Fixing the Dishwasher

Our dishwasher stopped working last week. The indicator light was not on, and the dishwasher would not start. I set aside a few hours on Saturday to frustrate myself before calling a professional repairman today.

Of course I started by turning off electricity to the dishwasher. This was a little complicated, because I didn't know which circuit controls the dishwasher. The normal thing to do is to flip each circuit breaker off one by one until the dishwasher turns off. Since the dishwasher wasn't working, though, I had no easy way to test which circuit was supplying power. I ended up adopting a conservative route and switching the two circuit breakers controlling the outlets in the kitchen and the garbage disposal right next to the dishwasher. I didn't know which, but I knew that one of those two would kill power to the dishwasher.

I put on my incredibly-dorky-yet-quite-helpful halogen headlamp and got down on hands and knees to take off the bottom panel. Within 90 seconds, I found the apparent source of the problem: the splice between the incoming power cord and the connected dishwasher wire had become faulty and burned through the wire connector.

Often when this happens, a fuse or circuit breaker will be affected. I knew the circuit breaker had not been tripped from my initial check of the breaker box. I figured that there had to be a fuse. A quick check on the internet with the dishwasher model number confirmed this. I found a site with an "ask the expert" page indicating that the fuse lies next to the electronic control board which is inside the main door of the dishwasher.

I dutifully removed all the screws from the door panel and carefully removed the stainless steel door. (I had to be careful because Katie would have my neck if I scratched, dented, scraped, breathed on, or otherwise marred the stainless steel finish.) As I was gingerly removing the door, I was thrown back by a massive jolt of electricity. I thought it might have been Katie reprimanding me with a cattle prod for smudging a fingerprint on the stainless steel. In agony, I looked behind me, but she wasn't there. It turned out that I was wrong about the circuit breaker. I went downstairs and turned off every circuit in the whole house, just to be sure.

At this point, I discovered that only about half of the screws I had removed from the dishwasher were actually necessary in order to take the outer door off. The other half of the screws secured the inner door to various other parts of the dishwasher assembly. The most difficult of these to replace were the ones attached to the spring arms that make it easier to open and close the dishwasher door. Over and over I strained my muscles pulling one of the arms down while holding the inner door with my elbows and simultaneously trying to insert and fasten the screw. After several dozen attempts at this over about half an hour, I succeeded in slicing open three of my knuckles and then finally in reattaching the inner door to the spring arms.

Finding the control panel at this point was simple. It was clearly visible and housed in a black plastic box. I just needed to find out how to get into it. As it was plastic, I was trying to be as careful as possible. I tried and I tried and I tried, but sadly, I did not think I could open the box without breaking something. I looked inside, though, and saw nothing that looked like a fuse.

I gave up at this point, resigned to call a repair person, but wanted to try a web site I had come across while searching for a user manual. The site has live experts that you can ask immediate questions for very cheap. I ponied up the money and asked my question: I explained about the faulty wire and said I knew that I needed to find the fuse that was under the door and in the black plastic box containing the control board. How, I asked the expert, was I to open the black plastic box?

He responded in 90 seconds. "Let's not get too complicated," he counseled. "The fuse you seek does not exist. Fix the wire and see what happens."

Horribly embarrassed, I went back to the dishwasher and fixed the wire, which took all of five minutes. (I know that's slow, but it took me a while to find my electrical tape.) I turned the house back on and sure enough, the indicator light came on just like I was expecting. If I'd only been thinking a little bit, I could have completed the entire project in six and a half minutes instead of hours.

So, I put the outer door back on the dishwasher and started it up. It ran through a full cycle with no problem. As I was putting my tools away, I noticed that I had a large plastic piece that I guess I didn't really need as I was reassembling the dishwasher. I thought that since the dishwasher was running fine I had empirical evidence for the redundancy of that particular plastic piece. Katie made me open up the dishwasher again and put it back, though.

At least the stainless steel escaped unblemished.