Laundry Connections And What Goes Wrong

Of all the water damage claims in apartment buildings, a large share start in the laundry, and most of those start with a hose.

It is a small part, it fails without warning, and it is connected to mains pressure with nobody home.

The inlet hoses

A washing machine hose is under full mains pressure whenever the taps are open, which in most homes is permanently.

Rubber perishes. The failure is not a drip, it is a burst, and it delivers a very large volume of water very quickly into a room that is usually not tanked and often above other apartments.

Two things prevent it. Replace hoses on a cycle rather than waiting for them to fail, because they are among the cheapest parts in the building. And use braided hoses rather than plain rubber, which are far more resistant.

The other habit worth having in a rental or a holiday-let property is turning the taps off when the machine is not in use. Nobody does it, and it removes the risk entirely.

The taps

Laundry taps are opened and closed rarely, which is exactly why they seize and why the spindle washers perish.

You find out when you need to turn the water off and the tap will not move. Servicing them is a small job and it is worth doing on the same visit as the hoses.

The waste

Two common faults.

The outlet hose sits too far into the standpipe, or the standpipe has no air gap, and the machine siphons. Water leaves the machine, then gets drawn back, and the machine never drains properly.

Or the standpipe is too short or the trap is inadequate for the discharge rate of a modern machine, which empties fast. Water backs up over the top of the standpipe and onto the floor, a little at a time, every wash.

That second one produces a slow, repeated leak that soaks the floor and the cabinetry and is often blamed on the machine rather than the plumbing.

The floor

Most apartment laundries are not waterproofed to the standard of a bathroom, and a lot of older ones are not waterproofed at all.

If the laundry is on an upper floor, that matters. A floor waste in the laundry, and a properly waterproofed floor with fall to it, turns a burst hose from a claim into a mop.

Where a laundry is being renovated, this is the item worth spending on, and it is the one most often left out because it is invisible.

Dryers

A vented dryer discharging into an enclosed laundry cupboard puts a large amount of moisture into a small unventilated space, and it condenses on every surface in there.

The result is mould in the cupboard, on the walls behind the machines, and eventually a smell through the apartment. Either duct it outside or use a condenser or heat pump unit that does not discharge moisture into the room.

Lint is the other issue. A blocked lint filter or duct is a fire risk and it makes the dryer work far harder than it needs to.

Machines stacked or in a cupboard

Stacked machines need a proper stacking kit rather than one sitting on the other, because a spinning machine moves.

A machine in a cupboard needs clearance for airflow and access to the taps and the hoses without dismantling anything. If the taps can only be reached by pulling the machine out, they will not be turned off, and the hoses will not be checked.

What to check in a property you manage

Hose age and type. Whether the taps turn. Whether there is a floor waste. Whether the dryer vents outside. Whether the standpipe has an air gap.

Five items, a few minutes, and they cover the most expensive avoidable claim in the building.

We handle laundry connections, tap servicing, waste corrections and waterproofing under plumbing and tiling and waterproofing. Add it to the next round rather than waiting for one to burst.