Whites Coming Out Of The Wash Looking Grey

Appearance

The wash load appears dingy or dirty as the cleaning in the wash has been poor from your washing machine. There may be oily spots on dark fabrics.

In virtually all instances this "fault" will not be caused by your washing machine if the cycle completes correctly, especially so on modern electronically controlled washing machines. The reason is that, if there were a faulty component, the washing machine would ordinarily halt when it encountered an error such as a motor fault, including carbon brush faults, a heater or thermistor fault and so on. All these components are checked by the electronic controller as, where an error is detected the machine will either halt as we said or, it will report a failure usually by way of a fault code being displayed which can be as simple as flashing lights.

The first place to look is in the reasons listed below as, in virtually 100% of cases one of these causes will be the reason for the greying that you see. For the small percentage that remians it will alwasy be due to some external influence as, a washing machine can't make your clothes grey, only what you put in it can.

Treatment

Re-wash any affected items of laundry using a quality heavy duty detergent such as Ariel, Persil or another quality brand detergent powder.

For whites ensure that this is a bleach containing detergent.

For coloured items, ensure that it is a detergent for colours that does not contain bleach or you will fade the coloured items.

Cause & Prevention

Cause

A quality detergent has not been used in sufficient quantity.

Prevention

Use the correct dosage of a quality detergent, such as Ariel, Persil or another quality detergent.

The use of cheap detergents, especially when used in limited or incorrect dosages will cause this issue.

Cause

The water temperature is too cool.

Prevention

Wash heavily soiled garments at the highest wash temperature recommended on the fabric care label. However, for a mixed load the temperature needs to be the lowest recommended for any of the garments.

Cause

The washing machine is overloaded preventing the washing from getting the necessary mechanical action.

Prevention

For best results, don't overload the machine as this reduces the cleaning ability of your washing machine massively and can cause damage to both your washing machine and your laundry.

For more on overloading and correct guidance on how to properly load laundry into a washing machine please click this link