Honey I Blew Up the Washing Machine
 

OK OK I didn't "blow it up" so much as "burn it up" I suspect. I am not sure of the scope of the damage. It's been unseasonably cold, below freezing for a few days. We've faithfully had all the faucets dripping and all's been well so far. Until I threw a load of clothes in the washing machine tonight, and came back to a terrible stench of burning rubber, perhaps some electrical fire or something melting down in there. No smoke, though.

Full of water, the machine was too heavy for me to move. I have a repair guy coming by tomorrow, but in the meantime, it's been getting below freezing where the washer is, and it was full of water and soapy clothes. Joy! I bailed the clothes out, wrung them a bit, and set them aside to take to the laundry tomorrow. Then we dipped the water out of the machine so it wouldn't freeze into a big solid chunk of ice. The insides surely still have water in them but I don't want to kick off the motor again to get it out and I have no clue if there is a valve I can open or something. It's a 20+ year old Maytag.

I fear it was frozen up in there and I've burned up the motor or some wires or something. Ugh! I was afraid there might be the beginnings of a fire in there, and it was several hours of checking and watching before I could relax about that.

So that was my exciting Wednesday night.

I thought you meant something like this....
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That was a fridge... But a washing machine would work on the same principal....

take two aspirins and call the appliance repair dude in the morning.

A guy I knew when I was EOD actually blew up his clothes dryer.

He had left a handful of blasting caps in his BDU cargo pockets and one of them cooked off in the dryer. Poor Sam had to keep it under wraps because "accidentally" taking high explosive home from the range would have resulted in a loss of a stripe or two.

Get a incandescent lamp and put a 60W bulb in it. As long as you don't get it wet, the heat from the bulb should help you keep things above freezing tonight.

Water probably froze in the pump, there is usually water in there to act as a trap.

Curious, but why is it freezing where your washing machine is?

Because it is cold outside!
I don't think it is suppose to be that cold there is it?

If your concerned about it catching fire goto you electrical panel and shut off the breaker to it.....or just unplug it.
If it's 20 years old its time may have just been up......that pretty good for a washer.....being older it should be a simple fix since they didn't use $500 cirquit boards back then :)

Last year, our dryer was making funny noises, so as a "do-it-yourself" type of guy, I moved the machine away from the wall to start troubleshooting.

There was a pile of metal shavings on the floor where it was sitting.

Troubleshooting is over. Time to buy a replacement.