6

I caught an episode of "This Old House" a couple weeks back and it was mentioned that washing machine hoses should be replaced every couple of years. I'd never heard this and don't know of anyone that does that.

I always thought they were an inspect & repair as necessary item.

Obviously the goal is to minimize risk of leakage, with there being increased risk of breakage/leakage as they age. Although, there's also risk of sudden failure with new ones that might be internally defective while looking fine on the outside (hasn't happened to me on my washer, but did on my car, with a 2 week old hose bursting while I was idling in a parking lot).

Facts? Industry best practices? Opinions? :-)

glenviewjeff
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Brian Knoblauch
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2 Answers2

11

I don't know of any specific schedule, but I can recommend several "best practices":

  1. Buy braided hoses. These are the metal hoses with an inner plastic tubing. They are NOT guaranteed not to fail, but their failure is much less likely. Their most vulnerable failure point would be at the connection to the coupling.
  2. Inspect the hoses annually.
  3. Do not allow the hoses to kink - allow plenty of space for their installation.

Failed "fail proof" hose at the coupling:

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You could also buy special high quality ($50) hoses - which frankly if you have a finished basement or your laundry is on an upper floor, is a sound investment in damage prevention.

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Perhaps your BEST prevention, however, is an automatic washing machine shut off valve:

enter image description here enter image description here

This device has an attached sensor (pic 2) which you set on the floor by your washing machine. In the event of a leaky washer OR failed hose, it senses the water and shuts off the flow at the source. For an under $200 investment, if you're protecting a $20,000 basement or worse, a whole house, not installing this once you know of it's existence would be downright foolish.

The Evil Greebo
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4

In addition to what Greebo said, they also make hoses with the shutoff built into the hose, but the reviews on these are pretty bad and won't stop a small leak.

BMitch
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