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Common Problems

A Washer Stopped Full of Water: Top-Load and Front-Load Are Not the Same Job

It depends on which machine you own, and the maker's own documentation is what splits it. For front-loading Whirlpool washers there is a drain pump filter behind a small flap at the bottom front, and Whirlpool publishes a Cleaning the Drain Pump Filter page for the full-size front load washer, the compact front load washer and the all-in-one washer dryer. Put a shallow tray and towels down, use the short drain hose beside the filter to let the water out a little at a time, and only unscrew the filter itself when nothing more comes out. For top-loading Whirlpool washers there is no such thing. Whirlpool's Cleaning and Maintenance branch for the top load washer covers the dispenser, the interior, the exterior, odor and winter storage, and publishes no drain pump filter page, because there is no owner-accessible filter to publish one about. On a top-loader the water leaves through the drain hose, and the checks are the hose, the standpipe and the pump.

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The full guide

Common Problems By Appliance Content Team Last checked 4 minute read

A Whirlpool washer not draining water at the end of a cycle is not one problem. It is two machines with two different answers, and which one you own decides everything that follows.

Whirlpool washer not draining water: two machines, two jobs

Almost every article on this subject is written about a front-loading machine and then handed to everybody. That is where the wasted evening comes from: somebody with a top-loader spends an hour looking for a filter door their machine does not have.

Whirlpool's own support base makes the split for us. For front-loading machines, Whirlpool publishes a procedure called Cleaning the Drain Pump Filter. It appears four times across three products: the full-size front load washer, the compact front load washer, and the all-in-one washer dryer, which also has a page combining the filter with draining residual water. It is documented because you are expected to do it.

For top-loading machines, that page does not exist. The Cleaning and Maintenance branch for the Whirlpool top load washer covers the dispenser, the interior, the exterior, the Clean Washer light, odor, moving the machine and winter storage. There is no drain pump filter page, because there is no filter behind a flap for an owner to open.

Two ways out of a washer, and the box that only one of them has On a front-loading Whirlpool washer the water leaves the drum through a drain pump filter behind a small flap at the bottom front, then the pump, then the hose to the standpipe. That filter is an owner part: the maker publishes a Cleaning the Drain Pump Filter procedure for the full-size front load washer, the compact front load washer and the all-in-one washer dryer. On a top-loading machine that box does not exist. Water leaves the tub through the pump and the hose, and there is no flap, no filter and no owner procedure, because the maker publishes none. So the front-load job is opening a filter with a tray on the floor, and the top-load job is checking the hose, the standpipe and the pump behind the machine instead. SAME COMPLAINT. ONE OF THEM HAS A FILTER YOU CAN OPEN. FRONT-LOAD TOP-LOAD The drum, full of water The tub, full of water DRAIN PUMP FILTER behind a flap, bottom front. Yours to open NO FILTER, NO FLAP the maker publishes no procedure The pump The pump Hose, then the standpipe Hose, then the standpipe Four filter pages on the left. None on the right, and that absence is the answer rather than a gap.
On the right the whole job is behind the machine: the kink, the standpipe, and whether the pump hums or is silent. Nothing on the front of a top-loader comes off.

That absence is the useful fact. It is not a gap in the documentation.

If you have a front-loader

The job is real and it takes about twenty minutes, and the order matters more than the skill.

The filter sits behind a small flap at the bottom of the front panel, usually toward one side, and it levers open with a coin. It catches what would otherwise reach the pump: coins, hairpins, tissue, buttons, the occasional key.

Everything in the drum is behind it. Unscrew it on a full machine and several gallons come out across the floor in about four seconds, which in a second-floor condo laundry closet is not only your problem.

So: a shallow baking tray and a stack of towels on the floor first. Then the short drain hose that sits beside the filter on most of these machines. Pull it out, take the cap off, let a quart run into the tray, cap it, empty the tray, and repeat until nothing more comes.

Only then unscrew the filter. Rinse it under a tap with a brush. Feel around inside the housing carefully, because a shard of glass gets in there as easily as a nickel. Check the impeller behind it turns freely with a finger.

Refit it finger tight. A cross-threaded filter is a new leak on top of an old problem, and it is the most common avoidable second call after somebody has cleaned one themselves.

If you have a top-loader

There is nothing to open, and that is the whole message.

Water leaves a Whirlpool top load washer through the pump and out the drain hose into the standpipe. The checks are all behind and under the machine rather than in front of it.

Bail it first. A jug and a bucket will take a full tub down to an inch or two, and that gets your laundry out and keeps the situation from becoming a floor problem while you work.

Then the hose. Pull the machine forward. Look for a crush or a sharp kink where it was pushed back into place, which in a laundry closet is nearly always the first thing you find. Check how far the hose goes down the standpipe. Pushed too deep, it siphons, and the tub refills as fast as the pump empties it.

Then the standpipe itself. Take the hose out and pour a gallon down it. If it disappears, the drain is fine and the machine is the problem. If it backs up, no work on the appliance will help and you want a plumber rather than us. Five minutes, and it settles which trade you need.

Then listen to the pump. Start a drain or spin cycle and put your ear near the bottom of the machine. A hum with nothing moving is a pump that is blocked or seized. Silence is a pump that is not running, which is either the pump or what drives it.

What people go looking for and will not find

Search for a Whirlpool top-loader drain problem and somebody will tell you to find the coin trap. Whirlpool does not document one on these machines, and taking the cabinet apart to look for it is how a drain problem becomes two problems.

If a coin has gone through on a top-loader it usually reaches the pump, and it usually announces itself as a rattle or a grinding before it announces itself as standing water. That is a pump job, and a small one on this make, which is the genuine advantage of owning the most common washer in the state: the parts are stocked rather than ordered.

If it turns out to be a repair

Every job on this site is priced the same way: an on-site diagnostic first, the figure agreed in writing before anybody starts.

  • "An open front-loading washing machine door with wet clothes sitting in a drum still holding water, a towel on the floor in front of it, the small pump filter access panel" — a drum still full at the end of a cycle, and the filter panel this page sends the owner to, both in one frame
    The cycle stopped and the drum is still full of water

    Washer will not drain

    This is the one Whirlpool machine that tells you exactly what is wrong before anybody opens it. The washer times its own drain, and when the water has not gone in the time the cycle allowed, it stops and puts a name on the display. Read that name before you bail the drum out, because it is the difference between a coin in the pump and a control problem.

    • Whirlpool's own label for a slow drain is a long drain, and it shows as Ld, F9 E1 or drn
    • A drum still full at the end of a cycle is a pump or a hose question first, never a board question first
    • The filter behind the lower access panel on a front-load machine is emptied over a towel, and there will be more water in it than anybody expects
    What it usually means
  • "A small access panel open at the bottom front of a white washing machine, a shallow tray catching water, a coin and a hairpin lying on a towel beside it" — about half the pumps replaced on this make did not need replacing, and the coin on the towel is why. A floor-level close-up, so the donor's bright room is out of it
    from $175

    Washer drain pump replacement

    The drain pump is the single most replaced part in Whirlpool laundry, and about half the time it did not need replacing at all. This make publishes a drain error, a long-drain code and its own page on cleaning the drain pump filter, and on a front loader that filter is behind a little door at the bottom right that most owners have never opened. What comes out of it is coins, hair clips and lint felted into a plug.

    • Nobody condemns a pump on this make before that little door at the bottom is opened
    • Whirlpool publishes both a drain code and a long-drain code, and they read differently
    • Commodity part on the volume brand — it is in the van or half an hour away
    What this involves
  • "Hands checking the braided supply hose connection at the back of a white washing machine, a spanner resting on the machine top, pale tile floor" — a leak from the BACK, one of the four locations this make publishes leak pages by, and the one an owner never looks at
    from $155

    Washer leak repair

    Whirlpool publishes leak pages by location — from the front, from underneath, from the back, from inside — and that is exactly the right way to think about it, because location names the part. A leak from the back is usually a hose connection. A leak from the front on a front loader is usually the door boot. They are not the same money.

    • Whirlpool sorts its own leak pages by location, and that is the right instinct
    • The door boot is the commonest front-load leak and it is a contained repair
    • Detergent overdosing causes leaks that look like a broken machine
    What this involves

Questions people ask about this

What to do when Whirlpool washer won't drain and the door is locked shut?

A front-loader will not release a door it believes has water behind it, and it is right to refuse. Switch the machine off at the outlet for five minutes, which discharges the board and clears most interlocks. If it still holds, drain it through the filter hose first and try again. Never force a front-load door with a full drum.

I have a top-loader. Where is the coin trap?

There is not one to find, and looking for it is the reason people take panels off machines that did not need it. Whirlpool does not document an owner-serviceable filter or trap on its top load washers. Things small enough to get past the basket go to the pump, which is why a top-loader that has swallowed a coin usually announces it as a noise rather than as a blockage.

It drained fine the next morning. Is it fixed?

Probably moved rather than fixed. A partial restriction clears itself under a full load and comes back, usually at a worse moment. On a front-loader, open the filter while the machine is empty and convenient. On a top-loader, check the hose and the standpipe before it happens again.

How do I get the water out if nothing works at all?

Bail it. On a top-loader a jug and a bucket empties the tub down to the last inch or two, which is enough to get the laundry out and enough to stop a leak turning into a floor. On a front-loader use the filter drain hose. Siphoning through the drain hose into a low bucket also works if the machine is above the bucket.

Common Problems

  • "A wrench on the adjustable foot of a newly delivered washing machine with a spirit level lying on top of the cabinet" — the floor half of the page's own question, load or floor

    A Washer That Walks: Telling the Load Apart From the Floor

    Two different problems arrive as the same sentence. A five-minute test with three towels separates them, and the answer often turns out to be the floor rather than the machine.

    Read more
  • "Two hands spreading three wet towels evenly around the inside of a washing machine drum through the open door" — sensing is the machine weighing the load, and this is the load being made weighable

    A Whirlpool Washer That Sits on Sensing, and What It Is Actually Doing

    Sensing is not a pause before the wash. It is a measurement, and a machine that will not leave it is reporting that one of the three things it measures did not come back.

    Read more
  • Two hands holding the raised lid of a white top-load washing machine steady while one finger points at the short metal striker pin on the underside of the lid and the lock slot in the rim waiting below it.

    The Lid Lock Light Is Flashing and the Washer Will Not Start

    A flashing lock is not a broken lock. It is the machine saying it tried to lock and never got the confirmation back, and two of the four things in that chain cost nothing.

    Read more

Tell us the model number and what it is doing.

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This article is based on:

  • Official manufacturer documentation
  • Internal repair procedures
  • Technician repair history
  • Company quality standards
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