Clean Your Washer Doors

Have you noticed that musty smell coming from your front load washer?
Large chassis washers are not usually as prone to that smell as small chassis washers are, providing they are kept clean. If you notice that musty smell the first place I look is around the front door seal.

The door seal is always trapping some water and soap because the door is on its side holding all the water inside the washer.

The bottom of the door collects a lot of dirt and soap because the water is always splashing up against it and sitting there during the cycles.

Cleaning the door seal gets all the junk from around the door that smells and is an eye sore. Think about when customers load clothes. When they stand up to close the door the eyes naturally follow to the top of the door. If they see that there is no dirt there, they will have confidence that your washers are kept clean and therefore their clothes will get clean.

Use some soap and water, vinegar, or any favorite cleaner. Get a good plastic scraper and scrape all the big slime away. Then wet a cloth and wrap it around the edge of the scraper and run it all along the edges. Sometimes you can even get it underneath the lip of the door seal. 

If the door seal has a split top, get the cloth and scraper inside that area too.

Scraping the inside of the door seal might yield items like dimes stuck inside between the door glass and the seal, or junk inside the split top of a door seal that might not allow the door to close properly like in the picture above.

After cleaning the doors the musty smell should go away. You might find that the doors don't leak as much either because there is no dirt or debris blocking the door from closing properly, especially on the bottom of the door. When I clean the doors I also find it is a good time to rotate the door glass as that rotates the door seal and puts the wear spot in a different place and helps stop leaks too.

Now that you've cleaned your doors see if your customers notice the little extra sparkle. Even if they don't say anything or notice, I bet new customers will!

Ev

A Heck of A Nice Guy