Can excess chlorine cause oversudsing?

9 years ago

Short story: our city has an E coli problem in its water supply, so has "injected" additional chlorine into the water supply.

I did a load of dish towels tonight on the Sanitary cycle (Bosch Nexxt 500 washer), put the usual amount of HE detergent in, and started the wash. I came back a little whle later to find massive suds coming out of the soap dispenser area, water on the floor, etc.

Could this have been caused by the excess chlorine in the water? I'd like to suggest that the City send out a notice warning residents of this issue--but only if the causation is really there.

Thanks for any info.

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Comments (5)

mrb627
9 years ago
As a test, start the machine on the same program with no detergent and not clothing. Does the water begin to foam?

Generally, heating the water to a high temperature (170) tends to exaggerate the foaming aspect of most if not all liquid detergents, HE or not.

MRB
dave1812
9 years ago
items you placed into washer possibly had dish soap residue? that will sure cause a lot of sudsing.

As far as the chlorine? NO.

This post was edited by dave1812 on Fri, Oct 3, 14 at 14:34
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sparky823
9 years ago
Agree with Dave if it is plain Clorox no suds,BUT there are some of the other formulas which contain surfactant(look on bottle) and they will cause more sudsing. Had that happen myself.
Can't imagine a municipal water additive that would do that though.
meg711
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks for the responses. No, there was no soap residue on these towels but it's a good thought. And if the additional chlorine didn't cause it, then I guess it will remain a mystery. Can't wait for our water supply to get back to normal.

Thanks again!
Cavimum
9 years ago
"I did a load of dish towels tonight ... "

I agree that extra chlorine in the municipal water supply would not cause all that sudsing.

Liquid detergents do like to get frothy in hot water, but powders can, too.

If you only washed dish towels, it begs the question of how many towels and how much detergent was used? When I have a small load of wash, I have to reduce the detergent proportionately.

Some really small loads, like five or six of hubby's dress shirts, can't even take 5ml (1/2 tsp) of our powdered Sears detergent. Otherwise, I spend the rest of the day getting the detergent flushed from the laundry and the washing machine, in alternate cycles.

If I washed a dozen dish towels, one-half teaspoon of any of our detergents would be sufficient in our 'he' FL washer.

"As a test, start the machine on the same program with no detergent and not clothing. Does the water begin to foam? "
On any given day, after doing laundry, this will happen in our FL washer, due to detergent residue in the drum.

This post was edited by Cavimum on Sat, Oct 4, 14 at 17:30