Thread: Dishwasher ?

In the past week I had two new dishwashers that were, to me short cycling,
They ran for apx. 45 sec. shut off for 5 or so seconds and kept doing that thru the entire cycles.

The 1st one was on a flip, the buyer was from out of town, I recommended checking with an appliance contractor.

The other one a couple days later was on a new home walk, I mentioned it to the builder rep and buyer, and told the buyer to check with the manufacture to see if this is normal.

Is this normal ?
No I did not get the make and serial #s

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From my experience newer dishwashers tend to stop and go. Since I've never been inside one while its ON, I'll assume its sort of like newer wash machines. A lot of the new wash machines have glass panel doors so you can see it spin, stop and then change spin direction. Maybe that's what the dishwashers are doing.

I have to agree with Markus,new fangled dishwashers work differently than the older models,if you ran it through all the cycles and the dishes were clean,then it is working.

I agree, like the new washing machines, they are designed to save water and thus use less water during their wash/rinse cycle - they take a bit to get used to because we are all used to hearing all that swishing and agitation of the older machines - 'how could doing less clean better' is what we think, but like the older cars with 7 liter engines which used a lot of gas, the newer engines half their size can make newer cars scream and do it on a lot less gas (such as my car with its V12 and 14-15 mpg, no longer necessary to have an engine like that).

Our newer Whirlpool dishwasher seems to take about 3 hours to wash a load, but it does a great job and it is supposed to be more energy efficient.

Dishwasher starting and stopping may partly be a method to use a soaking function that allows for less motor run time and therefore a lower energy cost yielding a higher E Star rating. Wish I knew a designer/engineer for a manufacture to get a true answer.

i bought a house in Surrey bc and the dishwasher was an older one and had water in it. so I thought it was a defective one. so i replaced it with a brand new one. it too kept the water in it. finally after a service call about another appliance the guy checked it out and the garberator drain was not punched out. after that it worked fine. sometimes it is things we take for granted that we need to rexamine to find the problems

Many of the newer DWs have a sensor that tests to see how dirty the dishes are. They will shut off periodically to determine how soiled the water is. A soil-sensing dishwasher has the ability to automatically adjust the energy consuming aspects of a wash cycle based on the soil load of the dishes. If the dishwasher senses a relatively clean load, it can adjust the cycle to use less energy and/or water and to determine when a load is clean.

I've noticed similar operation from my new Samsung DW. It seems to have periods of seeming inactivity, but it cleans the dishes. It does take quite a long time for each cycle, however.

In evaluating dishwashers I sometimes tell my clients about the GE dishwasher I installed in 1987. I can choose from several options. I usually use the one that takes 39 minutes to complete. The water arrives at about 140 Fahrenheit and I never, ever use the heating element to bring water up to temp. or dry. (140 is plenty hot) (one of my <Water-Cop> leak sensors is under the washer)

In my youth I worked in the restaurant business and my kitchen experience gave me knowledge about cleaning dishes,etc. I also, was trained and worked in microbiology for clinical applications so I know about hygiene.

The latest crop of washers are quiet because they use two (2) weak and wimpy circulators instead of the single powerful circulator that my washer uses. So, some have cycle times that can exceed three (3) hours and what happens to the typical 130 Fahrenheit water during the cycles? ---IT COOLS AND THE SENSORS TELL THE CONTROLLER TO STOP UNTILL THE WATER TEMPERATURE GETS UP TO SANITARY LEVEL and so electricity is utilized to the degree that these are not effecient appliances. HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO REHEAT WATER TO 130??.

WHEN I INSPECT A DISHWASHER I FOCUS ON ROTATION OF THE VANES AND OPENING OF THE DETERGENT DISPENSER. (OPEN THE DOOR---ARE THE VANES STILL IN THE SAME POSITION, HAS THE DISPENSER DOOR OPENED?)

Home & Condo Inspections in the Boston MA area by Certified & Licensed ASHI Inspector

I was doing a house a couple of years ago. Buyer was there. I always start with the dishwasher first running it in a normal cycle. It was a "builder model", major brand made in the next county. I casually mentioned that this particular model had a tendency to leak toward the end of the cycle. He smiled and said, "I know, I'm the new engineer they hired to figure out why they leak."

JLMathis

Never run a dishwasher with the manual packet still in it. Lesson from the school of hard knocks. It was an older house but a new dishwasher.