Fucking magnets! How do they work?

[reddragdiva]

So our washing machine (Hotpoint: The Finest Of British Attention To The Wrong Detail) just let out a couple of really loud electrical BANG noises and stopped working, blowing both its own plug fuse and the extension cord's plug fuse (both 13 amps — it's always fun when a mains-powered electric motor shits itself). So I go pottering around the Comet website to ascertain the lay of the land. And what do I see? They offer this piece of physics-defying woo with every machine. In fact, they preselect it on all order forms.

So, I'm faced with a difficult shopping choice: Advertising Standards Authority, Office of Fair Trading or both? And have any before me in the UK taken Fucking Magnet Miracles to said bodies that you know of?

(Please forward this question to UK sceptics of your acquaintance. More complaints are probably better too.)

Oh yeah, and we have to buy a new washing machine. Washer-dryer combo is dictated by space, sadly. Nothing from the Hotpoint Group will be considered, and I'm unlikely to buy the actual device from Comet barring a price miracle, but any recommendations other than that? Presently it's looking like at least £400 for something that isn't shit.

Update: Holy crap: magnetic descaling does not defy physics. Gosh. (Just engineering.)

Comments

[urocyon]

Agreed on the pseudoscience. And this is an automatically selected "feature"? *facepalm*

We had one washing machine pump conk out after about a year, presumably from limescale buildup. (Suspect it got wedged with a dislodged chunk.) I was running an empty 90° cycle with vinegar or citric acid periodically, but apparently not often enough. So now I'm verging on paranoid with the new machine, and making sure to do that weekly.

I grew up on limestone karst, and am still amazed at the liquid chalk coming out of the tap here.

Good luck finding a new machine! Excellent point from hairyears, about the filter trap. Expecially given the scary chunks of dislodged limescale I was pulling out of there before (not to mention mats of cat hair). Neither the quickly-dying machine nor the one we've got now has a user-cleanable filter, and I'm just waiting for unfortunate things to happen with that. Another useful thing? A user-accessible and -cleanable pump impeller. Can't help on which models might have both, unfortunately.