I washed my phone in the washing machine - what to do, how to dry a touchscreen, push-button, smartphone, iPhone so that it works?

There may well be a phone in the pocket of a jacket or trousers that was hastily thrown into the washing machine.

There is no need to panic and immediately take the device to a service center. You can try to dry and restore it yourself.

Read the article about what to do if you washed your phone (touchscreen, smartphone, iPhone) in the washing machine.

First aid rules

As practice shows, some models of smartphones and push-button phones do not lose their functionality after washing. To increase the likelihood of successful recovery, take the following steps:

Turn off the device, remove the SIM card and battery.
Read also: How to fight ticks in the house using chemical and physical-mechanical methods
Remove all parts that can be twisted and wash them under running water to remove any remaining powder.
Treat the inside of the device with alcohol.
It is applied to a gauze swab, which is used to carefully wipe each part. The alcohol evaporates quickly and also neutralizes the invisible soap film that may remain on the device after washing.
To remove visible scale, you can use a toothbrush to remove all corrosion, but you should not rub the microcircuits too vigorously.
Lay out the disassembled phone parts on a dry, flat surface in a room with good ventilation.
To quickly expel water from the device, it is blown with a hairdryer. The air should be cool or slightly warm. The hot flow can cause parts to melt.
Wait a week for all elements to dry completely.
Assemble the device, turn it on, evaluate the result.

The chances of a full recovery are slim, but they still exist. With the right approach, only some parts may need repairs, so it won't cost much.

Do not shake the device or press buttons. After such manipulations, even intact parts may become unusable.

The most important condition for competent first aid for a washed phone is its complete drying. You should not try to turn it on earlier than 5-7 days after the incident .

If you washed your passport, phone or money - what should you do?

The first rule when handling a washing machine is to check the pockets of items before putting them in the drum. But if trouble has already happened, and you washed your money, phone or passport along with your things, you will have to take action. Washing in a washing machine is not always fatal for these things, so we decided in this article to give advice on what to do in a situation where you washed things that should not be washed?

The phone has been machine washed – what should I do?

If you were careless and washed your phone in a washing machine, then there is little chance of saving it. A lot will depend on whether the phone was turned on during washing. If the handset was disconnected, then there is a chance; if it is turned on, then the probability of restoring it after washing tends to zero. Also, a lot will depend on how long the tube was in the water, so if, after starting the wash, you remembered the phone, drained the water and pulled the tube out of the drum, the chances of saving it increase dramatically.

What immediate steps should you take to try to salvage your washed phone?

First you need to turn off the phone (if it was turned on) and remove the battery and SIM card from it.
After this, you need to immediately disassemble the phone as much as possible, remove everything that can be removed and lay out the parts on dry paper napkins.
Soak a piece of bandage in alcohol and wipe all parts (you can pour more alcohol, the water will evaporate faster with it).
We buy a can of Contact 60 spray and carefully treat the wet board on both sides.
We dry wet parts with a hairdryer in a gentle mode, while it is better to keep the device away. Do not allow a jet of hot air to come into direct contact with phone parts.
After the parts are completely dry, you need to treat the board again with Contact 60 spray, then assemble the phone, insert the SIM card and battery.
We wait for a while and then try to turn on the device.

If the device was turned off before placing it in the drum of the washing machine and washing, then after carrying out the above procedures, the chances of salvation are 50/50 , and even then only under the condition that you washed the clothes at a temperature of 40 0C. At a water temperature of 60 0C, guaranteed damage to the liquid crystal touch screen and camera will occur; accordingly, restoring the phone after such “water procedures” will simply be unprofitable. If you washed the device while it was on, then the probability of its “survival” is no more than 3%.

Note! Even if after drying and processing the phone does not turn on, do not rush to despair. Take the phone to a good service center, perhaps specialists can still do something with it.

What to do if your passport is machine washed?

The main thing to do if you have washed your passport is to try to restore it yourself. The sooner you take action, the better it will be. This is how you need to act.

Carefully open your passport. You need to try to stick up the maximum number of pages, if some pages don’t stick out, leave it like that, it’s not enough to tear your passport.
Place a sheet of clean white paper between the peeled-off passport pages and place the document in a warm, dry place away from powerful heat sources such as a radiator or heater.
Let the passport sit with the paper for 40-60 minutes, and then try again to paste the remaining pages - it should work. Change the paper.
Place dry paper between all pages of the passport, and then weigh it down on top with three or four thick books. First, the passport must be placed on a hard, flat surface, for example, on a table top.

After drying, carefully inspect the passport. If all the details (stamps, signatures), as well as the inscriptions are in order and can be read, feel free to continue using the passport. If important elements are damaged, everything must be done to replace the passport.

Important! Based on norm 19.16 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, for damage to a passport due to negligence, a fine from one hundred to three hundred rubles or an administrative warning is imposed on the person.

What actions need to be taken to replace a damaged passport?

First of all, you need to submit an application for loss/damage to your passport to the territorial division of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation at your place of registration. In this case, the passport renewal period will be 10 days. If you have temporary registration, or you are submitting an application not at the place of registration, you will have to wait 2 months for a new passport.
Take a photo and bring 2 photographs to the FMS unit in accordance with the requirements of 35x45.
If you need a passport urgently, and you cannot wait 10 days or 2 months, then you will need to apply for a temporary passport, which requires 2 more of the same photographs.
You need to pay a state fee of 1500 rubles. and submit the receipt to the FMS.
Other documents may also be required, so it is better to take them with you, namely: military ID, children’s birth certificate, marriage registration/divorce certificate, document confirming registration at the place of residence.

After the expiration of the period allotted by law for the preparation of a new passport, specialists from the territorial division of the FMS are obliged to inform you about the readiness of the document and the need to obtain it. When receiving a new passport, be sure to check all information for typos and inaccuracies.

What to do with washed money?

Money is quite resistant to various types of influences, because banknotes are made of special paper and special paint is applied to them, so it is not so easy to damage them, even if you wash them in a machine. If you washed paper money in the washing machine, do the following:

Place a sheet of white blank paper on a flat surface.
Take the wet banknote and straighten it onto the sheet.
Place a second sheet of white paper on top and place a thick book on top.
When the banknote has dried a little, change the sheets of paper to dry ones and iron the banknote through these sheets.

How to dry it so it works?

There are several ways to dry your phone that help quickly and effectively get rid of moisture trapped inside the parts. These include:

Rice. It is poured into any suitable container of sufficient depth and all parts are completely buried in it.
Silica gel. These transparent balls can be found in boxes with new shoes.
It can be purchased separately by ordering online. The cost of a package weighing 0.2 kg is about 170 rubles. You can contact a company that produces plastic windows. They use it as filler for frames.
Cat litter . It acts as a powerful adsorbent, absorbing moisture. The device is also buried in it for a day.

The device must be kept in any of the adsorbents for at least 3 days so that the dry substance fully absorbs moisture. Only after this you can try to turn it on.

Sometimes water stains remain on the smartphone screen . They will be visible when turned on.

To get rid of them, the device needs to be warmed up. It is left in the sun, screen up. This procedure is repeated until the water has completely evaporated.

The second option for getting rid of stains is to warm up the screen from the inside. Download any game onto the device and turn it on for several hours. The battery gets very hot when the application is running, causing the stains to disappear.

Waterproof models of touchscreen smartphones and iPhones

Manufacturers of modern smartphones equip them with additional protection against moisture . However, you should not rely on it being able to withstand machine washing.

Therefore, all iPhone owners should be extremely careful when checking their pockets.

The moisture protection works, but not for too long. In this case, we are talking about clean water, and washing in a machine is aggravated by the effect of detergents on the device. The more aggressive they are, the higher the risk of damaging an expensive device.

In addition to the influence of detergents, the device will spin intensively in the drum of the washing machine, hitting the walls of the centrifuge.

All iPhones, starting with model 7, have received protection from moisture . Information about this is indicated in the characteristics of a particular model and looks like “IP67”, where IP is protection against penetration, 6 – against dust, 7 – against water, but at a depth of up to 1 m. In this case, the phone must be turned off.

After washing, the iPhone, like other phone models, needs to be revived. Its insides can be easily opened by unscrewing 2 bolts located on the bottom edge of the device.

The phone must be disassembled and dried in rice or another absorbent substance. The device should be used no earlier than after 3 days.

It is impossible to guarantee that it will work without interruption. Although the chances of recovery for waterproof iPhones are higher than for models without a similar function.

They took a soaked passport out of the washing machine

Try drying it yourself:

Carefully separate those pages of the document that are easily separated from each other. Do not touch the sticky sheets yet, so as not to tear them;
Place white paper between the separated sheets. Blotters or thick paper towels are the best option;
Place the document with enclosed leaves in a dry place, as far as possible from heating devices;
After an hour, try to separate the stuck pages and replace the pieces of paper with fresh ones;
Place the passport with the sheets inside on a flat surface and weigh it down with heavy books.

After the passport has dried, inspect it carefully. If the details are readable, you can continue to use the document. If important seals or signatures are blurred, the document will have to be changed.

IMPORTANT:

A fine will have to be paid if the document is damaged and cannot be restored.

To replace:

Come to the office of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation. There you will be asked to submit an application for issuance/replacement of a passport. If you visit the branch at your place of registration, you will receive a new document within 10 days. In case of temporary registration or application not at the place of registration, the time for preparing the certificate will be delayed by two months.
Pay the state fee - 1500 rubles. — and bring a document confirming payment to the FMS.
Take two 35x45 mm photographs of the established sample. If you need the ID urgently, take two more photos to issue a temporary document.
Bring your birth certificate, military ID, marriage/divorce certificate, child’s birth certificate, residence registration document (house register).

As soon as the passport is ready, FMS employees will notify you about it. When you receive it in your hands, check whether your personal information is written correctly and whether there are any typos.

Contact a specialist

You need to contact the service center if, after drying, the phone does not turn on or does not work properly. The technician is informed about what happened to the device and what measures were taken to restore it.

Specialists have professional products that can safely and effectively clean oxidized boards.

There is no need to delay contacting the service center. The longer the device is exposed to chemicals, the higher the likelihood of destruction:

connectors,
sensors,
contacts.

If any element is permanently damaged, it must be replaced.
The price depends on the complexity of the work performed. The average cost of repairing a push-button telephone is from 300 to 500 rubles. Smartphones with the Android system can be restored for 1000 – 5000 rubles. The most expensive to repair are iPhones .
Replacing parts with originals can cost 10,000 rubles or more. Chinese screens, microphones or connectors are cheaper, starting from 5,000 rubles. In the workshop, you need to discuss all the issues in advance. Before the specialist begins the repair, he must inform the owner of its cost. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy a new phone than to restore a washed one.

When giving your smartphone for diagnostics, you need to clarify its cost. Many masters provide this service for free, but there are also centers where it can cost from 600 rubles or more.

Helpful information

To avoid causing even more damage to your phone after washing, you need to take into account the following information:

You can’t place your smartphone on the battery;
to speed up the drying process, you can place it nearby, at a distance of 20-30 cm from the heating device - this way hot air currents will not harm it;
All parts should be wiped with a cotton pad with a smooth surface or gauze;
It is not recommended to use cloth - lint remaining on the surface can impair the performance of the device;
the sooner the device is removed from the soapy water, the better;
if the loss was discovered during the washing cycle, you need to press pause and select the “drain without spin” function - the program will be rebuilt, the water will drain and the machine can be opened;
For complete drying, you need to not only completely disassemble the device, but also remove all films, protective glass, and stickers from it;
You only need to wipe your smartphone with a gauze swab;
It is not recommended to use paper napkins, as they can clog connectors and microcircuits.

Experts say that the lower the water temperature during washing, the higher the chances of recovery. If it was 60 degrees or more, then the device will be restored with a 10% probability.

Push-button phones can withstand washing better than their more modern counterparts with touch screens.

You will find maximum useful information about washing clothes and various fabric products here.

What not to do

The first thing you need to figure out is what not to do in such a situation:

Turn on your cell phone immediately after getting wet in soapy water. This may lead to a short circuit and then the device cannot be repaired. Even if the cell phone case is made of waterproof material, the likelihood of liquid getting inside after washing is very high.
Connect a machine-washed smartphone to an electrical outlet for the reason stated above.
Moving, shaking or turning the phone over unnecessarily, pressing buttons or the screen, or blowing air through it. Due to such manipulations, the soap solution can get into areas “unaffected” by the liquid.
You should not speed up the drying process by using hair dryers, hot batteries, etc., as the screen and camera of the phone may be damaged due to instability to too high/low temperatures.