Sometimes appliance repair can be expensive and when they are broken, you really feel like you need it fixed immediately. If your fridge is out its terrible – all that wasted food! If your dishwasher is out, it means a lot of wasted time… and manual washing.Fixing a dishwasher requires care and you should always consult a professional if you are unsure, particularly because dishwasher repair involves two potentially dangerous elements when mixed together: both water and electricity.
There are, however, a few things that you can do yourself which are pretty standard and actually pretty good to do:
- Verify that you are using the right dishwasher soap and that it is NOT, in fact regular dish soap. Regular dish soap, when used in a dish washer, can really foam up, and its worse if you use laundry soap.
- If the dishwasher doesn’t sound like its filling up with water, open the dish washer when its NOT running and check inside for the float. You should be able to identify it as something that looks like an inverted cup in the bottom of the dishwasher. If it’s stuck in the open position or won’t open at all, the dishwasher is being ‘fooled’ to think that its full. Just release what’s blocking it and clear it out so it can close.
- Is your dishwasher really noisy? We don’t mean like loud but more like there is a ‘new’ sound and it doesn’t sound right. If so, try turning on the dish washer and when you hear the sound (while its running) open the door. This is possible with most dishwashers. If you need to, re-organizing the dishes in the racks and then make sure that the rotating ‘sprayer arms’ (under the top rack) can spin freely without hitting any dishes.
