Washing Machine Filling or Draining When It Should Not (Delhi, 2026)

Free checks that tell you which fault you have

Start with the tap test. It separates an inlet fault from a drain fault in one step, costs nothing, and saves a wasted call-out.

• 1. Empty the drum, then close the inlet tap and leave the machine off overnight. If the drum is dry in the morning, the machine is fine and the inlet valve was letting water past. If water still appears with the tap closed, the water is coming back up the drain hose, not in through the inlet.
• 2. Look at how high the drain hose goes and how far it goes into the standpipe. The hose must rise to the height in your manual — commonly somewhere around 60 to 100 cm off the floor — and the end must sit just inside the standpipe, not pushed deep down it. This one detail causes most siphoning.
• 3. Open the drain-filter flap at the bottom front and clean the filter. If the drum is holding water, this is the commonest cause and it is free. Machine off at the socket, towel and tray down, use the small drain hose beside the filter to empty in stages.
• 4. Listen at the back while the machine is off with the tap open. A faint hiss or trickle from the inlet valve area means water is getting past it.
• 5. Check whether the machine is level and not rocking. A machine sitting crooked can change how the drain hose lies and start a siphon that was never there before.

Why is my washing machine filling up with water when off?

If water collects in the drum with the machine switched off or not in use, and it stops when you close the inlet tap, the inlet valve is not closing fully. The inlet valve is an electrically operated valve at the back of the machine. It is meant to be shut whenever it is not being told to open. When it does not shut, mains pressure pushes water past it and into the drum, slowly, all day.

• What it looks like. Water in the drum in the morning that was not there at night. Sometimes a faint continuous trickle sound from the back of the machine. Sometimes the machine appears to start a cycle already part-full.
• Why it happens here. Grit, scale and silt. Delhi water is hard, and tanker and borewell supply often carries fine sediment. A particle lodged on the valve seat holds it a fraction open, and hard-water scale on the diaphragm stops it seating properly. This is one of the most common appliance faults in NCR for exactly that reason.
• How to confirm it. The tap test above. Tap closed and drum stays dry means the valve. Nothing else confirms it as cleanly.
• Is it DIY? Cleaning the inlet filter gauze is: close the tap, unscrew the hose at the machine end, and you will find a small mesh screen in the inlet port. Rinse the grit out of it and refit. That is worth doing anyway because a clogged screen also causes slow filling. Replacing the valve itself is a technician’s job — it is a mains-powered part behind the back panel.
• Until it is fixed: close the inlet tap after every wash. That single habit removes the flood risk completely while you arrange a repair.

If you are also seeing water on the floor rather than in the drum, read why a washing machine leaks water instead — a weeping inlet coupling and a failing inlet valve sit inches apart and get confused constantly.

Why is my washing machine draining while filling, or continuously draining water?

A machine that empties itself while it is filling is almost always siphoning, and siphoning is a plumbing mistake, not a broken machine. If the end of the drain hose sits below the water level in the drum — typically because it has been pushed too far down the standpipe or dropped into a floor drain — the water flows out under gravity as fast as the machine puts it in.

• What it looks like. The machine fills and fills and never seems to reach temperature or start washing. Clothes come out barely wet or barely cleaned. You may hear water running away constantly. Some machines eventually throw a fill-time error because the level never rises.
• How to confirm it. Pull the drain hose end up out of the standpipe, hook it over the top of a bucket at the correct height, and run a fill. If the drum now fills and holds, it was siphoning.
• The fix, and it is free. Raise the hose so it rises to the height your manual specifies before it drops to the drain, and push the end only a short way into the standpipe — enough not to jump out, not enough to reach standing water. Never seal the hose into the standpipe airtight; the gap is what breaks the siphon. Many machines come with a plastic hook or clip to hold the hose at the right height. Use it.
• The other version: a partial siphon. If the hose is only slightly too low, the machine loses some water on every fill and keeps topping up. That reads as “keeps filling with water” even though the fault is at the drain end.
• If the standpipe or floor drain is blocked, water can also back up and sit in the hose, which produces the same confusion. See blocked drains in Delhi if water rises out of the standpipe when the machine empties.

This is worth getting right because it is entirely free to fix and is routinely misdiagnosed as a faulty pump or a faulty control board.

Holding water in the drum, or the drum is full and it keeps filling

These two look alike and are opposite ends of the machine.

If the drum holds water and the cycle stops, it is a drain fault. The order is always the same: the drain-pump filter first, then the drain hose for kinks and internal sludge, then the drain point itself, and only then the pump. The filter is free to clean and is the commonest cause by a wide margin — our washing machine not draining guide walks through the filter clean step by step. If the machine also refuses to spin because the water is sitting there, the not-spinning guide is the companion page.

If the machine keeps filling and will not stop, it is a level-sensing fault. Every machine measures how full the drum is with a pressure switch or water-level sensor connected to the tub by a thin air tube. Air trapped in that tube is pushed up as the water rises, and the switch reads the pressure. When the reading is wrong, the machine has no idea how full it is.

• Blocked or kinked pressure tube. Detergent sludge and hard-water scale collect in the little tube, so the pressure never reaches the trigger point and the machine keeps calling for water. Very common in NCR.
• A failed pressure switch. The machine may overfill, underfill, refuse to heat, or stop with an error. Some machines also refuse to spin because they believe there is still water in the drum.
• Symptoms that point here rather than at the inlet valve. It only happens during a cycle, not with the machine off; the water level is clearly wrong for the programme; and closing the tap between washes makes no difference.
• Is it DIY? No. The pressure switch is a mains-powered component behind the control panel and the diagnosis needs the machine opened. Call a professional.
• Foam confuses it too. Too much detergent creates foam that presses on the sensor and makes the machine misjudge the level. Before assuming a part has failed, run one wash with half the detergent and see if the behaviour changes. That is free.

The Delhi supply problem, and when to call someone

Delhi NCR adds two things that change how all of the above behaves, and they are worth knowing before you pay anyone to look at the machine.

• Supply that runs only a few hours a day. If the mains are on for a short window, a machine with a slightly leaky inlet valve will only fill itself during that window — so the fault looks intermittent and random when it is not. It also means a wash started outside the supply window can stall part-filled and throw a fill-time error, which is not a machine fault at all.
• Low pressure, especially on an upper floor or off an overhead tank. Many machines expect a minimum inlet pressure. Below it, filling takes far longer than the machine allows, and it stops with an error. If the machine fills fine when the tank is full and badly when it is low, the machine is not the problem. Running the wash when supply is good, or checking the inlet filter gauze for silt, usually settles it.
• Sediment from tanker and borewell water. Grit is what holds inlet valves open and clogs inlet screens. If your building is on a borewell or takes tanker deliveries, expect to clean that inlet gauze more often. Our hard water tips for Delhi homes cover what scale does to appliances generally.
• Never leave the inlet tap open when you are away. With intermittent supply, pressure returns suddenly and hard, and that surge is exactly when a tired hose or valve gives up.

Call a professional when: water still enters the drum with the tap closed and the drain hose correctly positioned; the machine overfills or underfills during a cycle; it stops with a fill or level error after you have checked supply, pressure and the inlet gauze; or you suspect the pressure switch. Tell them:

• Brand, model number and age — sticker inside the door frame or on the back panel.
• Whether water appears with the machine off and the tap open, and whether closing the tap stops it. This single answer usually decides the part.
• Any error code on the display, exactly as shown — our page on beeping and error codes explains where to find it.
• Whether your supply is DJB mains, borewell or tanker, and roughly what hours it runs.
• What you have already cleaned — drain filter, inlet gauze, drain hose height.

Ask for labour and the part as two separate figures before work starts. If the machine is old enough that you are weighing a repair against replacing it, our washing machine repair cost guide for Delhi NCR sets out how to think about it.