Why does the hot water hose to my washing machine keep unscrewing late at night?

Asked by michaelF10 (1

) January 9th, 2013

My 7 month old washing machine had the hot water hose simply unscrew itself from the wall 2 nights ago. We managed to wake up, abate the flood, and fix. I screwed hose back, and used plumbing wrench to tighten. Very tight. Last night- it unscrewed itself in middle of night AGAIN! What could cause a hose to unscrew itself? Hose was very tight, unmovable. Worked great after install and tighten. How can a hose unscrew itself 2 times in the middle of the night? Could cold-night expansion/contraction with the fittings be it, and if so, would replacing the hoses with better quality ones do the trick?

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4 Answers

Beein slick, broken threads combind with pressure maybe ?

Staalesen (2722

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Welcome to Fluther.

I suspect that the hose coupling (the piece that you’re tightening at the end of the hose, onto the valve bibb) may be worn or have stripped threads, as @Staalesen suggests OR it might be getting hot from the valve bibb itself – depending on how your hot water system is designed, you may have hot water in the lines at all times, and the expansion of the older or damaged coupling may be allowing it to expand and be “blown off” because of the water pressure.

That’s one reason why I always turn off the valves when I’m done with the laundry. I use a single gang valve of the type shown here. One pull does it all.

It’s also possible that you’re cross-threading the coupling onto the valve, and though it seems “tight”, because it’s hard to turn, if you don’t have many threads engaged properly it’s not really seated.

CWOTUS (26102

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I’m relieved to read there’s probably a real cause for this problem. I was starting to think you might have ghosts who don’t like having their sheets washed in hot water. Shrinkage, you know.

Pachy (18610

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