Stopping Your Washing Machine from Overflowing

One of my favorite movie scenes is in the original "Freaky Friday" when the girl (in the body of her mother) tries to do laundry and the washing machine overflows, spilling suds and water and clothes everywhere. It's a pretty classic scene and one that I'm sure we were all nervous about when we first started doing laundry ourselves. This situation, however, is not very common and you probably don't ever need to worry about it. But if the situation actually does come up, here's what to do.

First things first—turn off the washer. Yes, an obvious suggestion, but one that needs to be stated to cover the bases. You can't let the water continue running if it's overflowing—bad idea! You'll then be left with a huge mess to clean up. You'll have to pick up the soaking wet clothes, clean up the soap and water left on the floor, and then make sure the washer itself is okay. When matters actually get to the point when you have this situation, there's not much you can do besides do a really good clean up job.

The key comes in preventing the machine from overflowing in the first place. The steps for prevention are simple and straightforward—if you somehow can't follow or willfully disregard these guidelines, then I wish you luck in cleaning up your mess. First, you can't put too much detergent in. If you do put in too much then you risk the chance of the suds growing too out of control and consequently overflowing. You also need to make sure that you don't put in the wrong kind of soap. I've seen people try using dishwashing soap in the washer—bad idea, as the dishwashing soap generates lots more suds than laundry soap.

Another thing to remember is to not put in so many clothes that you displace the water out of the washer. It is definitely possible to put in too many clothes and the water level rises so that you have to deal with unfortunate consequences.

Stopping your washing machine from overflowing suds is so simple and straightforward. Most of it is simple common sense. Be aware of the amount and type of detergent you put in and then the amount of clothes you put into your load—if you can do these simple things, then you'll be in good shape for preventing such a "Freaky Friday" mishap!