Dishwasher help please!

donnaessex

Hi experts!

We inherited a slimline dishwasher when we moved into our new house 3 weeks ago (today yay!) Its new - the kitchen was only installed a year ago (Dec 2008).

We've never had a dishwasher but my mum told me (how sad does that sound! ) I needed dishwasher salt, rinse aid and detergent (we chose tablets).

Fine, its all been working well and I've washed up a grand total of 3 times so far!!!

Last night the "fill salt" light came on and I opened the trap where I am supposed to put it in but it was full of water. The manual said it should be empty so I dug about in there with a fork to see if there was a blockage of somesort but couldnt feel any gap where there would be a drain of any kind. There wasnt anything in the troubleshooting part of the manual about having water in the salt compartment. So I did a typical woman thing and stuck a load of kitchen roll in over and over until the water had gone. x a million. I filled the salt up and put the machine on when we went to bed.

This morning it was still going. :eek: Its not cleaned anything in there - there is still food debris all over the plates etc and it hadnt unlocked the detergent drawer thing so the tablet was still sitting in there. I turned it off at the mains and left it a while, then started it again and it just went back to the middle of the wash again?

Can anyone help? Give me some ideas how we can fix it ourselves?

ginvzt

I had a couple of dishwashers so far, and in both the salt compartment was filled with water when opened. I never bothered - just filled with salt, and salt would displace the water (the water would run out from the top.

Check in the manual if there is a button combination for 'reset' or 'cancel'. I know there was one on our Bosch slimline dishwasher, but I don't remember what it was.

Stonk

Our salt compartment is full of water, just like ginvzt's is. Your DW is probably confused now because some sensor that is supposed to be submerged isn't. As a first step, I suggest pouring water back into the salt compartment until it's as full as it was when you first looked. That might de-confuse it. Also, look in the manual for a way of resetting it so that it doesn't keep starting in the middle of the unfinished program.

If it's anything like ours, that must have taken you ages and numerous rolls of kitchen roll to empty it!

WestonDave

I'd go with refilling the salt compartment with water as well - ours is normally full of water when we refill it so I guess yours is currently struggling with not enough water in the salt area. The point of the salt is to soften the water and at present it may be detecting that the water isn't being softened.

donnaessex

Oooops!

Thanks everyone - when I get home I'll refill it with water. I'm still confused though. It says in the manual something like "the salt compartment will be full of water when the programme is running so you must ensure you fill with salt before you start any programme."

Stonk - it took 2 rolls of Plenty to mop up the water. I'm obviously an idiot! :T

Stonk

donnaessex wrote: »

It says in the manual something like "the salt compartment will be full of water when the programme is running so you must ensure you fill with salt before you start any programme."

Sounds like it is advising people that they should not attempt to refill the salt while a programme is running. Surely this doesn't need saying!

What it might be getting at is the following. My DW manual says only to refill the salt immediately before doing a wash. If you refill it and leave it without running, it reckons the salt may corrode the machine, whereas when you run the machine, one of the first things it does is to flush out any excess salt to get the concentration right.

donnaessex

Stonk wrote: »

Sounds like it is advising people that they should not attempt to refill the salt while a programme is running. Surely this doesn't need saying!

Well yes, but why would it mention that the salt compartment will be full of water when the programme is running? I took that to mean that it will be empty when its not running?

Its obviously my silly mistake but I just dont understand why it would mention water being in there when its always going to be there?

wallbash

Its not your silly mistake , its a badly worded manual.
In their defence , if you had bought the machine from new, connected the water ,then filled the salt container , as instructed , the container would have been dry. Its only on subsequent refills that water is present.

and stuck a load of kitchen roll in over and over until

I apologise but the thought of you doing that did make me smile.

donnaessex

wallbash wrote: »

Its not your silly mistake , its a badly worded manual.
In their defence , if you had bought the machine from new, connected the water ,then filled the salt container , as instructed , the container would have been dry. Its only on subsequent refills that water is present.




I apologise but the thought of you doing that did make me smile.

Thanks, that makes sense. I feel a bit better now! :rotfl:

*Chattie*

If you live in a soft water area you dont need salt in the dish washer.

wallbash

Are you 100% certain of that ? I have small memory that we had a posting on that subject some time ago , and the final conclusion was that the adduction of salt , even in a soft area benefited the cleaning.

But I may be wrong.

Ps As I live in a very hard water area , will never have the way to test the theory .