Gallons of water pouring out of my washing machine

So I was running the washing machine yesterday, left the room, and came back to find water pouring out from the machine and running all over the floor. I turned off the water supply lines and mopped my kitchen for the first time since forever.

But why was all this water pouring out of the machine?

I checked the outflow (drain) tube, and it was still properly located and duct-taped in a U shape to the drainpipe. When I opened the lid, I noticed that the water was simply overflowing the tub. For some reason, the machine hadn’t stopped the flow of the water at the right level, and it kept pouring in.

I rotated the timer knob a few times and finally got it to start draining the water out of the tub in the usual way, but I’d like to know what I need to fix to keep this from happening again. (This was actually the second time for this event, the first time occurring a month or two ago.)

I’m reasonably handy and would like to try fixing this myself, so I’d appreciate any suggestions about what part has failed or what I can do to repair the machine.

Thanks.

the float switch that tells the machine that it’s full enough of water?

The same thing happened to me during our power outage during Hurricane Isabel. The machine was had been resting comfortably since the normal completion of the previous load, obviously not running, and for some reason the tub just started filling with water. We didn’t realize it until we saw the ceiling leaking below (our laundry room is on the top floor of our house). I shut off the valves and siphoned the water out. We got power back, and the washer worked normally after that.

I still can’t figure out what happened.

It sounds like a float switch was either stuck or failed altogether. Have you tried running it through a cycle again? If the problem happened once, unfortunately, you can’t trust it not to happen again.

It’s not really a float switch. Called an air switch usually and most likely located inside the console.

Way it works is it senses air pressure through a tube from the tub into the switch switch -------as the tub fills it increases air pressure in the tube and causes the switch to work==cut off power. Easy to check if completely failed. Just remove the tube, put another one on in its place and blow into it. You will hear the click of the switch (shutting off power to the inlet solenoid) as you blow in.

Sometimes that tube will just fall off the switch or get a cut in it-------end result is the switch cannot work even though good.

Replacing that air switch is usually a 5 minute job.

At this site there are pics to help locate the switch,as well as a multitude of other articles on just about anything you can imagine.www.home.howstuffworks.com/washer7.html

What is the make & model of this machine?

thanks for the thoughts, guys. I’ll check out that ‘how things work’ site.