My newfangled washing machine is asking for me to use something called Affresh tablets to clean it. I’ve never had to use a cleaning agent on a washing machine before, is it really necessary or just a money grab?
If you have a front loader washing machine, especially one that is energy efficient, you just might. Sometimes those newer machines can smell really bad.
I run a load with bleach at least once a week and always leave the washer door open when not in use.
Yeah, they can really stink.
They are helpful if you don’t use chlorine bleach and you have left a load in too long (gone sour).
Read the manual. It should tell you how exactly to do the bleach wash out in lieu of Afresh.
The rubber gasket on a front loader has a lot of surface area much of which does not easily dry off, also the waste plumbing is a little more complicated and gunk can build up there. One major contributor to this is too much suds, make sure you use HE detergent and be conservative with that even. A little laundry detergent goes a long way, check out the Mythbusters episode on that.
Our current machine is a regular efficiency front loader, but using HE detergent really keeps it fresher. It was stinking bad for a while, tried lots of hot water, bleach, borax, oxyclean, and affresh and every Laundry Machine freshener we could find. What worked was switching to HE detergent and using less.
Our machine at our last place was a good HE front loader with a sanitize setting. That thing was great and never stank. Really recommend that feature.
Not only MB, but Consumer Reports. Their study from a long time ago said that there was so much detergent being used in a ‘normal wash’ that you could wash a load of dirty laundry without adding any detergent because the residue detergent in the clothes of the previous washes was enough!