causes of failure, tips, overview of faults

Once, like any house­hold appli­ance, the dish­wash­er gives a sig­nal of a mal­func­tion: it does not respond to the start but­ton, the water drain is bro­ken, a leak is detect­ed. Do not pan­ic and rush to call spe­cial­ists. In many cas­es, you can repair the dish­wash­er at home your­self. Below we will talk in detail about the most com­mon mal­func­tions of a home dish­wash­er, and tell you the most reli­able ways to repair these break­downs with your own hands.

Possible dishwasher failure factors

When the dish­wash­er has been oper­at­ing for more than five years, and the war­ran­ty peri­od has long expired, any worn part can cause a break­down of the equip­ment. But what to do when the equip­ment was acquired rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly? If the pur­chase of a house­hold dish­wash­er is still fresh, the mal­func­tion fac­tors may be as fol­lows:

1. The equip­ment was assem­bled poor­ly or the con­di­tion of some parts was already faulty. Often this hap­pens with cheap Chi­nese man­u­fac­tur­ers with a lit­tle-known rep­u­ta­tion.
2. On the dish­es that are loaded inside the machine, there is a lot of uncleaned food. This results in clogged fil­ters. If the dish­es are heav­i­ly soiled, the machine often can­not cope, which neces­si­tates addi­tion­al rins­ing of the dish­es with your own hands.
3. The sock­et for the pow­er sup­ply of the machine does not work. Quite a com­mon cause of fail­ure.
4. Often the repair of dish­wash­ers is caused by ini­tial­ly incor­rect con­nec­tion of water com­mu­ni­ca­tions: the drain hose has an unac­cept­able length or the cold water hose was not secure­ly fas­tened.
5. An unre­li­able dish­wash­ing deter­gent is used. As a result, the dish­es are poor­ly washed from grease or remain dirty at all.
6. If the appli­ance does not turn on, the door may not have closed tight­ly. The machine starts only when the door is tight­ly closed until a char­ac­ter­is­tic click. When the door does not close tight­ly even when the latch is actu­at­ed, such mal­func­tions are attrib­ut­able to the man­u­fac­tur­ers of this type of kitchen appli­ances.
7. Dish­wash­er mal­func­tion is caused by improp­er load­ing of dish­es. In this case, the qual­i­ty of wash­ing cut­lery in the upper sec­tion and pots on the low­er shelf will dete­ri­o­rate sig­nif­i­cant­ly. The rules for the oper­a­tion of equip­ment pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions for the com­pe­tent load­ing of dish­es and cut­lery: the upper sec­tion is filled main­ly with cups and plates, the low­er sec­tion with pots. It should be clar­i­fied that cups and glass­es should be placed upside down.

When these fac­tors do not under­lie the mal­func­tion of the machine, it is most like­ly that the rea­son lies in the break­down of spe­cif­ic parts.

Dishwasher not washing dishes well

There is a pos­si­bil­i­ty of the fol­low­ing prob­lem: the machine is set in the desired mode of oper­a­tion, each indi­ca­tor is work­ing prop­er­ly, the sound of water move­ment is heard, the heat­ing process is not run­ning, but the dish­es are not being washed. There are sev­er­al rea­sons why the dish­wash­er does not wash dish­es well.

First­ly, the fil­ter locat­ed at the very bot­tom of the wash­ing com­part­ment is often clogged. In such a sit­u­a­tion, repair­ing dish­wash­ers on your own will only con­sist in remov­ing the fil­ter and clean­ing it.

Sec­ond­ly, noz­zle clog­ging occurs no less often. The con­se­quence of this will be a weak spray of hot water or none at all. Such break­downs adverse­ly affect the water sup­ply pres­sure inside the cham­ber. There­fore, the dish­es will not wash well. In such sit­u­a­tions, an ordi­nary tooth­pick saves, which cleans the noz­zle holes. Also, the “shoul­der” of the noz­zle itself may not rotate. In this case, you should pay atten­tion to the cir­cu­lat­ing pump. Its break­down is also not uncom­mon.

Third­ly, as already men­tioned, the cir­cu­lat­ing pump breaks down. Through it, water enters the noz­zles. In this case, the repair of dish­wash­ers on their own is some­what com­pli­cat­ed due to the sever­i­ty of the break­down. To set up the equip­ment, a com­plete replace­ment of the defec­tive part will be required. To repair the dish­wash­er with your own hands, you need to open access to the pump locat­ed at the bot­tom of the cham­ber, dis­con­nect all avail­able com­mu­ni­ca­tions and fas­ten­ers from it. Then install the cor­rect part.

How to under­stand that the rea­son for the fail­ure of equip­ment is in the pump? When the water is filled and the machine is qui­et, it is like­ly that the pump is faulty.

Water overflow

Such a break­down is caused by a mal­func­tion of the water lev­el sen­sor (pres­sure switch). It is locat­ed at the bot­tom of the machine. You will need to turn the dish­wash­er around to get to the water lev­el sen­sor. After that, you can eas­i­ly replace it with a work­ing pres­sure switch. You should also be care­ful if the ele­ment is in the on mode and water enters the cham­ber freely, the sole­noid valve is bro­ken. It is he who should stop the flow of water if nec­es­sary. Replac­ing the sole­noid valve with your own hands is not dif­fi­cult.

Water heating problems

When the dish­wash­er breaks down and does not heat or over­heat the water, it is rec­om­mend­ed to pay atten­tion to this. In case of over­heat­ing, the break­down lies in the tem­per­a­ture sen­sor, which is why the water over­heats. As a result, there is an excess of steam and the dish­wash­er stops.

If the water does not heat up and remains cold or bare­ly warm, there are sev­er­al fac­tors that can cause this phe­nom­e­non:

• the tem­per­a­ture sen­sor is faulty;
• low water pres­sure at noz­zles or pump;
• mal­func­tion of the heat­ing ele­ment (you should make sure that it is work­ing with a mul­ti­me­ter).

Dishwasher repair: drain not working

When the dish­wash­er is work­ing prop­er­ly in every­thing, but the waste water does not drain well or even accu­mu­lates inside the wash­ing com­part­ment, the mal­func­tion may be hid­ing in the drain com­mu­ni­ca­tion pump and there­fore there is no drain.

To fix this prob­lem with your own hands, you should con­duct a detailed inspec­tion of the pump for clog­ging and wind­ing resis­tance. Stag­na­tion of water in the machine can hap­pen pre­cise­ly because of the clog­ging of the pump. When it turns out that there is no debris in the pump, it is nec­es­sary to inspect all drain com­mu­ni­ca­tions, includ­ing the siphon. Most like­ly, the drain chan­nel could be clogged. In this case, you should sim­ply remove all block­ing ele­ments.

Some­times the dish­wash­er will not drain because the posi­tion of the drain hose is too high in rela­tion to the lev­el of the machine. After turn­ing off the pump, part of the used water flows back into the wash­ing com­part­ment of the machine.

Voltage is being applied to the body

When the dish­wash­er turns on and an elec­tric cur­rent pass­es to the body of the appli­ance, it is most like­ly that the cause of the break­down lies in a mal­func­tion of the heat­ing ele­ment. You can fix such a mal­func­tion with your own hands if you care­ful­ly exam­ine the heat­ing ele­ment for sur­face dam­age. If any are found, the heat­ing device should sim­ply be replaced with a new one.

Such break­downs are most often caused by too hard prop­er­ties of water. In addi­tion, the heat­ing ele­ment often breaks down when the start­ing relay does not turn on well.

Dishwasher not picking up detergent

A fre­quent defect in the oper­a­tion of such equip­ment is a poor intake of deter­gents, liq­uid or in the form of a tablet. This can also be caused by low water pres­sure or a mal­func­tion­ing noz­zle, which leads to poor water ingress into the dis­penser. In addi­tion, the mechan­i­cal valve that con­trols the wash­ing out of deter­gents often breaks down. Due to the poor qual­i­ty of the valve that allows water to pass through, the prod­uct often remains closed to water. Con­se­quent­ly, the qual­i­ty of wash­ing dish­es is reduced.

No power

When there is no indi­ca­tor light or the dish­wash­er does not turn on when the but­ton is pressed, sev­er­al break­down options should be checked:

• sock­et fail­ure;
• the door did not close com­plete­ly, the auto­mat­ic door lock does not work;
• the net­work but­ton works;
• net­work fil­ter fail­ure.

In each of the pro­posed options, using a mul­ti­me­ter, it is nec­es­sary to check the entire elec­tri­cal cir­cuit for defects. Exclud­ing ser­vice­able ele­ments, a non-work­ing part is detect­ed.

Uncharacteristic sounds of work

The pres­ence of extra­ne­ous noise may indi­cate a dam­aged motor or pump bear­ing. Bear­ing fail­ure is caused by mois­ture pen­e­trat­ing into it through worn seals. As a result of such vio­la­tions, an unnat­ur­al sound for a dish­wash­er occurs. To fix such a defect with your own hands, you will need to replace both the bear­ing itself and the dam­aged oil seal. Oth­er­wise, such a break­down will hap­pen again soon.

Dishwasher dryer not working

For many mod­ern mod­els of dish­wash­ers, the func­tion of dry­ing clean dish­es is inher­ent. This process is car­ried out by a blow­er installed in the wash­ing cham­ber. When the machine works prop­er­ly, but does not dry the washed dish­es, the fan is prob­a­bly faulty. To fix such a break­down with your own hands, you should care­ful­ly exam­ine the sup­ply wires and the wind­ing of this part. If nec­es­sary, the fan should be replaced with a new one.

Advice:

See also: do-it-your­self kitchen hood repair

Water leaks to the floor

Anoth­er of the most com­mon dish­wash­er fail­ures is a hous­ing leak. There is a pos­si­bil­i­ty of one or more rea­sons:

1. The seal­ing tape locat­ed around the perime­ter of the door is leaky. Clos­ing den­si­ty is reduced. It is nec­es­sary to replace bad seals or clean them from plaque.
2. The pump seal may also be dam­aged. Then the seal needs to be replaced.
3. Poor qual­i­ty strength­en­ing of drain and water-injec­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tions. There are leaks at the con­nec­tion points.
4. In the side part of all dish­wash­ers there is a stor­age tank for water. In some cas­es, it may leak. In such sit­u­a­tions, it must be replaced, as it can­not be repaired.

To accu­rate­ly locate the leak, the dish­wash­er must be com­plete­ly detached. Then under it you need to lay out blank sheets of paper. At the places of leak­age, drops of water that have fall­en on the paper will be vis­i­ble.