Kelly's Korner - Dishwasher Dilema Part Deux

Hey, All,

Last week I wrote about the issues I was having with my dishwasher.  Water was not coming into the tub and my dishes were not getting clean.

So I talked to one of my favorite techs, Patrick, and watched a couple of troubleshooting videos on it and pulled up my big girl panties to go home and see what I could find.

When I got home I opened the dishwasher - yup, still dirty dishes! - and took the bottom rack out and set it on the floor.  Then I gently grasped the float (that's the white round dome thing in the corner of your dishwasher floor) and carefully raised and lowered it listening for a click.  The float works kinda like the float in your toilet tank - once there is enough water to float the float, a switch below clicks off to shut off the water flow into the tub.  I heard it click!  Yahoo!  If it didn't click then I had Patrick on speed dial.


So then I closed the door and turned it on for about half a minute - it was running....  So I opened the door and looked to the side and bottom of the tub to see if there was water coming into the tub - THERE WAS!!!!

OK, so now I'm totally confused, right?  There hadn't been any water coming into it before and now there is?  What's up with this?  So I put the bottom rack back in, put in detergent, closed the door and let it run.  Guess what?  I had clean dishes!

On one hand, I'm glad that Patrick didn't have to come over and do a more thorough diagnosis and that I wasn't going to have to pay for a repair.  On the other, I was totally frustrated that after all the worry and whatever, the darned thing was working again!  I told Patrick I think I scared it into working again by threatening it that he was going to come over and tear is apart if it didn't behave.  He thinks I may have had a stuck float switch and me fiddling with it got it working again.  Have you ever had something go wonky and when you get it to the repair person, it runs fine?  ARGH!

So now I have clean dishes and no repair bills, but I think I need to make Patrick some cookies for being there for me.

Hope all your dilemas are as easily solved!

K