A washing machine makes noise. Some of it is normal and some of it is the machine telling you something is wrong, and most people cannot tell which is which until water is on the floor.
Worth learning, because nearly every expensive washer repair announces itself for weeks first.
The noises that are normal
Start here so you are not chasing something that is fine.
A steady mechanical hum during the wash is the motor. A rushing sound at the start and during rinses is the fill valve. A gurgle at the end of a cycle is the pump clearing the drain hose. A rising whine as the spin accelerates is normal on a front loader, and it should climb smoothly and settle.
Clicks when the cycle changes phase are the valves and the door lock. Modern machines click a lot.
If it has always made that sound, it is almost certainly fine. What matters is change.
Grinding or roaring during the spin
This is the one to take seriously.
A low roar that gets louder as the spin speeds up, sounding like a jet or like something heavy rolling, is usually the drum bearings. Bearings fail slowly, get louder over weeks, and on many machines cannot be replaced economically. That noise is the machine telling you it has a limited life left.
You can narrow it down. With the machine empty and off, spin the drum by hand. Roughness or a rumble you can feel is a bearing. Grab the drum at the top and rock it toward you and away. More than very slight movement means the bearing or the spider arm behind it is going.
Bearings usually fail because of repeated unbalanced spinning, which means overloading. If you catch it early, changing how you load will not undo the damage but it will slow it down.
Banging and walking
Loud rhythmic banging during the spin, sometimes with the machine moving across the floor, is a load problem or a level problem before it is a mechanical one.
Stop the cycle, open the door, and redistribute the load by hand. A single heavy item, a bath mat or a pair of jeans on its own, will do this every time.
If the load is balanced and it still bangs, check the machine is level. Put a level on top, front to back and side to side, and adjust the feet until it sits solid. Then push each corner. If any corner drops, it is not sitting evenly.
New machines that bang violently on the first spin usually still have their shipping bolts in the back. That is worth checking before anything else.
Squealing, screeching, and thumping
A squeal or screech that comes and goes with drum rotation is usually a worn belt or a seized idler pulley. Cheap parts, and worth fixing before the belt fails entirely.
A rhythmic thump at the same point in every rotation, with a balanced load, points at something caught between the drum and the outer tub. Underwire from a bra is the classic. It rattles and scrapes and it will eventually damage the drum.
A rattle that only happens at high spin is often coins or hardware in the drum or the pump. Check the drain pump filter behind the panel at the bottom front.
A buzz with no movement means the motor is getting power but something is jammed. Turn it off. Running it in that state burns out the motor.
Noises from the water side
Banging in the pipes when the machine stops filling is water hammer, which is the supply water stopping abruptly. It is a plumbing issue rather than a machine one, and arrestors at the valves solve it. Worth doing, because that shock loosens hose connections over time.
A long high whistle during fill usually means a partly closed supply valve or a restricted inlet screen.
Filling that never seems to stop, or a machine that keeps topping up while idle, means a valve is not sealing. That one can flood a room.
The Boulder specifics
Two things here are worth knowing.
Front Range water carries a fair amount of mineral, and scale builds inside the inlet valves and the heating element. A machine that gets slower to fill over a year or two is usually scaling up rather than failing, and a descaling cycle addresses it.
The other is altitude and dry air, which does nothing to the machine but does mean drying happens faster than most people expect. A dryer that suddenly seems to take much longer than it used to is a real change and usually means restricted ducting rather than a worn-out machine.
What to do when the noise is new
A short sequence that identifies most of it.
Run the machine empty and listen. If the noise is gone, it was the load.
Check level and rock each corner.
Spin the drum by hand and rock it, feeling for roughness or play.
Clear the drain pump filter, which is where coins and wire end up.
Note when the noise happens: fill, wash, drain, or spin. That single detail narrows the cause more than any description of the sound.
When the machine is out of action
A machine making a bearing noise is on a countdown, and the wash before the repair still has to happen.
The machines at our self-service laundry on Broadway are commercial units mounted and balanced for continuous use, with the drum size to take the bulky loads that punish a household machine most.
Our machines and the store are cleaned daily, and part of that is noticing a machine that has started to sound different and taking it out of service before it fails on someone.
Nou wash-dry-fold service covers everyday laundry while you wait on a repair, and our contact page reaches the store if you want to ask about something first.
The short version
Change is what matters, not volume. A growing roar during the spin is usually bearings, which fail from repeated unbalanced loads and often end the machine. Banging and walking is a load or level problem first, so redistribute and check the feet before assuming a fault. A rhythmic thump with a balanced load means something is caught between the drum and the tub, usually underwire. A buzz with no movement means stop immediately. And note which phase the noise happens in, because that narrows the cause faster than anything else.
WaveMAX Boulder is at 2614 Broadway Ave., easy to reach from Boulder and the surrounding area.