Here's How You Should Load A Top-Loading Washing Machine

These common mistakes may be affecting your clothes and machine.

Rabekah Henderson has been writing about all things homes, housing, and design since 2019. Her work has been featured in Real Simple, The Spruce, Dwell, USA Today, and Apartment Therapy.

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Struggling with your top-loading washer? You could be loading it incorrectly. "Overfilling a top-load washer can result in very poor washing," says Matthew Morrison, an appliance expert at Just Answer.

Underfilling or incorrectly placing clothing in the drum is another top-loading laundry mistake. Your laundry deserves better. Here's everything you should know about how to load a top-loading washing machine.

Correctly loading your top-loading washing machine gets your clothes cleaner and helps your machine last longer. That's because a poorly loaded washer can become unbalanced or too full, damaging the washer drum over time and unevenly washing clothes.

Detergents and other cleaning agents need to be added at the right time (and in the right place) too, in order for them to actually clean your clothes.

Thankfully, incorrectly loading your machine once or twice won't permanently damage it: "It's not likely you will damage the washer, but it could give you an error message such as being out of balance or overloaded," says Morrison.

Most top-load washing machines have a capacity of about 3 to 4 cubic feet and can handle up to 12 pounds of laundry.

To determine load size when selecting a wash cycle, choose "medium" if the drum is half-full. Choose "large" if the drum is three-quarters full.

Laundry should be separated before being added to the washing machine to keep everything in tip-top condition. Here are a few guidelines on how to sort it.

How detergent is added depends on the design of the top-loading washing machine. Some washers include slots or dispensers for the detergent at the top of the machine, so it can be added before or after the clothes go in.

However, some washing machines don't have a detergent dispenser. In washers like this, detergent should be added directly to the drum, before any clothes go in.

Most top-loading washing machines have slots for fabric softener or bleach. These cleaning agents should always go into their designated spots.

To keep your washing machine (and your clothes) in good-as-new condition, don't make these loading mistakes when doing laundry.

Clothes should be put into a top-loading washer before the water goes in. This ensures that detergent is evenly spread across all the laundry in the drum.

While top loaders use more water than front-loading machines, they still clean pretty well with less—rather than more—water.