LG Washer – Why Won’t My LG Washing Machine Power On?

Washing Machine - No Power

I'd like to give you some do-it-yourself tips, in this case, for a washer that won't turn on. Some of these problems can be very simple.

So, you can see in this case when I hit the power button nothing happens. First thing that we really need to check is, it could be as simple as, is the product actually plugged in? So, I'm going to go back and check to see and actually, the cord was out. So, let's go ahead and we'll plug this back in and we'll go ahead and see if our washer now starts.

So, a simple little fix if your outlet is easy to get to. This is pretty obvious sometimes. You can see it, if it's behind the washer. Your safety is our main concern. If you don't feel you can move this washer out, it's very heavy, get some help. Remember to put down floor protection to protect your floor. We don't want to see any damage. If there's anything on top of the washer that could fall off and damage your floor, remove them as you move the washer forward.

Let's give you another scenario. Maybe we've got us an area where we verified that we do have the unit plugged in but we hit the power button and nothing happens. We might have a problem where we don't have power coming to that outlet. So, one of the things we can do is an easy way for you to verify whether there's voltage coming to that outlet. Let's get a known source of something we know works. Something that's simple and easy to use is maybe a nightlight that you have in the hallway that's working right now, a small lamp, small fan, something we can verify that it is running from another outlet and we can plug it into that outlet and see if we have power there. If we can't get either that nightlight or fan to work, we could have a problem with the circuit breaker.

Now what I've done is I've got a circuit breaker just to show you. If you're lucky enough, these circuits are marked in your circuit panel, you can go to it and if it is marked as washer, you can go ahead and check to see if it's tripped. If it is, all you have to do is go back to the off position and then go ahead and reset it back to the on position, go back and see if the dryeror the washer then works.

Now, once in a while, we have capacitive touch panel products. Some of the newer stuff doesn't have these manual push buttons, they have a piece of glass that goes across the front and they call this capacitive touch panels. Without getting too technical, it actually uses the resistance and our fingers to complete a circuit. But sometimes you might have a problem where if you touch the power button, nothing works. Simple things to do first is unplug the washing machine and then let's go ahead and use some mild detergent with a soft cloth and let's wash across the face of this. Maybe there's some kind of film on here that's present preventing the resistance of our fingers from completing the circuit. Another thing that I find with capacitive circuits is sometimes my fingers are at that point where they're too dry and they don't allow that circuit to be actually closed. What works sometimes if I use a moisturizer on my finger or maybe I can have another adult in the family or a friend come and see if they can turn it on with their fingers.

I don't have enough moisture in my fingers to complete that circuit so like I said try moisturizer, try cleaning it off, and get some moisture in your fingers. The other thing that you might run into is sometimes you go ahead and start the machine, and it sometimes will shut off in the middle of a cycle. Sometimes we can have a problem with the outlet. A properly wired outlet is not only grounded properly but it's what we call polarized. So what we can do in this situation is if we have a problem starting this, what we would like to do is unplug the machine first, give it a good fifteen or thirty seconds before we'll plug it back in again. Let's go ahead and plug it back in and then see if we can get the unit to turn on again. Okay, a way of checking the outlet to verify if we have a problem with it is I've got this inexpensive device that you can pick up at a hardware store. It only cost a few dollars. It will verify the status of your outlet to tell you whether or not it's good. It's very easy to read. It's got lights on there so you just follow the instructions on here and it tells you if the outlet is good or not.

So in this case, what we can do is we can unplug the washer again. I'm going to move the dryer plug temporarily so we can see this and then I'm going to plug this in where my washer was and we can see these two lights on here are telling me that my outlet is actually wired correctly. Now if I were to get a red light and one of these lights are missing, I'll just go on this little guide here, it'll tell me whether or not the outlet is polarized or the outlet is maybe not properly grounded. Now an appliance can work for years with an outlet that isn't properly grounded or non-polarized. But every once in a while, it could affect the electronics in your product and sometimes a simple little thing like unplugging the product and plugging it back in again will correct this. But this is something that we don't want to really leave like this. This could be a safety problem. Your lines are actually reversed in there, so these are going to require electrician to come out and go ahead and take care of that for you. You can verify with the electrician when he comes down here saying yeah I've got a problem it says I got an open ground or I've got an outlet that isn't polarized. They'll be able to take care of that and give you better service in the future with that.

Okay, all right, I hope these tips have helped you kind of figure out what's going wrong with the washing machine. By no means, are they intended to replace service if you need it. So, if these tips don't work, we might have to send a technician down there for service. If you feel uncomfortable about doing any of these things, by all means, we don't want to make you feel uncomfortable or make you feel that this is obligated from you. So these were just a couple little tips to avoid that service call. So thank you for being an LG customer, and thank you for spending some time with us today.