Occasionally when your Midea washer dryer finishes a load of laundry, the door won’t unlock. It seems like washing cycle has completed, but the door doesn’t open. The buttons don’t seem to be working on electronic control panel and you’d rather not wait for service tech to come out.
Fortunately there’s a way to manually force the door open. There’s no need to pay someone to fix it. Anyone can do it in just a few minutes, though you will need tool to get a good grip.
Locating the Emergency Release
First thing is to check the top of the unit where control panel is located. In most cases there will be no switches or emergency buttons up here. If you see a dial with different cycle listed, like Quick 15 or Cotton, that is not the button to use for unlocking.
Look further down on front of washer. For design and safety reasons most washers has their maintenance ports towards the very bottom of the washer. A drain filter cover are located at the very front bottom corner. It’s a little square flap that kind of blends with casing so it’s easy to overlook.
To gain access to it you simply open the cover. Normally this would lead you to the back where you’d either empty water out or clean your pump, however the mechanical release sits in there too. It’s a tight dark place so just take a close look around to get a glimpse inside.
There’s also this thing inside the opening, a door release strap. It’s a basic piece of plastic that’s there in case you want to manually operate the door. It’s tucked in with all of other filter pieces.
It isn’t easy to notice, so you have to pay close attention to area. And due to tight quarters, your fingers may not offer sufficient leverage to pull it. A tool is necessary to firmly grab onto mechanism.
A flathead screwdriver or pair of pliers will work here. Use the tool to get under release strap and engage it. What you want to do is either lift or pull that mechanism down. That will directly trigger latch in the door frame.
Be carefull with where you place your tool so that you don’t scratch inner surfaces. Once you’ve got a good hold, apply even pressure downward.
When you do this, there’s a little bit of a click as the strap moves. That’s your sign it worked. Next, simply pull mechanism and electronic lock disengages immediately.
Because it is on momentum, the door just pops open on its own, requiring nothing more than you. There is no need for electronics at all. It works even in a power outage, which is a major benefit to this system. It is a simple mechanical solution that solves the problem quick.
When the door pops open, your clothes are ready to go
The washer is quiet until you start a load. When something goes wrong with board or there’s an outage, it was nice knowing exactly where the emergency pull cord was. Saves having to wait on a service call or customer support; you can handle this yourself.
And if you ever get in trouble, just look down at that bottom corner and you’re set.
This feature is standard on many Midea models:
It’s hidden on purpose so kids don’t mess with it, but it’s there for us adults who know what we’re looking for. Make sure to remember where your filter cover is located.
There’s nothing to take apart; just unclip the strap and it opens up in under 2 minutes. Once opened, mechanism keeps it in place by staying locked open until next cycle resets it. So now I can put stuff in and out as needed without having to hold it down while I do something else.
