Not draining — water left in the drum
The cycle stops part way through with the drum full of water, often flashing an error or beeping. You may hear the pump humming or straining without any water leaving.
Washing Machine Repair
Fast, guaranteed washing machine repair across Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire — bearings, pumps, heaters, PCBs and door locks fixed in your home, usually in a single visit.
From £90Call-out
labour included
labour included
8–11 yearsTypical lifespan
with maintenance
with maintenance
12Common faults
diagnosed below
diagnosed below
6 moGuarantee
parts & labour
parts & labour
A washing machine is the hardest-worked appliance in a British home. A family machine runs somewhere between 250 and 400 cycles a year, spinning a 60kg wet load assembly at up to 1600rpm, heating water from mains temperature to 60°C, and pumping it all away again — several times a day, for a decade. Every one of those cycles puts load through the same handful of components: the drum bearings, the drive belt or direct-drive rotor, the drain pump, the heating element and the main control board. When one of them lets go, the machine usually tells you long before it stops working altogether. We repair every major brand sold in the UK — Bosch, Beko, Hotpoint, Indesit, Samsung, LG, Whirlpool, AEG, Zanussi, Miele, Hoover and Candy — in freestanding and fully integrated formats. Integrated machines behind a decor door are a specialism in their own right: they have to be slid out on their own feed and waste, often from a run of fitted units with a worktop overhang, and the fixing brackets and door hinge geometry differ between manufacturers. We carry the tooling to do that without damaging your kitchen. Water hardness is the single biggest local factor in our patch. Cambridge Water and Affinity Water both supply chalk-borehole water running around 280–320 mg/l calcium carbonate — genuinely very hard by any European standard. That limescale plates out onto the heating element every time the machine heats, forming an insulating crust that makes the element run hotter to achieve the same water temperature. The result is elements that fail years early, NTC thermistors that read low and drive overheating, and detergent drawers and sump hoses that silt up. A machine in Huntingdon or Stevenage will genuinely need its heater sooner than the same model in Manchester. We charge a £90 call-out, which covers the visit, the diagnosis and the labour. Parts are charged on top and always quoted for your approval before we fit them, and every repair carries a 6-month guarantee on parts and labour. We work on domestic machines only — we do not service commercial or launderette equipment.
What the call-out costs
| Freestanding washing machine | £90 |
| Integrated washing machine | £100 |
| Parts, if any are needed | Quoted before fitting |
| If we cannot repair it | Call-out only |
£90 for a freestanding machine. Integrated appliances incur a £10 surcharge, so £100 — an integrated machine has to come out of the run of units before anything can be diagnosed, and go back in afterwards.
The 12 faults we see most
If one of these sounds like your machine, we have almost certainly fixed it before. Tell us which and we will bring the right parts.
Book a repair
Pick your own slot in the diary — appliance, address and a time that suits you, in about a minute.
Book online (opens in a new tab)or
07849 033758Same-day slots when we have one. Call-out from £90, labour included.
Straight answer on price
£90 call-out — that covers the visit, the diagnosis and the labour. Parts are the only extra, quoted for your approval before we fit anything. No hourly rates. 6 months guarantee on parts and labour.
Loud grinding or rumbling on spin — drum bearings
A deep rumbling or aircraft-like roar that gets louder as the spin speeds up, sometimes with rust-coloured water streaks under the drum seal. In late stages the drum can be rocked by hand with a knocking feel.
Not heating — clothes come out cold and dirty
The cycle completes normally but the door glass is cold and washing comes out greasy or with detergent residue. Wash times may also run long as the board waits for a temperature it never reaches.
Won't spin, or only spins slowly
The wash completes but clothes come out soaking wet. The drum may tumble slowly, judder, or the motor may buzz without turning.
Leaking water onto the floor
A puddle in front of, or under, the machine — sometimes only during fill, sometimes only on spin, which is a useful clue to where it is coming from.
Door won't open at the end of the cycle
The cycle has finished but the door stays locked, sometimes with the lock light still lit, or you hear a click but the handle will not release.
Machine trips the electrics / RCD
The consumer unit RCD trips the moment the machine is switched on, or partway through a wash once the heater engages.
Not filling, or filling very slowly
The machine starts, the drum turns a little, but nothing happens — or the fill takes many minutes and the cycle eventually errors out.
Continuously filling and draining
The machine fills, then immediately drains, and repeats — you can hear water running constantly and the cycle never progresses.
Error code on the display / cycle stops early
The machine halts and shows a code such as F05, E10, 5E, dE or OE, or flashes a pattern of lights on a dial-only model.
Machine violently shakes or walks across the floor
The machine bangs, jumps and moves during spin, sometimes travelling several inches and hammering against the units either side.
Bad smell, mould on the door seal, grey marks on washing
A damp, sour or drain-like smell from the drum, black speckling in the folds of the door seal, and sometimes grey smears transferring onto light-coloured washing.
Is it worth repairing?
The honest test is the 50% rule: if the repair costs more than half the price of a comparable new machine, replacement is usually the better call. Our side of that sum is a £90 call-out, which covers the visit, the diagnosis and the labour, plus the part, quoted for your approval before it goes in. Against a typical mid-range washing machine at £380–£550 new, a pump or an element is an obvious yes, while a full bearing kit on a six-year-old £330 budget machine is an obvious no. Age matters too. Machines are designed around a rated cycle count, and a budget machine at eight years with 2,500 cycles behind it will likely need something else within a year of any major repair. Mid-range machines have a realistic 8–11 year life; Miele and similar can run 15–20. There is a real environmental argument for repair. Manufacturing a washing machine accounts for the large majority of its lifetime carbon footprint, and extending a working machine's life by even two years is far greener than recycling it early. Around 300,000 tonnes of large appliances are scrapped in the UK annually, much of it for faults that come down to a single inexpensive part. We will always tell you when a machine is not worth repairing — and if it isn't, we can supply and fit a new or replacement and take the old one away.
If it's time to replace, see what we sell
Brands we repair
We work on every major manufacturer, and our vans carry spares for the ones we see most in this area.
First-time fix
Our vans carry a wide range of washing machine spares so most jobs are finished on the same visit. If we need to order a part, it's usually fitted within a couple of working days at no second call-out charge.
What the call-out is
£90 for a freestanding machine. Integrated appliances incur a £10 surcharge, so £100 — an integrated machine has to come out of the run of units before anything can be diagnosed, and go back in afterwards. Parts are on top and quoted for your approval before anything is fitted.
Domestic only
We do not work on commercial or coin-operated machines.
Maintenance
Make your washing machine last longer
Water across Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire runs around 280–320 mg/l. That limescale is the single biggest reason appliances die early here.
Run a 90°C maintenance wash every month
An empty 90°C cottons cycle with a machine cleaner or 200g of soda crystals melts out the fat and detergent biofilm that low-temperature washing leaves behind. Do it once a month if you mostly wash at 30 or 40°C. It is the single most effective thing you can do to prevent smells, seal mould and pump blockages.
Clean the pump filter every 6–8 weeks
Lay towels down, open the front hatch, and unscrew the filter over a shallow tray — there will be one to two litres of water. Clear coins, hair grips and lint, and check the impeller behind it spins freely. This one job prevents most 'won't drain' callouts.
Descale for our hard water twice a year
Cambridge and much of Hertfordshire run around 280–320 mg/l calcium carbonate. Use a citric-acid based descaler on a hot empty cycle every six months, or add a water softener product like Calgon to each wash. Scale on the element is the leading cause of premature heater failure locally.
Halve your detergent dose
Almost everyone overdoses. Use the dose printed for hard water, then reduce it if you see suds still visible in the glass during the final rinse. Excess detergent does not clean better — it builds sludge in the drawer, sump and outer tub.
Wipe and dry the door seal after every wash
Pull back the lower fold of the bellows, remove grit, hair grips and coins, and wipe it dry with a cloth. Leave the door and detergent drawer ajar between washes so the drum can dry. Mould on a seal is cosmetic at first and a replacement door seal later.
Check the machine is level and stable
Put a spirit level across the top front to back and side to side. Adjust the feet so there is no diagonal rock at all, then lock the feet with their locknuts. An unlevel machine destroys dampers and bearings years early.
Inspect the fill hoses annually
Look for bulging, hairline cracking near the crimped ends, and green corrosion at the tap connector. Rubber inlet hoses have a real service life of about five years — replacing a £12 hose is much cheaper than a flooded kitchen floor.
Don't overload, and don't chronically underload
A correctly filled drum should let you fit a flat hand between the top of the load and the drum roof. Persistent overloading wears bearings and dampers; washing a single towel triggers imbalance faults and hammers the suspension during spin.
Error codes
Washing machine error codes
If your machine is showing a code on the display, look it up here and we will tell you what it is reporting.
E18Bosch E18Drain fault — the machine cannot pump water out within the expected time.F16Bosch F16Door not closed — the machine cannot confirm the door is shut and locked.F17Bosch F17Water fill timeout — the machine is not filling within the expected time.F21Bosch F21Motor fault — the drum is not turning as the control board expects.F23Bosch F23Aquastop triggered — water has collected in the base tray of the machine.F43Bosch F43Drum not turning — motor, brushes or drive fault detected.E18Siemens E18Drain fault — the machine cannot pump water out within the expected time.F16Siemens F16Door not closed — the machine cannot confirm the door is shut and locked.F21Siemens F21Motor fault — the drum is not turning as the control board expects.F01Hotpoint F01Control board fault — the machine's main electronics have detected an internal error.F02Hotpoint F02Motor circuit fault — the drum will not rotate or rotates only intermittently.F03Hotpoint F03Temperature sensing fault — the machine is not heating on wash or dry settings.
Questions
Washing machine repair FAQs
How much does a washing machine repair cost?
A £90 call-out, which covers the visit, the diagnosis and the labour, plus whatever part the machine needs. Parts are quoted for your approval before we fit them, so you know the total before we start. There is no hourly rate and no separate diagnosis fee, which means a drum bearing job that takes half a day carries the same £90 as a ten-minute pump change. If the machine cannot be repaired, you pay the £90 and nothing else.
Is it worth repairing a washing machine, or should I replace it?
As a rule of thumb, repair it if the fix costs less than half the price of an equivalent new machine and the appliance is under about eight years old. Pumps, elements, brushes, belts and door locks are almost always worth doing. Bearings on a budget machine over seven years old usually are not, and we will tell you so before you spend money.
How long does a washing machine repair take?
Most repairs are completed in a single visit of 45 to 90 minutes. We carry the common failure parts — pumps, elements, brushes, belts, door locks, thermistors — on the van. If your machine needs a model-specific part we order it and return, usually within two to four working days.
What guarantee do you give on washing machine repairs?
Every repair comes with a full 6-month guarantee covering both the parts we fitted and our labour. If the same fault returns within that period we come back at no charge. The guarantee is with us directly, not a third-party warranty provider.
Can you repair an integrated washing machine?
Yes — integrated and built-under machines are a routine part of our work. We remove the decor door and slide the machine out on its own supply and waste, work on it, and refit it with the hinge and bracket alignment set correctly. Do allow a little extra time compared with a freestanding machine.
Do you carry spare parts with you?
We stock the high-frequency failure items for the major brands on every van — drain pumps, heating elements, NTCs, carbon brushes, drive belts, door interlocks, inlet valves and dampers. That means the majority of jobs are fixed on the first visit. Rarer control boards and model-specific door seals are ordered in.
Which washing machine brands do you repair?
All the major UK brands: Bosch, Siemens, Neff, Beko, Hotpoint, Indesit, Ariston, Whirlpool, Samsung, LG, AEG, Electrolux, Zanussi, Miele, Hoover, Candy, Grundig and Sharp. We repair domestic machines only and do not work on commercial or launderette equipment.
How long should a washing machine last?
A budget machine typically gives 6 to 8 years, a mid-range machine 8 to 11, and a Miele or comparable premium machine 15 or more. Usage matters enormously — a household running two loads a day will reach end of life in roughly half the calendar time of a couple running three loads a week.
Why do heating elements fail so often around Cambridge?
Our water is very hard — around 280–320 mg/l calcium carbonate from the chalk aquifer. Limescale bakes onto the element every time it heats, insulating it so it runs hotter and eventually burns out. Regular descaling and a water-softening additive genuinely extends element life in this area.
Can you fix a machine that's flooded my kitchen?
Yes, and we treat leaks as a priority booking. Switch the machine off at the socket and turn off the water tap behind it before we arrive. We'll trace the leak — usually a door seal, sump hose or pump housing — and pressure test the repair before we leave.
Washing machine playing up? We'll take a look.
Call-out from £90, labour included. 6 months guarantee.