Last Updated on October 4, 2026 by Umar Farooq
How to clean washing machine filter parts, in short: confirm your machine actually has one, then get the water out of the tub — because the filter sits below the water line, and unscrewing it on a full drum empties that tub across your floor. Nearly every guide on this subject opens with “locate the filter door”, which is step three at the earliest. A machine holding a wash load of grey water does not care how carefully you turn the cap.
So this page runs in the order the job actually happens: does yours have one, get the water out, then open it. It covers the procedure and nothing else — whole-machine cleaning, odour diagnosis and gasket cleaning are separate jobs.
Not every washing machine has a drain pump filter
This is the single most useful thing to establish first, and it is the thing most guides never say at all. If you own a top-loader, there is a good chance you are about to spend an hour on your knees looking for an access panel that was never fitted. LG states it plainly on their own support page: the drain pump filter is “only present on LG frontload washers and combo units” and “not available on top load washers” (LG Washer – How to Clean the Drain Pump Filter).
That is LG’s wording about LG machines, and it should not be stretched into a universal law — a handful of top-loaders from other brands do carry a serviceable filter, usually behind a small panel low on the front. But the pattern holds well enough to save you the search. Front-loaders and washer-dryer combos almost always have one. Most top-loaders trap debris in a pump housing you cannot reach without taking the machine apart, which is a different job with a different risk profile.
| Machine type | Filter you can reach? | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Front-loader | Almost always | Small hinged or push-in flap, lower front corner |
| Washer-dryer combo | Almost always | Same place, often behind a wider kickplate |
| Top-loader, HE impeller | Usually not | Check the manual before removing panels |
| Top-loader, traditional agitator | Usually not | Debris collects in the pump housing itself |
Two minutes with the model number and the manufacturer’s own support site settles it. If the manual has no pump filter section and there is no flap across the bottom front, your machine does not have one, and no amount of prising at the kickplate will produce it.
Drain the water first — the step most guides bury
Here is the physical reality that decides the order of this whole job. The filter is mounted at the lowest point of the drain circuit, deliberately, because that is where debris settles and where the pump can reach it. Everything in the tub above that height is sitting on top of the filter cap, held back by one plastic thread. Unscrew it with a full drum and you have not drained the machine, you have opened it.
That matters far more when the machine has failed mid-cycle than when you are doing routine maintenance, because a machine that will not drain is a machine that is still full. On a scheduled clean after a completed cycle there is very little water left, and LG’s advice covers it: “Have a towel handy, a little bit of water will run out when the filter is removed.” On a failed cycle you have the entire wash volume waiting behind that cap. Same thread, completely different afternoon.
The emergency drain hose is what separates a clean twenty minutes from a wet hour. It is a short capped tube tucked in beside the filter on most machines, and it exists purely so the tub can be let down in stages before the cap comes off. If your machine is genuinely full and the hose is missing, blocked or unreachable, how to drain a washing machine manually covers the other two routes in the order that spills least.
How to clean washing machine filter parts, step by step
The sequence below matches Samsung’s and LG’s published procedures, which agree on every point that matters: drain through the hose before the filter comes out, counter-clockwise to remove, clockwise to refit. Samsung’s step-by-step version and LG’s shorter one are the same job written by two different people — Samsung’s instruction is to “remove the washer pump filter by twisting it counter-clockwise” and then “reinsert it and twist it clockwise until it’s secured in the vertical position” (Samsung – how to clean your Samsung washer).
Give yourself twenty minutes and some floor space. The whole thing is done kneeling, in front of the machine, with one hand permanently occupied holding something.
- Unplug the machine. Not paused — unplugged. Both your hands are about to be near the pump.
- Lay a towel in front of the panel and set a shallow dish or a roasting tray on it. A bucket is the wrong shape entirely; nothing that tall fits under the opening.
- Open the access panel. Some flip down on a hinge, some pop out under thumb pressure, some need a coin in a slot. Do not lever hard on a panel that has not moved — you have probably found the wrong edge.
- Pull out the emergency hose, uncap it over the dish, and let the water run. LG’s warning is worth quoting exactly: “Be careful not to pull the hose too far out, as this can cause the hose to kink, preventing the water from draining properly.” Recap when the dish is full, empty it, repeat until the flow stops.
- Recap the hose and clip it back into its holder. Skip this and it drips quietly behind the machine for a week.
- Unscrew the filter counter-clockwise, slowly. Stop as soon as the thread releases and let the last of the water come out around it before you pull the filter clear.
- Clean the filter and the housing. Pick out the debris, rinse it under a warm tap, work the mesh with an old toothbrush. Wipe inside the housing, then reach in and turn the impeller by hand — it should spin freely and stop when you do.
- Refit clockwise until it stops, close the panel, plug in and run a short rinse and spin. Watch the floor for the first minute. A cap left one thread short does not leak until the pump pressurises.
Whirlpool’s version ends with the same instruction in blunter language: “Reinsert the drain pump filter by turning it clockwise. Make sure to turn it in as far as it will go” (Whirlpool – Cleaning the Drain Pump Filter). A partly seated filter is the most common way this maintenance job creates a leak that was not there before it started.
What comes out of the filter is diagnostic
Tip the filter onto the towel before you rinse it, and look at what is there. This is free information about your household, and it is often more useful than the cleaning itself. Coins, buttons, hair clips and the occasional small plastic toy are the ordinary contents, and they arrive one pocket at a time. What is worth noticing is the ratio: a filter that is mostly lint is a machine doing its job, while a filter holding three hard objects is a laundry habit worth changing.
Bra underwire earns its own paragraph. It is thin, stiff and the one item that reliably travels past the mesh into the pump itself, or wedges across the impeller where it chews at the blades every drain cycle. If you find one, check the housing and turn the impeller through a full rotation before refitting anything. A mesh bag ends this problem permanently, which is a rare thing to be able to say about a laundry fault.
Slime is a different signal. A grey, greasy film coating the mesh is detergent residue and body oils that never fully rinsed away, and it points at dosing rather than at the filter. It builds fastest in households running cool cycles with a generous pour, and it comes straight back unless the dose changes (signs of too much detergent). Cleaning the filter treats the symptom. The bottle is where the cause lives.
When the filter cap will not turn
A stuck cap is common enough to deserve real advice rather than “apply firm pressure”. There are only two reasons it will not move: something hard is jammed across the thread, or mineral scale has effectively glued the plastic. Neither is solved by force, and force here has one specific failure mode — you crack the housing, and a cracked pump housing turns a free maintenance job into a paid repair with a part number attached.
Work through it in order. Confirm the tub has been drained through the emergency hose first, because a full tub presses against that cap the whole time you are twisting it. Get grip with a rubber glove or silicone matting rather than clamping a tool onto the ribs. If it still will not shift, dribble white vinegar around the seam and give it twenty minutes to soften the scale. Then rock it gently both ways rather than hauling in one direction — a quarter turn backwards frees a surprising number of jammed objects.
If none of that works, stop there. A cap that refuses after a genuine attempt usually has something wedged behind it, and the next step is reaching the housing from behind with the machine pulled out and tipped. That is a legitimate stopping point, not a failure of nerve.
How often to clean the drain pump filter
LG publishes the clearest figure of the three: “It is recommended to clean the drain pump filter on a monthly basis.” Whirlpool is vaguer, saying only to “Perform the following procedure occasionally”, and Samsung says to clean it regularly without naming an interval at all. So monthly is the strictest published manufacturer recommendation available rather than an industry standard, and it is written for a machine running several loads a week.
Whether monthly suits your house depends on what goes through the drum, which varies more than any fixed schedule can capture. A household washing pet bedding and work clothes fills a filter far faster than one person washing shirts. So use the filter as its own meter: clean it, clean it again a month later, and look at how much came out the second time. That result tells you your interval better than any page can.
| Household | Sensible starting interval |
|---|---|
| Pets, long hair, outdoor work clothes | Monthly |
| Family of four, several loads a week | Every one to two months |
| One or two people, a few loads a week | Every three months |
| Any machine that has just started draining slowly | Now, before anything else |
There is one more trigger worth knowing about. Samsung notes that when the filter clogs “your washing machine may not drain properly, so your clothes may be wet when the cycle finishes or the cycle may take longer than expected to finish”. Cycles quietly stretching is the earliest symptom of a filling filter, and it almost always gets blamed on the machine getting old (washing machine cycle time increasing).
The filter is clean and it still will not drain
This is the section that matters most, because the reader who has arrived here has already done the work and is now being told by the internet to buy a pump. Hold off. The filter is the most likely single cause of a drain failure, but it is not the only one, and the next checks cost nothing.
Start with the pump, and let it tell you what it is doing. If the machine hums or buzzes on the drain step and no water moves, the motor has power and is trying — which rules out the control board, the wiring and the windings in one observation, before you order anything. What is left is nearly always a small hard object against the impeller. Pumps get replaced for this constantly, and most of them were working when they came out. Reach in through the empty housing, turn the impeller by hand, and feel for where it stops (washing machine drain pump humming).
A silent pump is a different fault, and a pump that drains but slowly is a third. A slow drain with a genuinely clean filter usually sits in the hose rather than the machine — a kink behind the cabinet, a sag holding standing water, or a standpipe partly blocked at the wall (washing machine drains too slowly). The full ordered checklist for a machine that will not drain at all is at washing machine won’t drain.
Stop and get someone in when you can confirm one of these, rather than because you have run out of ideas:
- The impeller will not turn by hand with the housing visibly clear.
- The same drain code returns at the same point in the cycle twice, on a clean filter.
- Water appears under the machine during drain while the filter cap is seated and dry.
- The pump makes no sound at all on the drain step and the machine is otherwise responsive.
- There is scorching, a burnt smell, or a tripped breaker involved. That ends the job immediately.
FAQ
Where is the drain pump filter on my washing machine?
On a front-loader, behind a small flap in one of the lower front corners, more often the right. It may be a hinged door, a push-to-release panel, or a kickplate that unclips. If there is no flap along the bottom front, check the manual before removing panels.
How often should I clean the drain pump filter?
LG recommends monthly. Whirlpool says only to do it occasionally, and Samsung says regularly without giving a number, so monthly is the strictest published figure rather than a universal rule. Clean it twice a month apart, see how much came out the second time, and set your own interval from that.
Do top-load washers have a drain pump filter?
Usually not one you can reach. LG states the filter is not available on their top load washers at all, and most other top-loaders collect debris inside a pump housing rather than in a serviceable filter. A few models are exceptions, so the manual is the only reliable answer for your machine.
Can I clean the drain pump filter without draining the water first?
You can, and the tub will empty across your floor through the opening. The emergency drain hose exists specifically to prevent that, and using it properly costs about five extra minutes. If your machine is full and has no emergency hose, drain it another way before the cap comes off.
What do I do if the filter cap will not unscrew?
Confirm the tub is drained first, then get grip with a rubber glove rather than a tool. White vinegar around the seam for twenty minutes softens scale, and rocking it gently in both directions frees most jammed objects. Do not reach for a wrench — the housing is plastic, and it cracks.
Why does my washer still smell after cleaning the filter?
Because filter debris is rarely the main source. Odour in a front-loader usually lives in the door gasket folds, the detergent drawer and the film on the tub itself, and clearing it needs a maintenance wash rather than a filter clean (washer tub clean cycle explained).
My washer still will not drain after I cleaned the filter. What now?
Listen to the pump on the drain step. A hum with no water moving means the motor is powered and something is jamming the impeller, which you can check by hand through the empty housing. Silence points elsewhere, and a slow drain on a clean filter usually means a kinked drain hose.
Will cleaning the filter fix a washer that stops before the spin?
Often, yes. Most machines will not advance into spin until the tub is confirmed empty, so a partly blocked filter stalls the cycle at the drain-to-spin transition and looks convincingly like a spin fault. Clean the filter before suspecting anything expensive.
Twenty minutes, in the right order
The drain pump filter is the cheapest maintenance on the machine and the most neglected, right up until it becomes a symptom. Twenty minutes, a towel and a shallow dish, done in the right order — machine type, water out, cap off — covers the most common cause of a machine that will not drain, the most common cause of cycles quietly getting longer, and a fair share of the noises people book service calls about.
The order is the whole trick. Take the cap off first and you have not started the job, you have started mopping.
