Miele [F10] fault codewhat it means and how to fix it

F10 is Miele’s water inlet code, given as the water inlet being blocked or restricted, and it is one of the fifteen or so of their fifty-one codes where they publish a genuine owner remedy rather than telling you to book an engineer.

Their stated causes are the stopcock not being open, which they answer by telling you to terminate the programme, open the stopcock, reselect the programme and restart; the inlet filter being soiled, which they answer with a step-by-step clean; a kinked inlet hose, with the same warning they attach to the drain hose about the plastic weakening where it was kinked; and low water pressure, for which they publish a figure: with the stopcock fully open, at least five litres should flow from it in fifteen seconds, and if it does not, that is a plumber’s job rather than Miele’s. The operating instructions list the same four. The inlet filter is the one worth knowing about because it is invisible until you go looking: a small plastic filter sits inside the hose connector at the tap end behind the rubber seal, and it silts up gradually, so the machine takes longer and longer to fill until one day it gives up.

Note that Miele have a separate code, F15, for the same failure on the hot water side of a hot-fill machine. If your machine is plumbed to both supplies, which of the two codes you get tells you which tap to look at, and that is a genuinely useful distinction most manufacturers do not draw.

1. 1

   Check the stopcock is fully open. If you want to test the pressure the way Miele describe, run the stopcock fully open into a container: at least five litres should come out in fifteen seconds.

2. 2

   Terminate the programme rather than leaving it waiting. Miele’s own sequence is to end it, open the stopcock, reselect the programme and restart.

3. 3

   To clean the inlet filter, follow Miele’s sequence: turn the stopcock off, unscrew the inlet hose from the stopcock, take the rubber seal out of the recess, then hold the free end of the hose upside down so the plastic filter drops out. Clean it, put it back — Miele stress it must go back — and reassemble in reverse order.

   There is water held in the hose. Have a towel underneath before you undo it.
4. 4

   Check the whole hose run for kinks and loops, and that the machine is not standing on it. Miele add that a hose which has been kinked may weaken and tear at that point afterwards, and a damaged inlet hose must be replaced.

5. 5

   Turn the stopcock on and check the connection is watertight; Miele’s last line is that if water drips, tighten the connection. Then push the machine back.