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Re: Baumatic dishwasher tripping RCD
Ok, so I asked my Dad… I typed this up as he was speaking to me (literally, I’m a fairly fast touchtyper so this is pretty much as I heard it, forgive the stream of consciousness style but it should all make sense).
In our dishwasher, the heating element was shorting to earth – we had to order a replacement from Baumatic Direct (there’s a web site and a phone number to ring, Google for it) – cost £45 for ours, you have to give your model number as they’re different for each one (or so we believe). There’s a serial number on the plate on the door if that helps. There’s also a drop-down panel at the front to test the terminals if you don’t want to get the entire dishwasher out and break it down into bits. To see if this component is at fault, test the earth integrity of heater element by unplugging connections to heating element (use a multimeter).
The actual component looks like a flat metal plate with two metal rings – sticking out are two spikes, the end part of the heating element. The mains connects to them, and they go up through the underside of the dishwasher to the heating element (inside the dishwasher).Unplug the wires from the spikes and test the resistance between earth and heating element and inner. It should be infinite but ours dropped to about 1 meg(ohm), which means that the insulating powder inside the tube which separates the wire from the metal outer of the heating element had broken down and was therefore shorting. Newer dishwashers have a metal sheath around the water inlet which heats the water as it comes into the dishwasher, so no exposed heating element, but that was the problem with ours due to it using the more arcane method.
If you don’t have a multimeter, you can still perform rudimentary tests to see if this is the problem – take off both leads from the bottom of the heating element, insulate them with tape so they don’t touch anything else, and then see if the dishwasher runs through the cycle ok without shorting any fuses or tripping your house’s RCD, then that’s your problem.The panel’s at the bottom underneath the door at the front – it’s plastic and hinged, and it’s a pain to get to. My Dad took the entire dishwasher out of its fixture and took the side off (which worked out to be easier in the end) but you can get easy access to the terminals from the front panel. The whole thing’s held in by a single bolt apparently.
So, as you can see, so long as you aren’t afraid of getting your hands dirty (and have some knowledge of physics) you should be at the very least able to see if this component is the cause of your problem without having to call out an engineer just to test for a problem. Of course, if you aren’t 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} confident that you can do this without killing yourself and/or blowing up the entire dishwasher, then of course call in a pro to service the machine 🙂 We managed to get it all fixed through for the princely sum of £45, but it was a right pain in the arse deducing the cause of the problem. (And we didn’t realise just how much more of a pain fitted dishwashers are to remove from their fixture and then shuffle back in afterwards – our dishwasher was poking out from under the work surface for about 3 weeks, because it was just too heavy to lug in and out all the time!).
Hope this info comes in useful for you 🙂
Re: Baumatic dishwasher tripping RCD
We had a problem with our Baumatic BDW05 (fitted, integrated model) – Dad fixed it in the end but he needed to buy a new part… I think he managed to source it from the local hardware shop!
The parents are in France at the moment, but I’m ringing them up tomorrow to have a chat – and as the dishwasher has tonight started doing something else funny, I need to ask Dad where he put the user manual for the bloody thing anyway so I can diagnose the problem! (looks like it’s not draining though, drainage hole is full to the top with nasty grimy water but I stuck my hand in and couldn’t feel anything, so I hope the drainage pipe isn’t blocked up… That’s gonna be rubbish).
If I get an answer from him I’ll reply asap.
