Dishwasher not washing

[Greg]

Hi

Seem to have a bit of a problem with the top shelf of the dishwasher which means that the dishes placed there do not get washed and the ones below are only clean-ish. When I turn it on and open the door to see what's happening it looks like I get a little burst of water from the top outlet and then nothing else there, even if the bottom arm is turning and spurting water(although I have not discounted the fact that there is possibly a valve that alternates water between the top and bottom arms).

Anyone any ideas on the issue and whether it is worth fixing, or should I bite the bullet and get a new machine given the cost to repair it?

Thanks!

[John]

Mine (Hoover) has a selector witch for bottom only. Some have arms that can be reversed so that the top arm fires downwards. Have you checked this?

[Greg]

Checked that and all in order. Also made sure that the holes in the arm were not blocked.

Thanks

[James Salisbury]

Convention is that answers go here.

Try descaleing the dishwasher. The powder can be purchased at an independent appliance shop.

[Bob Eager]

Descaling - perhaps. I've not noticed significant scale anywhere and we're in ahard water area.

Gunge - grease, fat etc. deposits are likely in internal pipes. A sod to clear by hand but try a proprietary dishwasher cleaner (e.g. Finish do one). You stick the bottle (has a wax seal) in the top tray and do a wash. Repeat, possibly, if the blockage is bad.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Washing up liquid works too, but not too much or you'll have a kitchen full of foam. There seems to be some type of grease which dishwasher detergent allows to build up, but which washing up liquid dissolves. (I mean real Fairy liquid here, and not some useless Eco washing up liquid.)

I sometimes add a drip or two of Fairy liquid when putting on the dishwasher, and I've never had any grease build-up inside it or needed to run one of the dishwasher cleaners since starting this some years ago.

[Bob Eager]

Useful to know. As it happens, I had ours apart yesterday to fit a new drain hose, and all of it seemed clean as a whistle.

[Fergus O'Rourke]

I have a similar problem. On checking out the bottom arm, I discovered that there were multiple small splits in the plastic. Presumably, this is preventing the water from reaching the optimum pressure and thus failing to reach the top properly.

[John]

I've never had to clean a dishwasher either. (other than the filter)

[John]

I can recall seeing this on an old machine that was being chucked out. Hard to spot as well.

[Rod]

A very long time ago I used to walk past a shop that had a dishwasher in the window. Working.

In order to attract interest, after all a white door isn't exactly rivetting, they had fitted a sheet of clear perspex (or similar) across the front of the machine. (I assume that they had left the door in the fully open position - but it might have been removed.) They must have made the machine "think" that it's door was closed.

Well - it worked. I certainly noticed and still remember.

Do dishwasher engineers have such things? Surely the manufacturers have them to enable testing (at least during development if not on the production line)? Strikes me as the obvious answer to this problem - look and see!

[Andrew Gabriel]

They clipped onto the open door.

They were quite standard sales props when dishwashers were new gadgets in homes and few people knew how they worked. Washing machines were more universal, and some people thought their crockery would get damaged when the dishwasher did its final spin, so they hadn't considered getting one. (This was probably compounded by there being some dual purpose washing machines and dishwashers in the early days.)

On a similar topic, when I bought my Hotpoint Micro Profile

1400 over 20 years ago (then Hotpoint's top of the range), it was always on show in shops with its display cycling through all the wash programmes. I was told there was a magic sequence of button presses to put the microprocessor into this mode, but I never managed to work out what it was.

[1501]

Ah! You mean the instant conversion of a 24 piece tea set to a 48 piece!