Another Kenmore Elite Dishwasher Follow-Up
This is really the a follow-up to my initial review and my first follow-up on our wonderful Kenmore Elite Dishwasher. Why am I doing this? Not just because those are the two most hit entries on this blog (who would have guessed that??) but we also had our first problem with our dishwasher.
A week or so before Christmas, the dishwasher stopped cleaning the top rack. The bottom rack was fine, but the top rack barely got touched. Obviously, not enough water was getting to the top rack dishes. But why?
The first thing I checked was to make sure that the sprayer underneath the top rack connected to the supply at the back of the dishwasher. And it seemed like it. Remember that — it becomes important later on.
A few googles said to clean out the chopper section of the dishwasher. So I got on my hands and knees and dismantled the screen and chopper section on the bottom. The screen was clean, but I rinsed it anyway. I did take a chicken bone and plastic straw out of the chopper. I was hoping that would solve it, but alas it did not. A few pages said to replace the check valve but it looked like it was in great shape.
Now I was at a bit of a loss. So yesterday I decided to take the sprayer under the top rack off and make sure it wasn’t clogged. It wasn’t clogged and it shouldn’t have been — the dishwasher is not quite three years old and we have soft water. But when I was taking the sprayer off, I noticed that the tube that connects the sprayer to the supply in the back was quite loose. After checking for clogs, I decided I needed to make sure that they would fit tightly. I messed around with a few things, when I noticed one side of the clamp holding the tube was also loose. The clamp is at the back of the top rack and looks like a guide between the supply at the back and the tube to the sprayer. I had to push real hard, but I got the clamp to fit securely on the top rack again. This made the tube to the sprayer much tighter. So I ran another test load. And guess what? It works! The top rack now washes clean.
My guess is that the loose tube connected fine to the supply, but the tube moved too much when high-pressured water came from the supply. That water spilled out into the basin, and the sprayer didn’t have enough water.
I’m kicking myself for not seeing it earlier, but it was still an easy fix that didn’t cost me anything. It’s the only hiccup with this dishwasher that we have ever had. And now it’s working fine. If we have this problem again, though, I will know what to look at first.
March 16th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
[...] Our dishwasher has been given us fits again. I found Sundberg Appliance by my house and they told me to clean out under the screen — that something was probably blocking the pump. Sure enough, I took about five orange seeds out. But it still wasn’t working right. It took a couple of weeks to make it back there, but I asked their advice again. They said it sounded like too much soap stuck in it. They advised running a load with no soap and no dishes, except 1 ½ cups of white vinegar in the top rack. And what do you know? It’s working great now . . [...]