Connecting a Washing Machine to a Kitchen Sink

Step 3: Connection to the washing machine

The supply hose needs to be connected to the cold hose connection. You are going to be controlling water temperature with the faucet controls (hot/cold/warm). Since the rinse cycle is usually cold, you need to hook up to this side to make it work.

Note the hose cap on the unused hot side. This is actually important. The solenoid valves have enough slop in them that there is some leakage out of this connection, even when you're just running the machine on cold. Yeah, I found this out the hard way.

Comments

[obfuscode]

Plastic soda bottle caps work perfectly - when we moved we had to cap the hose connections and didn't have special caps - the soda bottle caps fit and screwed on tight without leaking - your mileage may vary but give it a shot before buying special ones.

[opir]

any chance you can tell me the hose size and hose mender sizes? this little project might be saving me 1300$ of plumbing work :) great idea

[Bats22]

I'm going from memory here, so I wouldn't trust what I have to say. I think I used 5/8" ID hose, but I'm not positive. What I actually did was find whatever size hose fittings I could get at Home Depot, and got the tube that matched the "barb" size on those hose fittings. I think you'd be best served by just wandering up and down the aisles, looking the fittings, and figuring out which hose connection is the right one.

[Suppafly]

Some washers will use electricity to heat up the water if you don't supply a hot water feed and then choose the hot setting on the washer. I usually wash everything cold/cold anyway but if want hot that might be an option.