I was out on a service call for a washer the other day and noticed that the fill hoses were in pretty bad condition. I pointed this out to the customer and recommended that she install steel braided fill hoses with stainless steel fittings to avoid these problems in the future.

When I removed the rubber fill hoses with the badly deteriorated fittings, at least a quarter of the cheap brass fitting on the washer fill hose had rust-welded onto the water valve, shown here: (click the picture for a larger view)

Admittedly, this is an extreme case, but here’s the kicker: your washer hoses can be in much better condition than the hose shown above and they can still burst! How ’bout we avoid this unhappy event by installing steel braided fill hoses?

Want more pearls of wisdom on preventing washer floods? Ok, read this.