - thats it really. I
guess it should be fine as long as the machine doesnt have a cast ali
drum.


My general experience with this sort of stuff..you get it in bogs as
well, and that is really nasty - is that you need acid to shift the
'coral' followed by alkali to kill the bugs.

Not together obviously.

But if its a sort of fatty waxy deposit, go alkali. If its scale-like
and hard, use the acid as well.




NT

On Oct 7, 10:45*pm, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
wrote:
On Oct 7, 3:31 pm, wrote:
On Oct 6, 11:17 pm, wrote:

On Oct 6, 9:15 pm, DM wrote:
It's a few weeks ago now that we were discussing wachine machine smells,
I just did a particularly bad one that needed a total strip down. What
a pain. There was black mould and grey-white gloop everywhere in the
water path, top to bottom. No chemicals shifted it, it took strong HCl
plus rubbing to dissolve it all. How anyone used it like that I dont
know. Makes me wonder exactly what the chemical composition of that
grey-white gloop is. Lots of limescale, but what else thats so
resistant to all the usual cleaners?
NT
I would bet it's polysaccharide produced by bacteria. *Working in
a biochemistry lab, I used to use a technique involving buckets of
a 7% solution of a common detergent. * I found that the solution would
ocassionally turn gloopy and on investigation it turned out to be due
to bacteria that were able to live off the detergent.

That doesn't lead to any particular suggestions for getting rid of the
goop other than that you may be better off with alkali rather than
acidic
cleaners.

leo

Thats useful to know, gives a basis for finding out more. Boiling
washing soda didnt touch it - is boiling caustic soda likely to be ok
on the machine? No aluminium anywhere in the water path, just hard
plastics, rubbery hoses, metal heating element - thats it really. I
guess it should be fine as long as the machine doesnt have a cast ali
drum.

My general experience with this sort of stuff..you get it in bogs as
well, and that is really nasty - is that you need acid to shift the
'coral' followed by alkali to kill the bugs.

Not together obviously.

But if its a sort of fatty waxy deposit, go alkali. If its scale-like
and hard, use the acid as well.



NT

thats what Ive always done. Trouble is with a heavy deposit its
unreasonably slow. Maybe should try something stronger than boiling
citric acid, but what else would avoid attacking the element?.


NT

On Oct 7, 4:36*pm, Huge wrote:
On 2008-10-07, wrote:

I would bet it's polysaccharide produced by bacteria. *Working in
a biochemistry lab, I used to use a technique involving buckets of
a 7% solution of a common detergent. * I found that the solution would
ocassionally turn gloopy and on investigation it turned out to be due
to bacteria that were able to live off the detergent.

Bacteria which I was culturing deliberately in the early 70s in order to find
out the metabolic pathways in the degradation of butyl-benzene-sulphonate, a
breakdown product of detergents. I'm so glad I don't have to collect samples
from sewage farms any more....

Were they fluorescent pseudomonads? I think that's what we had. The
detergent was sodium dodecyl sulfate and they were quite happy on it
as sole
carbon source. Possibly we bought the bacteria along with the
detergent...

LEo