The combination washer/dryer we bought was delivered on Wednesday. We did a trial load of socks that night and it seemed to wash and dry fairly well. The only problem was that the detergent kind of clumped up in the dispenser tray and the liquid fabric softener never got sucked down into the wash.

We ran the socks a few more times, but the softener from that first load never did empty out into the wash. I’ve been playing voice mail tag with the service line since then, who hadn’t’ heard of that problem before. I resolved that I would call them again on Monday if I couldn’t figure it out on my own.

I played around with the knobs to the water outlets in back tonight and realized that the cold water tap wasn’t turned on the whole way. I guess I hadn’t noticed because I had run the socks on hot. I threw in a few towels and fired up the washer again.

About halfway through the wash, I checked on the machine and noticed that there were a LOT more suds than in previous washes. I checked again a few minutes later and found suds spilling out onto the floor. I quickly stopped the machine, threw the soapy towels into the laundry basket, and carted them to the bathroom tub. I mopped up the suds and then ran the washer empty through the rest of the cycle.

Afterwards I checked the dispenser tray and the fabric softener was gone! I guess that the cold water flow is needed to flush out the detergent and softener. My mistake was in adding more detergent to each load, because it apparently wasn’t fully used each time and was building up.

Unfortunately Jeff wasn’t around to help me document the events in real time, but I managed to Flickr a few shots afterwards with my cellphone.