Dishwasher Not Cleaning? Let's Get to the Bottom of it
If your dishwasher has started leaving dishes dirty, cloudy, greasy, or covered in leftover food after a full cycle, the problem may not be what most folks expect.
I am just about convinced my dishwasher thinks I'm dumb.
Because lately it has gotten real bold about the whole “pretending to clean dishes” situation.
At first it was subtle.
A little speck stuck to a fork.
“I ain't mad at ya,” I chuckled.
“Nobody’s perfect.”
Then came the greasy fingerprint on the glass.
Hmmm.
You know the look.
One eyebrow up.
Then came the bowl.
Still had oatmeal glued to the inside like the dishwasher looked at it and said:
“Nobody’s gonna notice.”
A lot like my daughter when she “cleans” her room. Sometimes I honestly think it takes more effort hiding the dirty than it would to just clean it properly.
But I digress.
Back to my dishwasher.
Now I was standing there wondering if this dishwasher had actually washed anything at all.
Seemed more like all the dishes just had themselves a little steam room get together and I was the butt of their joke.
Then I got to gaslighting myself.
“Did I forget to put the soap in?”
Of course I didn't.
Well just look right here if you don't believe me, blue soap running right down the inside of the door.
Hang on a second, that ain't supposed to still be there.
If the soap was still running down the inside of the door, that meant the dishwasher either wasn’t spraying water hard enough… or it wasn’t circulating it properly at all.
Well I am certainly not gonna be made a fool of. I was getting to the bottom of this.
So I did what every appliance repairman does when something starts acting suspicious.
I squatted down in front of it and stared at it for a while like that was somehow gonna help.
You’d be surprised how often that’s step one in appliance repair.
I pressed a few buttons and got the cycle going and heard some action on the inside. I let it get good and “busy” when I gave it a little yank back open mid-cycle like I was trying to catch it sleeping on the job.
The bottom of the dishwasher looked more like a lukewarm bathtub than a wash cycle.
Water was just kind of sitting there.
No steam.
The spray arm underneath looked rather uninspired.
That’s when I pulled the lower spray arm off and found the real culprit.
The age old appliance nemesis, Florida hard water.
That stuff builds up slow around where I service, especially in Pinellas Park, Largo, Clearwater, and St. Pete.
Little by little those tiny spray holes clog up with calcium until eventually the dishwasher just cannot move water the way it is supposed to anymore.
Now sometimes cleaning those spray arms buys the machine some more life.
Other times the buildup has already started affecting circulation components, wash performance, or other parts of the system too.
That’s the tricky thing about appliance repair.
A lot of these problems only look obvious after somebody who works on these machines every day finally tracks the issue down.
But simple does not always mean quick.
Who wants to spend a Sunday afternoon cleaning tiny little spray holes one at a time with toothpicks and brushes like some sort of complicated dental procedure?
Me.
I had already come too far at that point.
I got everything cleaned out and put it all back together.
Then I fired the dishwasher back up and let it run.
I snatched it open again out of pure suspicion that it may have just got better at acting.
This time the water actually had some force behind it.
There were drips coming down from the upper racks and a nice fog of steam rolled out when I opened the door.
Now THAT sounded more like a dishwasher.
I apologized for interrupting, closed it back, and stood there a minute admiring my work.
Now I don't know if appliance repairmen are supposed to admit this publicly, but there is something deeply satisfying about hearing an appliance sound healthy again.
Sure enough, next morning I opened that dishwasher back up and every single dish was spotless.
Not a lick of oatmeal in sight.
Just clean dishes.
I sipped my coffee and stood there looking out the kitchen window with half a smirk.
I was proud of fixing it.
Maybe a little too proud.
I remember muttering just loud enough for it to hear me:
“Guess I ain't so dumb after all now am I?”
Need Dishwasher Repair In Pinellas Park or Pinellas County?
If your dishwasher has started leaving behind cloudy glasses, greasy dishes, mystery particles, or oatmeal that somehow survived the wash cycle, Southern Appliance can help figure out what is really going on in there.
Whether it needs a repair or it’s simply time for a replacement, we can help figure out the next step.
Serving Pinellas Park, Largo, Seminole, Clearwater, St. Pete, and surrounding Pinellas County areas.