My dishwasher is not cleaning properly!

[WatermelonWaveclub]

I've cleaned the filter out but still having problems. Any ideas, please?

Have you looked at the spray arms? If the filter isn't fitted properly you can get sweetcorn or other bits trapped in them

Have you done a dishwasher clean with special dishwasher liquid? The little packets you buy that you put in an empty dishwater. Could be worth a try.

Does the salt need refilling?

the small holes jn the spray arm can get blocked and I have found that can cause the dishwasher not to clean thoroughly

Have you changed dishwasher tablets? Some are useless

Not looked at the spray arms, thanks.

Mine has usually run out of salt or rinse aid when that happens - even using a "all in one" tablet.

Yes, I have done that.

No, it's not that

No. I use Fairy platinum plus.

Spray arms can be unscrewed, rinsed through and any bits hoiked out with a pipecleaner or cocktail stick.

Check that there isn't crud in the filter or the pipe that drains into the U-bend.

And, more simply, are you scraping the plates and stacking it properly, so that water can reach every surface? DP used to complain the dishwasher was crap until I realised he was blocking the spray with pans and generally almost throwing the plates and mugs in the racks.

Might be worth trying this in case the spray arms are a bit clogged

We had this and tried everything. The pots came out smelling like pondwater.
Turned out to be, no draining properly. There was a piece of broken glass in the drain hose at the back of the dishwasher.

A glass must've been chipped and a piece got stuck there.

You'll need to do a deep dive into the nooks and crannies to see what might be blocking yours.

Check the drain isn't blocked.

Yes, plates are scraped. I can only get them clean in the dishwasher if I soak them beforehand, atm.

I have had about half of the 'prongs' that hold the plates rust and fall off! But I put the plates in the remaining ones.

Brilliant, I'll do that.

I'll do that, thanks.

Defo to taking out the spray arms. And also - some dishwashers you can take a surprising amount of bits out. Warning you might find things you didn't want to know! I found out that not only our spray arms can be cleaned, but the door seal comes out (this was gross) the pipe that takes water up from the bottom into the spray arm comes off - this was disgusting behind - and even worse, the little rolly arm things that hold up the second rack, these can come out for cleaning. Nobody had ever done this in our dishwasher in 10 years 🤢 I honestly nearly threw the whole thing away and ordered a new one.

I then got a bit carried away trying to take the pump out and clean that and sliced my finger on a very sharp edge - don't do this!! Cleaning all of the caked on shit out of the rolly arms was the key that made the difference.

Lastly yes - if you're getting drain water left over in the bottom that smells like wet dog, you probably have a problem with the drain hose. This was the bit that made me nearly order a new one because the feet on ours are broken and we can't pull it out, but what it turned out to be is that it hadn't been installed properly.

Where the hose comes out of the dishwasher, you need it to have a "high loop" which means it needs to go immediately up, and then flow only downwards into the waste pipe. The momentum of the water being pumped out of the machine gets it over the initial hump. If there is a "U" dip anywhere at all between the dishwasher and the drain, then you will get waste water pooling in that U which can then flow back into the dishwasher. Our waste pipe is too long and our waste pipe under the sink is a stupid shape so the inlet is too high. See picture showing the issue. DH eventually just built a little shelf for it so it does now flow downwards into the waste pipe and no more issues. As you can see we also have the same issue with the washing machine, but nothing I can do about that because there's too much of a distance between them. I tried to swap the order of the Y and I shaped pipes under the sink, but they didn't fit that way around so I need to buy new pieces.

If you take bits out and they feel slimy even after cleaning them, they have biofilm on them and that takes a bit more effort to get properly clean - you need to give it some real elbow grease. But worth doing because biofilm is nasty stuff.

Thanks, that's very informative!

We had this problem tried every thing already mentioned on the thread it was still crap at cleaning. Got a new dishwasher solved the problem!

Wow! Thanks for the previous posts -
I’ve learned so much.
The prongs on ours rusted so DH ordered some covers from a well-known online retailer which have done the trick.
An engineer once recommended acetic acid on a service wash with the machine emptied to get rid of the greasy/dog coat smell - it works really well.

Is it definitely getting hot?
The board went on mine which stopped it heating up. They were coming out greasy and minging before we realised

Have you taken everything out. As well as the filter there is the arm and also a big plate which gets covered in grease underneath. You need to take all of the parts out and clean them roughly once a month

I've had a bit of a dishwasher revelation today.

The filter gets all yucky if you don't rinse it as often as MN cleaning enthusiasts and it's a horrible job to do.

But you can buy replacement filters from ebay for under a tenner.

So I'm going to buy one that I can put in the dishwasher and then have the yucky one being washed in the dishwasher when cleaning cycle is running.