Patent ID: 8511116

Claim:
A washing/drying machine comprising: a washing tub; a water circulation passage disposed outside the washing tub and having opposite ends connected to the washing tub; a circulation pump provided in the water circulation passage for pumping water out of the washing tub through one of the opposite ends of the water circulation passage and feeding the pumped water back into the washing tub through the other end of the water circulation passage; a filter provided upstream of the pump with respect a water flow direction in the water circulation passage for filtering the pumped water to trap dust; a cleaning air generator which generates cleaning air; a gas-liquid mixer provided downstream of the pump with respect to the water flow direction in the water circulation passage for mixing the cleaning air generated by the cleaning air generator with water flowing through the water circulation passage; a drying air duct disposed outside the washing tub and having opposite ends connected to the washing tub for use in a drying process; air blowing/heating means provided in the drying air duct for sucking air out of the washing tub through one of the opposite ends of the drying air duct, heating the sucked air and feeding the heated air back into the washing tub through the other end of the drying air duct in the drying process; a duct water supply passage branched from an outlet port of the filter for supplying the filtered water to a predetermined position in the drying air duct; and a drying pump provided in the duct water supply passage for feeding the water filtered by the filter into the drying air duct to cause the filtered water to fall within the drying air duct, wherein the filter includes a case, and a filtering member removably accommodated in the case, wherein the case has an inlet port through which the water flowing out of the washing tub is caused to flow into the case, an outlet port through which the filtered water is caused to flow out of the case as recycling water, and a drain port through which the water in the case is drained outside the machine, wherein the filtering member has a recycling water filtering wall portion formed with smaller filtering holes and a drain water filtering wall portion formed with larger filtering holes, wherein a part of the water flowing into the case through the inlet port flows through the recycling water filtering wall portion and flows out of the case through the outlet port, wherein the filtering member includes a rib projecting outward from a periphery of the recycling water filtering wall portion to space the filtering member from an interior wall of the case by a predetermined distance which is greater than zero and not greater than the maximum diameter of the smaller filtering holes.