Candy [E7] fault codewhat it means and how to fix it

This code belongs to a system used on a small number of Hoover-badged machines rather than to the F codes on the rest of the range, and it is worth knowing about for two reasons. The first is the fix, which is refreshingly concrete after a table full of instructions to ring somebody: "Filters clogged. Clean the lint filters and the sponge filter." Note the plural and note the second item.

There are two lint filters in the door, one behind the other, and there is a sponge filter that a great many owners have never located, behind the kickplate at the bottom of the machine and behind a front cover with a turning handle, sitting in front of the heat exchanger fins. A sponge filter left uncleaned for a couple of years becomes a solid mat, and it is a common reason for a machine that dries slowly and runs hot. The second reason is how the code reaches you if your machine has no display.

Hoover use every LED flashing together, not one lamp, and the count between five-second pauses is the number: seven flashes, pause, seven flashes means error seven. That distinction matters because a single lamp lit or blinking on a Candy or Hoover dryer is a maintenance prompt rather than a code, and confusing the two sends people looking for faults that are not there.

1. 1

   Open the door and pull the two lint filters up and out one after the other. Open each one and lift the fibre off with your fingertips, a soft brush or a cloth, as Hoover describe, then close them and seat them back in the door.

2. 2

   Now the sponge filter. Pull the top of the kickplate at the bottom of the machine so it unclips and lift it off its lower hinges. Turn the handle on the cover behind it anti-clockwise and pull the front cover out, then gently lift out the sponge filter frame and take the sponge off the frame.

   Hoover warn: "Do not touch the fins behind the sponge filter frame with hands in order to avoid injury." The heat exchanger sits directly behind the sponge and its edges are sharp.
3. 3

   Clear the sponge of dust and fluff — Hoover say a vacuum cleaner is fine — and if you wash any of the filters under water, dry them fully before they go back.

   Fit them dry. Hoover’s own line is "if you clean filters under water, remember to dry them", and a damp filter collects lint far faster.
4. 4

   Vacuum any fibre out of the door filter compartment and the sponge compartment, then refit the sponge on its frame, the frame in its slot, the front cover with its handle turned clockwise to lock, and the kickplate.

5. 5

   Refit both properly and run a short cycle. Hoover’s published remedy stops here, and it works more often than not.

6. 6

   If seven flashes return with both filters clean, follow Hoover’s escalation: turn off and unplug, wait a minute, restart a programme, and if it recurs contact an authorised service centre.