A dishwasher is one of those wonderful modern tools that many people in San Antonio couldn’t do without. Sometimes, though, your dishwasher begins to act up, leading to time-consuming repairs that can make your dishwasher seem like more of a nuisance than a necessity. One problem that pretty much every dishwasher will run into at one point or another is slow or no draining. Fortunately, the professionals at Beyer Plumbing want you to know that as long as you know what to look for, this is typically a problem that you can fix yourself.
Start Simple
If you open your dishwasher to find that it hasn’t drained properly, don’t panic. Before you spend hours trying to track down the problem, it’s important to start with the simplest solution first. It may be that you accidentally bumped the controls on your dishwasher while it was running, thus interrupting its cycle. When this happens, most dishwashers won’t drain unless you run the cycle again.
An easy way to prevent this is to install a dishwasher that has its controls on top of the door instead of on the front. If it’s not time to replace your dishwasher, though, most dishwashers have some type of locking mechanism that prevents errant button pushes from changing the status of the dishwasher.
A Clogged Drain Filter
One of the problems we encounter most often at Beyer Plumbing when it comes to slow-draining dishwashers is a clogged drain filter. To many people, the screens at the bottom of their dishwasher that are designed to catch debris look quite complicated. Therefore, rather than following the manufacturer’s recommended instructions for cleaning these screens, they ignore the task until their dishwasher no longer operates properly.
The good news is that these screens, though they may look complicated, are actually quite simple. By following the instructions in your owner’s manual, you can typically remove and clean these screens in under 10 minutes. If you don’t, the debris will build up until the water in your dishwasher has no way to escape, leading to standing water in your dishwasher.
A Clogged Drain Hose
In some cases, the drain filter in your dishwasher may not catch every last piece of debris. If some debris does make it through, it can get caught in the drain hose, leading to an accumulation of debris over time. Eventually, this will prevent your dishwasher from draining properly. Unlike typical drainpipes, the smaller diameter of a dishwasher drain hose makes it more difficult to clean using conventional methods. Therefore, you may need to have someone from Beyer Plumbing stop by to disconnect your hose so that it can be properly cleaned.
Dishwasher Soap Mistake
If you’ve ever been in a hurry to get your dishes washed, chances are that you’ve accidentally used dishwashing liquid that’s meant for the sink in your dishwasher. Unfortunately, typical dishwashing liquid is meant to create heavy suds, while soap for dishwashers doesn’t create any suds at all. With the warm water and heavy agitation in a dishwasher, heavy suds can form, leaving you with a big mess to clean up.
Fortunately, the solution to this problem is fairly straightforward and doesn’t typically require a call to Beyer Plumbing. All you have to do is use a wet/dry vacuum to suck up the excess suds and then run your dishwasher again without any soap. At the end of the extra cycle, you should be good to go.
Problem in the Connection
Another handy device to have in your kitchen is a garbage disposal. While some people think of their garbage disposal as an extra trash can, the fact is that a garbage disposal discharges into the same drain as your dishwasher. Therefore, if your garbage disposal doesn’t properly chop up the food that you dispose of, then it could clog the connection where the garbage disposal and dishwasher drains come together.
In some cases, you may be able to solve this problem simply by running your garbage disposal without sending extra food down it. If that doesn’t work, though, you may need the experts from Beyer Plumbing to stop by and clean out the point where these drains meet. The best way to prevent this problem is to be choosy about what you send down your garbage disposal, making sure to avoid items like eggshells, coffee grounds and other items that can stick around in your drain.
Improper Loading
While your dishwasher is quite adept at washing various loads, there can be times when the loads interfere with the proper operation of the dishwasher. Depending on how the dishwasher is loaded, the sensors inside the dishwasher may detect that the load is complete, when in fact, the water still needs to be drained. Therefore, if you’ve tried other solutions with no luck, it makes sense to re-load your dishwasher and see if that does the trick.
Air in the Line
To ensure that all of the water is removed from its lowest components, your dishwasher uses a pump to drain itself at the end of a cycle. In some cases, this pump may draw in air as well as water, which can cause your dishwasher to stop draining. Fortunately, most dishwashers include an air gap located next to your faucet to allow air to escape from the drain. However, this air gap can become clogged, meaning that the air gets trapped in your dishwasher’s drain instead.
In rare cases, you may discover that your dishwasher doesn’t have an air gap installed. If that is true of your home, it’s a good idea to have Beyer Plumbing stop by and install an air gap so that your dishwasher can drain more efficiently.
Bad Pump Motor
It takes a lot of moving parts to help your dishwasher effectively clean a load of dishes. One of these components is the pump motor. This device essentially serves as a vacuum that sucks water out of your dishwasher and sends it to the drain. In certain instances, this motor can burn out, leaving you with a dishwasher full of water. Depending on the type of dishwasher you have, it may make sense to have Beyer Plumbing replace this pump for you. Sometimes, though, it’s better to simply replace your dishwasher with a new model.
Helping to Make Your Life Easier
The men and women at Beyer Plumbing want to help make your life easier by helping you maintain and repair your dishwasher. Beyond that, Beyer Plumbing stands ready to help you with any other plumbing needs that you have, including water heater repair and replacement, water softener installation, water filtration as well as emergency plumbing. We can also help install new plumbing systems during new construction.
Serving San Antonio for over 40 years, Beyer Plumbing has what it takes to get the job done correctly the first time. That’s why we maintain an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and have countless five-star reviews from our top-notch customers. If you need help with your dishwasher, feel free to give us a call at Beyer Plumbing today.
