Help - Laundry Question

Updated on December 11, 2012
F.B. asks from Mechanicsburg, PA
6 answers

I have an LG high efficiency washer and dryer. For awhile now, I have been noticing dark spots on some of our clothes. This happens mostly on shirts, usually on the lower half of the front of the shirt. Most of the time, there are only a few spots here and there. But, sometimes there are quite a bit more on the shirt. It doesn't even happen on every shirt. Out of, say, 6 loads of laundry, I will find about 6 or so shirts with these spots on them. My husband does the washing and drying of the clothes and I do most of the folding. So, I don't notice these spots until after they have been washed and dried. If I treat the spots with Shout and run them through the wash again, most of the time, the spots come out.

At first, I thought it was food spills. But it is happening too frequently and, for me, food spills would be on the upper half of the shirt, above my chest. Then, I thought maybe sweat spots or body oils staining the shirts. But, the spots are happening on my kids' shirts too and two of my kids are too young for sweating. I am starting to wonder if it is something with my washer. But, I have no idea what.

Has this happened to any of you? If so, did you figure out what is causing it? Any helpful advice is welcome.

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L.O.

answers from Chicago on

Two Questions. First, do you use HE detergents? If you don't, and use standard soaps, they leave buildup. I used to work at a prominent B&B, and once got the wrong soap for the machine, and got spots from it, as a buildup of the soap developed. This is what the Maytag guy said to my boss, and I'm not sure of the validity of this. He used some expensive product to remove buildup, and told us to use the method I listed below once every two weeks to prevent this issue. The guy was real nice, and saved us a ton from unnecessary service calls(so we always called him first when we really needed assistance).

Perhaps there is some buildup in your machine? I used to have fabric softener spotting, and I suspect a buildup of hard water deposits in my Maytag(other people used the fabric softener dispenser, and never poured water in after the softener. I only use a Downy Ball.).

What I did to fix this, is I got a bucket of very hot water, and poured it through the softener dispenser. Next, I made a Hot/Hot load on Medium, and put in a cup of Bleach and dye free soap for that sized load. After running this, I ran a plain Hot/Hot load on Medium, and put in two cups of cider vinegar.

I repeat this process every other month, or if I see a return of spotting.

The second question has to do with hard water(you never mentioned what colour the spotting is). I do, and thought of what I do for that issue.

If you do, run CLR according to instructions in your machine to remove the buildup, then a HOT/HOT load to flush the product out.

Hope this helps.

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C.M.

answers from Chicago on

I had that happen a while ago, I think it was mildew from inside the machine.

I did the vinegar thing and soaked the tub. Once I did that, the black spots went away for a long while. When they came back, I did it again. I would get them on white tee shirts a lot, or at least I could see them on the white tee shirts!

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G.D.

answers from Detroit on

I read through the answers on the links attached by Nicole. I see that several people recommended vinegar. That is what I do with our high-efficiency front loader. One wash with just vinegar and water and then a water only wash to rinse it out. Works like a charm on dishwashers too. Just cleans any residue/buildup out.

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G.B.

answers from Oklahoma City on

Okay, let me make sure I understand this......

You fold the laundry and have started noticing that on a certain part of a shirt, not the rest, just a certain section of every shirt is getting similar spots on it....?

If it was the washer they would be all over all the laundry right? If it's just a certain section on the shirt it has to be something that was on that shirt when it went in the washer, perhaps it was something from several washes ago that has still not been cleaned out completely.

I think perhaps the wearer is leaning up against something or there is something on the inside of their pants that is transferring to each of their shirts and it is an oil base and not washing out completely.

If it were all over every garment then it would be the washer. The washer doesn't have the ability to only select certain shirts and even certain sections of that shirt to spot. It would just make spots on each and every garment and item washed.

M.S.

answers from Pittsburgh on

Something similar was happening to me . . . several long-sleeved t-shirts (all same fabric) were constantly found with spots all around the upper chest portion (right under the collar line. I kept thinking they were stains, I would treat, make sure there were no spots before tossing in the washer again, the spots re-appeared. A friend told me it was from dryer sheets, something about a film they leave that builds up over time, that she had the same problem and switched to dryer balls and the mystery ended. I was about to buy the dryer balls anyway once the giant box of sheets (from Costco) ran out. Sure enough, I've never seen the spots re-appear after switching to dryer balls!

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