Washing Machine tripping earth leakage detector

[Mick.H.]

Just picked up a second hand front loader washing machine from a friend. Did our first load of washing and the machine tripped the earth leakage detector. On investigation I found the washing machine to water pump drain hose was full of holes. So, I guess the water leaking was causing the earth leakage detector to trip. I have now ordered a new drain hose but my question is, would the leaking water have caused damage to the motor?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers, Mick

[echnidna]

It may have,
but quite often just drying the moisture out of everything will see it become serviceable again.

If it was mine I'd just let it set for a week or so and try it again.

[SilentButDeadly]

There are so many ways that a front loader can trip the safety switch.....one front loader I acquired with a view to a repair (the previous owner said that it just stopped one day) looked just fine even with most of the panels off but a hunt around found the earth fault was happening in the heater circuit in the tub. Spinning the drum (which I should have done first) pointed out the problem....the tub was out of balance. A strip down showed that the frame at the rear holding the tub up was so corroded it had snapped and the SS tub had gouged out the heater coil...along with the plastic tub. It was a mess!! And it certainly hadn't just 'stopped'. It should have died screaming and banging....

So yep fix the little problem but have a view as to what chain of events it might have set off.

[pyro_15]

Just picked up a second hand front loader washing machine from a friend. Did our first load of washing and the machine tripped the earth leakage detector. On investigation I found the washing machine to water pump drain hose was full of holes. So, I guess the water leaking was causing the earth leakage detector to trip. I have now ordered a new drain hose but my question is, would the leaking water have caused damage to the motor?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers, Mick
There are so many different things that could trip out an earth leakage breaker, yes water brinding and active to earth will do this. Basically the elcb looks for a difference between the current flowing to the applience and compares this to the current coming back (basicaly 2 magnetic feilds that if are equale negate them selves, if not the resulting magneic force flicks a switch) and is set to a sencitivity of 30milli amps so anything going between active and not back through neutral will activate the switch.