Before you begin. This procedure is general reference information, not professional advice. Equipment varies by manufacturer, model, and year. Always follow the documentation supplied with your equipment — where it differs from this page, follow the manufacturer. Verify that you have the tools, the working conditions, and the ability to do this task safely. If anything is unclear, if the equipment is damaged, or if the task exceeds your experience, stop and use a qualified professional. You are responsible for your own safety and for the outcome. This site accepts no liability for any loss, damage, or injury arising from the use of this information.
Specifications marked unverified could not be traced to a manufacturer source. Do not rely on them — obtain the value from your equipment documentation.
The rubber ring around the door of a front-loading washer is the part that stays wet. Water, lint and detergent sit in the fold at the bottom of it after every wash, and that is where the black speckling, the grey slime and the smell that survives three hot washes all come from. It is also where socks, coins, hair grips and the occasional piece of broken glass end up. The job is ten minutes with a cloth, and nothing about it is difficult.
The difficult part is chemical, and it is the reason this page exists. Whirlpool tells you to wipe the seal with a dilute chlorine bleach solution. LG tells you to use oxygen bleach at roughly a fiftieth of that strength. Bosch tells you not to put chlorine near the seal at all because it degrades the rubber. GE offers bleach or vinegar and adds a rinse the other two do not. This page prints all four positions with their sources and refuses to pick one for you, because the right answer is written in the manual for your machine and nowhere else.
| Item | Note |
|---|---|
| Rubber gloves | The CDC tells you to wear gloves when you use bleach. |
| Eye protection | A splash of bleach can injure an eye. |
| Soft cloths | Use one cloth for the cleaner and one cloth to dry the seal. |
| Flashlight optional | The fold below the seal is a dark space. |
| Soft brush optional | Use a soft brush only. A hard brush can cut the rubber. |
| The cleaner your manufacturer names material | Read the documentation for your model. The manufacturers do not agree. |
| Warm water material | GE Appliances tells you to remove the cleaner with warm water. |
Estimated 3 min
DISCONNECT THE WASHING MACHINE FROM THE ELECTRICAL SUPPLY BEFORE YOU CLEAN THE DOOR SEAL.
Contact with the supply can give you an electric shock.
WEAR RUBBER GLOVES AND EYE PROTECTION BEFORE YOU USE A CLEANER.
Bleach on your skin or in your eyes can injure you.
OPEN A WINDOW BEFORE YOU USE A CLEANER IN THE ROOM.
The fumes from a cleaner can injure your lungs.
Estimated 5 min to 8 min
LOOK INTO THE FOLD OF THE SEAL BEFORE YOU PUT YOUR HAND INTO IT.
Pins, broken glass and metal parts collect there. These objects can cut your hand.
Estimated 6 min to 10 min
No tier-1 source was found for this value. Take it from the documentation supplied with your equipment.
No tier-1 source was found for this value. Take it from the documentation supplied with your equipment.
READ THE DOCUMENTATION FOR YOUR MODEL BEFORE YOU PUT A CHEMICAL ON THE SEAL.
Bosch says that a cleaner with chlorine in it can cause damage to the rubber seal. Whirlpool gives a dilute solution of chlorine bleach for the same part.
USE ONE CLEANER ONLY.
The CDC says that you must never mix bleach with a different cleaner. A mixture of bleach and a different cleaner can make a toxic gas.
Estimated 15 min to 18 min
DO NOT USE A HARD BRUSH OR AN ABRASIVE CLEANER ON THE SEAL.
Bosch says that an abrasive cleaner can cause damage to the rubber.
Estimated 4 min
Estimated 2 min
This page uses one term for each item and holds it throughout, as ASD-STE100 requires. Equipment sellers and other guides use the names below for the same parts.
Stop if the door seal has a tear, a hole or a cut. A seal with a tear lets water onto the floor. This procedure does not repair it. Speak to an appliance technician about a new seal.
Stop if the metal ring that holds the seal is out of its position. Do not pull the seal off the machine. The ring is under tension. The seal must be in one exact position on the machine.
Stop if the smell stays after two cleans and one hot program. The cause is then in the drum, the pump or the outlet hose. This procedure does not reach any of them.
It depends entirely on who made your machine, and that is not a dodge. Whirlpool publishes a dilute chlorine bleach recipe for exactly this part: 3/4 cup in a gallon of warm water, left on for five minutes. Bosch publishes the opposite instruction for its own machines and says cleaners containing chlorine may degrade the rubber seal over time. LG sends you to oxygen bleach instead, at roughly a fiftieth of Whirlpool's strength. GE allows diluted bleach but tells you to rinse it off with warm water afterwards. Look up your own model before you reach for the bottle.
Because the smell is usually not in the drum. It is in the fold underneath the door seal, which holds a film of water, lint and detergent residue after every cycle and never gets hot enough or long enough to sterilise itself. A hot wash rinses the drum and leaves the fold untouched. Lift the edge of the seal and look: if it is grey, slimy or speckled black, you have found it.
Mould and mildew growing on the film of detergent, fabric softener and body soil that collects in the wet fold. LG's own guidance is blunt about the cause: if you keep the door shut, the moisture cannot dry and mould forms inside the gasket. Heavy black staining that has been there for months often does not fully come out even after a correct clean, because the pigment has penetrated the rubber. The seal is still sound; it just looks bad.
LG is the only one of the four sources on this page that names an interval: at least once a month. Whirlpool and GE describe the job without giving a frequency, and Bosch treats it as ongoing care rather than a scheduled task. Monthly is a reasonable working answer, but check your own manual, and do it immediately if you can see staining or smell anything.
GE names diluted vinegar as one of three acceptable options for its gaskets. Bosch does not mention vinegar, but does warn that citric acid degrades the machine's rubber parts, which is a different acid and not the same claim — do not read it as permission or as prohibition. The one rule that applies to every machine comes from the CDC rather than a manufacturer: never mix bleach with any other cleaner. Vinegar and bleach together give off chlorine gas. Pick one product and rinse thoroughly before you go anywhere near a second.
Yes, and it is the single change that keeps the seal clean. Leaving the door and the detergent drawer open lets the drum and the fold dry out between washes, which removes the standing moisture mould needs. LG says so directly. The only reason to close it is a household with small children or pets who might climb in, and in that case dry the seal by hand after each wash instead.
Every specification on this page is traced to one of these sources. Tier 1 is a manufacturer document, a published standard, or a government safety authority. See Standards for the full tiering rule.
Current version 1 · updated 2026-07-29 · next review due 2027-07-29
Corrections to this page are listed in the public corrections log. Reports that are credible and not yet verified are listed in the public errata register, and an open one renders above the step it concerns.
Found an error? A correction with a manufacturer source is applied and logged publicly. You can also write to corrections@fixchecklist.com.
Every step above carries its own report control, which tags the report with that step so a correction reaches the right place. For anything about the procedure as a whole — the order of the sections, a step that is missing, something that did not match your equipment — use this: report something about this whole procedure.