Kitchen Large Electric Appliances - washing machine painfully slow to fill

Kenmore Elite, about 20yrs old but much of time spent is storage so only used regularly in last decade. The hoses leading to it are tight:wall: I'm scared to apply too much force because the previous owners have some funky plumbing going on with tons of shutoffs for bathroom and utility sink hookups. getting ready for vacation so don't want a burst or huge plumbing bill with which to contend. What can I do when we return to resolve this?

Is this a new problem? Is it only slow on cold? Only on hot? All the time? That may help you eliminate part of what you need to check to find the source of the problem. Unfortunately, the problem solving you need to do will probably require you to disconnect those hoses. If you have good flow and pressure at those valves (once you removed the hose/hoses that are suspect), the problem has to be either the valve in the washer, or more likely in the clogged screen in the hose connection at that valve. If you take the hose off at the washer first, you can visually inspect the screen, and check the pressure. Valves for washers are not usually very expensive or difficult to replace, if that is the culprit.

If the flow was slow out of the faucet, you have problems up the line, and need to do additional sleuthing. Good luck.

Probably the screens that are inside the cold and hot water intake of the fill valve, that the two black rubber hoses hook to are clogged with sediment.

Shut off your valves. Unscrew the two hoses at both the spigots and the washer to see if someone put additional washer/screens at the spigot end. If there are you can just remove them and leave them off if you want, or clean them. Then hook up these hoses back to the spigots again. With the washing machine ends disconected, and if you are in a concrete floor basemsnt and you don't mind the floor getting wet...you can spray the water out of the hose at the screens inside the fill valve, to blast out the sediment. (Or use an air compressor, or perhaps an aerosol can filled with air that is used to clean electronics parts.) Sometimes it also helps to use a little tool like an awl, toothpick, etc., so you can clean out any remaining sediment stuck around the edge of the screen.

Be observant which hose goes where so you don't mix up the cold and hot. If you do get it mixed up, the hot spigot will be on the left and usually they stamp the sheetmetal next to the fill valve with a big C and a big H.

If your hoses are that old you really need to replace them. They always burst at the wrong time.