My washing machine has gone wonky (should I blame this on Sherry too?).

If I have had the taps turned off for a while (more than an hour), turn the
machine on, and then turn the taps on, the water goes into the machine at
the normal rate for the wash cycle. The washing machien cuts off the water,
and then when it gets to the rinse cycle, turns it on again. Then it make s
afunny hissing sound and only a tiny amount of water goes through, which
means it takes over an hour for the machine to fill up, if it doesn't stop
of its own accod and thell me there is an error.

The exact same thing happens if the taps have not been off for more than an
hour and I try to start the machine up or if I turn the taps on before the
machine. I just get this hissing sound, and sod all water flows in.

Beween a few minutes and one hour of the taps being off, if I turn the water
on *very* slowly, I can increase the pressure of the water so that the
machine fills up normally. But often I get to a certain point the tube
'bounces', the hissing starts, and the flow dramatically decreases. Its all
related to the time the tap has been turned off, its been turne doff for
nearly an hour, I jsut have to turn it on just a bit slower than usual I'm
right. If its playing up, I"ve got to turn the tap on almost infinitely
slowly (and I just dn't have the skill to do that).

The inlet clearly isn't blocked, as the water sometimes goes through it at
the right rate. I've changed the hose, changed the connections and fiddled
with the washers & plumbers tape, and nothing helps. It doens't leak. It
doens't do it with the hot water inlet (even if its cold water going into
it). I'm guessing that it may well have something to do with the difference
between laminar and turbulent flow - or, in layman's terms, its a partial
air block.

Does anyon ehave any idea on how to resolve the problem? Is driving me nuts
(It can take up to 4 hours to get a load done) and I'm sick of standing on
cold tiles fiddling with the tap (and swearing alot). Somedays I"ve even
been known to fill up the blasted thing with a bucket. Its *just* out of
warranty, and has backflow protection (whatever that is). Because its not
*always* faulty, it doesn't sound like a fault with the machine, and I'm
loathe to call out a service guy who will say that there's nothing wrong
with it.

Any idea on how to unlock an air lock?

Yowie