Here's one for all you chemical engineers .....

[oldbandnerd]

I have a front loading HE machine with the common problem of mold inside and the odors associated. I recently bought the Tide HE washing machine cleaner to try. It did all right. It seem to get rid of the smell ok. But, it was $7.00 for 3 pouches. 1 pouch = 1 cleaning.
I was reading the ingredients and noticed it is mostly SODIUM PERCARBONATE,some unidentified surfactant ( I'm thinking plain ole soap) , sodium carbonate,sodium sulfate and some fragrance. I know just enough about these ingredients to know that in hot water it truns into oxygen bleach.
My question is would Borax (sodium borate) work just as well or better to kill the mold and remove the odor? I can get a 4lb box at Target for $6.00 . Plus I can use the Borax for other stuff .

[Ken Herrick]

I am not a chemical engineer but, the Borax sounds like it would be wellworth trying and present virtually nil risk. YEARS ago, Borax was the product of choice for many difficult cleanind jobs. One thing to consider would be letting the machine air and dty out.

Remember "Death Valley Days" on TV in early 50's - sponsored by " 20 Mule Team (brand) Borax".

One of the good,simple,old,CHEAP, things that works.

Give it a try and let is know how you go.

[oldbandnerd]

Yeah ... we do all the things you're supposed to do to keep the mold down. We leave the door open after we're done using it, wipe down the rubber door gasket, I even put a fan in the door sometimes to force fresh air intot the machine. It's just the a quirk of the high efficiency machines.
I've done a lot of reading on what causes this problem. All of the information points to a build up of soap and fabric softner in the discharge hose. That couple with the warm,moist air being trapped in the machine makes a perfect breeding ground for the mould. It seems the mold likes to feed on the residue left by the chemicals.
One of the other home remidies I've used is to run a load without any clothes. You put in 6 cups of vinegar and run hot water in the cycle. Works well but then you have to deal with the vinegar odor.

[MikeW]

I don't know if it's relevant, but our machine has a cleaning cycle that just uses plain old bleach. I think it just fills the machine with water (that's FILLS), does a very small agitation, then pumps it all out again: It needs this occasionally to keep the high-speed balancing tanks under the drum clean.

EDIT: forgot to mention its a top-loading HE (Cabrio), with small tanks under the drum that balance it for high speed spinning. When you start a washing cycle, the first thing it does is to pump water into the balance tanks and do a little back-and-forth shuffle to check the balance.

[Dan Schultz]

I think I'll just stick with my thirty-year-old Kenmore 'top-loader'.

[iiipopes]

Indeed. Borax and/or "washing soda," meaning sodium carbonate, not sodium bicarbonate, should work well. A dash of Borax and/or washing soda in a load along with detergent used to be the thing to do before all the "modern" color-fast additives, brighteners, and softeners. I still keep a box of each on my laundry shelf next to the detergent.

Going the other way, especially if you have hard water, running a cycle with distilled vinegar, including the fabric softener compartment, on the hot cycle, will also help.

[MikeW]

I think I'll just stick with my thirty-year-old Kenmore 'top-loader'.

Funny thing, but since the old-style top loader died, I haven't had a single T-shirt with a dime-sized hole chewed in it. Spooky, these coincidence things....
(of course, the price of the HE machine would buy me a fair stack of new T-shirts)

[oldbandnerd]

I ran the machine with 3 cups of Borax. It has done the trick. I then washed all of my works jeans with detergent and 1/2 cup of Borax and it has remove all of the horrible sour,mildey smell I couldn't get rid of it before. I don't know why but my jeans seemed to just suck in the foul smell and hold onto it. I haven't been able to get rid of it for 2 months.
Borax is some neat stuff. It has a lot of uses and is biodegreadable. Safe for the enviroment. Some people even use it to preserve flowers ! Here's a list of the many uses : http://voices.yahoo.com/24-uses-borax-2909711.html" target="_blank

[iiipopes]

[Heavy_Metal]

Then there's this, which has been around longer than I have:

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Boraxo-00301- ... 00000&wl0=" target="_blank{matchtype}&wl1={network}&wl2={ifmobile:m}&wl3=21486607510&wl4={aceid}&wl5=pla&veh=sem

[Tubaryan12]

One other thing to keep the smell down: clean the filter. One baby sock stuck in the filter won't clog it, but it holds a lot of mold.