Whirlpool lsq8543j90 Flooded my House

General Discussion
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(Edit, post moved to general discussion by me because who knows how it got in the fire alarm help category but somehow it got there. Original post below.)

You saw that title correctly.

I had loaded my Whirlpool lsq8543j90 from 2000 for my school uniform, and a few minutes later, it overflowed a lot. It had flooded the vast majority of the house. Including all of the hallway, the doorways of the bedrooms, and half of the dining room, and the entire bathroom.

I made a map of the flood with the Emergency EVAC map i made for my house prior.

flood
flood2048×1582 255 KB

The area in blue is all the area where the water had entered and flooded.
The green blob is the general location of the Whirlpool machine, it is inside the utility/laundry room.
Anything blacked out is for privacy reasons.

I am pretty sure that the machines timer had failed in the filling phase and the water valve was left open.

The load settings were:

  • Medium fill
  • Normal with Super Plus wash cycle.
  • Cold water for wash and rinse cycles.
  • End of cycle signal ON.

This happened before a few years , just not to this extent.

My family is already taking care of the water damage, and the machine will be replaced.

No Fire Alarms were damaged because of this flood. (Thankfully.)

Any recommendations to prevent this?

I am already considering a water sensor setup like Newageserver’s, i just don’t know how I can tie that to the Vista 20p that is part of the house.

(I know this is not even remotely fire alarm related i just need people to point me in the right direction. )

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It’s possible that a faulty water level sensor could have caused this problem. Check if there’s a flexible plastic pipe leading from bottom of the outer drum to a small plastic box like thingy with several wires connecting to it.
The sensor measures the water pressure of the bottom of drum, and with the formula p=ρgh，the logic board can calculate out how much water is there in the drum. If a leak occurs, the pressure level detected by the sensor would be significantly lower than the actual value, making the controller misjudge the actual level of water and continue to open the solenoid valve even if the water exceeds the maximum level and overflows.
For most machines, a fail-safe filling timeout was programmed in the logic board, forcing the solenoid valve to shut off and the console to report a trouble condition (E-4, IE, etc.) to prevent further water damage if the sensor’s output fails to reach the desired level after a certain period of time.

1 Like
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A possible way to prevent water damage when there IS a failure is to place the washing machine at somewhere with at least one water drain on the floor, e.g. in the bathroom. Install drain pipes and ports underneath the floor of the laundry room (if possible) also works.

4

Im pretty sure it wasn’t a leak. When we found the source, the wash basket was overflowing and it was overflowing to the point that it was flooding the house.

Thing is, my machine is one of those old school “Timer Based” Machines, and there is no logic board. (That I am aware of.) So there was no timeout.

Here is a video of a washer very similar to mine and manufactured around the same time.

Only the control interface has a different design, but everything else looks the same.

The thing is, the two bathrooms in my house are too small to accommodate a machine of a similar size, and with the houses design only the Utility/Landry room has enough space.

Also, the water restoration company came after I wrote this, and the water had affected the cabinets in the kitchen and the cat litter from the bathroom. Which caused more problems. Also since my house was built in the 60’s, The insurance requires a check to make sure the drywall is not made of asbestos. Who knows how much this will cost and how much the insurance will cover.
So adding drainage to the laundry room is pretty much out of the question right now.

I was thinking of adding a water sensor near the machine like newageserver, and connect it to a Zone on the houses Vista 20p with zone type 08 (24-hour Auxiliary Alarm) and connect a relay to cut power to the machine when activated. (Note,Vista 20p not monitored.)

5

Theoretically that will work. Water flows out, the sensor activates, the alarm trips, sending you the warning message and cutting off the power.
I don’t know if American-style breakers support auxiliary addons - typical European-style breakers do. If so, a shunt release (a solenoid device that trips the breaker after being energized) added onto the breaker controlling the washer might be a better choice than a relay

6

I looked into it and shunt trips only really exist in elevator applications in the US. So they would for sure not work here.

I’ll keep looking though…

7

I know I am late but have you thought about tying in home automation to this.

I am not sure about your machine, but my Samsung washer plugs into a standard 120v outlet.

Using a water sensor, when the zone is tripped, the auxiliary alarm would come on, and the smart plug could immediately cut power to the unit.

I will look into this but it is an idea.

1 Like
8

After doing a quick search, I have determined a possible solution.

If you want to add a Honeywell tuxedo keypad, it has a built in Z-wave hub, using a z-wave smart plug. The water sensor could trip a aux alarm, and shut off the washer like stated above.

(Not trying to bump, found this relevant.)

9

I will look into it, although the washer is getting replaced, (There is also talk that the dryer is coming with it since it doesn’t dry as efficiently as it used to.)

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UPDATE: It Flooded my house for a second time on Saturday, it has to do with the load size selector not being fully on a selection. The Washing machine is going to be replaced in the next week. No Flood Damage to carpets and floorboards this time.

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I would have turned down the valve on the water flow to the washing machine if I knew it was gonna flood so it would be slower at spilling. But yeah I think your washer/dryer could be getting worn out from many years of being used.

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Update: Gearbox Died, Its has overrun its course and its now dead. Will be replaced.