Dishwasher not taking in water

[Hippymama]

My hotpoint aquarius dishwasher won't take in water and I can't afford to get someone to come out and fix it :(

The salt light has also come on. I live in a hard water area, would this stop the dishwasher working completely? When I turn it on, it seems to run through the programme, but no water goes into the machine :(

Does anyone know what might be causing this and how I can fix it? Thanks in advance :)

[mumdebump]

We had similar with our Bosch dishwasher. Local repair man tried obvious things like replacing valves but without success, and then posted on some trade forums for advice but still couldn't find out exactly what had gone wrong. I seem to recall it was thought to be something electronic that had failed on the main electronic control board thing in the machine (can you tell I'm not a technical expert ) but it would cost £££ to replace that part and it might not have solved the problem. Was more cost-effective to replace the machine. :( sorry not what you wanted to hear.
Could you contact Hotpoint for advice?

[reliablemillipede]

I had exactly the same ! it had something to do with a water float thing ( tec talk!)
Anyway, we fixed it by............ pulling the dishwasher out into the kitchen and rocking it from side to side ( not harshly shaking it you know what I mean), rock it from side to side then from back to front.

This released the float thing and sorted it completely and cost £0.

Give this a go hope it works for you too.

[ErmahgerdBahtsErndPuhmpkerns]

reliablemillipede has exactly the same solution as I do, it worked for mine too! I spent a lot of time googling and thinking I'd have to do all sorts of technical wizardry, nearly threw the whole thing away and started again, then a mner suggested the tipping thing. Something to do with waste water in the overflow but the details don't really matter.

[Hippymama]

Thanks for your replies :) you will be pleased to know (but not nearly as pleased as I am!) that the dishwasher is fixed :D

My husband took the left hand side of it off exposing some plastic tubey things. He cleaned all them out, loosened a red and a blue lever and cleaned the water inlet valve. Not sure which bit worked, but something did!