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I know Dave probably won’t “like” to hear it, but err, unfortunately he was right.
I have now ordered the pump he suggested.
So in short, I yoinked the impeller out of the pump. Scrunched it all back together (the magnet, seals, etc the lot). Reinstalled it carefully, and now it all works.
Dave: I’m very grateful to you. It may well still conk, and if it does – I’ll immediately get that pump on order.
But I also wrote up what I did in a bit more detail for my personal facebook. It’s long, so feel free not to read, but it’s exactly what happened. 🙂
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Before you read on, my hourly charge for whitegoods is £120/hour (min 2 hours).
I’m a software techie. Things inside computers are my specialty. Especially building new software inside computers to help people organise stuff in real life. I like backups.
Non-programmers often believe that you “write the program” and then afterwards look back it to find any bugs and remove them.
Actually it’s much more like
attempt 1: “swing hammer at nail, hit thumb instead, ow”
attempt 2: “swing hammer at nail, missed nail completely, whoops”
attempt 3: “swing hammer at nail, hit nail, discover that nail is too long, ffs”Some of it is more elaborate “if the light stopped working when I put in that last nail, did I infact nail through the power circuit?”
Well friends, yesterday the ultimate first world catastrophe occurred:
The dishwasher stopped draining.Now generally I have a policy of not putting my fingers in whitegoods, printers and anything without a save/backup/version control system, but possibly naively, I wondered “how hard can it be?”
The problem with the dishwasher was that it wouldn’t drain.
I ruled out a blockage downstream of the dishwasher outflow.
I discovered it wasn’t gravity-drained, but pump-drained, and immediately turned my attention to figuring out how to learn more about that.I found a forum all about fixing problems with whitegoods, and shared my dishwasher model and problem. Within an hour on a bankholiday Sunday evening, the moderator replied, advising me how to access my pump and inspect it. What a hero!
First thing this monday, I spreadeagled myself on the kitchen floor – removing various inspection panels and trying to bend my nose into places to see better.
Dishwashers combine two favourite ingredients – 240v mains and water. And often drains. A slurpalicious mix. A degree of wiseness, and sensible use of the isolation switches is healthy.
After failing to get the pump off, and giving up, I managed to get the pump off. It’s a system like random parts of a car, where everything is held together by magical plastic clips that you can’t see, but need to press in a certain way from a certain angle.
The interior of the pump – to my surprise – looked fine. Clean. Clear. The “propeller bit” (called an “impellor” by people who know what they’re talking about) had fallen off the pump in the act of removing it, so I stuck it back on. I checked the waste pipe downstream of the pump, and it seemed clear, so I put the pump back on, powered up the doshwisher, and gave it a try.
This is a page from the school of fixing shit that says “take it apart, blow on it, put it back together again, 3/7 times it’ll work again”.
Readers: it did not work again. Instead it started rapidly leaking water out of the pump! Bad bad bad bad terrible bad naughty pump.
I bailed the water back out of the dishwasher sump and thought about giving up again.
Instead I posted on the forum about what I’d done and seen, and was told that if the impeller had fallen off, the pump was probably about to fail and I’d need a new pump (and here’s a link to one I could get – £22 inc vat).The dishwasher is almost new, and I figured even if the pump needed replacing, I’d have to get the old one off. I tried to redo the konami code to get the clip undone. It didn’t work. I couldn’t get the pump off again!
I tried for about another hour. I gave up. I got my partner to have a go. She also gave up.
My baby had a look. He said “ooook”.
An hour later, I had another go. This time, it clicked and I got the pump off again. The impeller had fallen off again.
I put it back on, put the pump back in, and turned the doshwisher on.
It started leaking again. I instantly turned it off. Isolated it. Bailed the water back out.
I wanted to give up. I’d made everything worse. Now it was dangerous where as before it just hadn’t worked.
I yoinked the pump out again, this time getting it right first time, and I had a really good inspect of the impeller and yoinked it and the magnet assembly entirely out of the motor. I then scrunched it back together, and put it back in the pump.
I then really really carefully put the pump back on, and tried to make sure it felt on perfectly.
I turned the dishwasher on…. and it started draining itself out of the waste pipe!
After a few more tests, and putting all the inspection plates and trimmings back on… it works!
It’s entirely possible that the pump may still need replacing, and getting enough access to the area to do that would be a pain, but it isn’t too intimidating.
I don’t love fixing dishwashers, so if anyone is willing to pay a frankly ridiculous hourly fee – I’ll come and look at yours. I won’t be looking as a favour for anyone! I’d prefer to focus on software, and suggest that professionals may swear less than me!
[photo of my son “helping” and saying “oook” ]
So I took it off, and it seemed in pretty good condition. The impeller had fallen off the spindle-bit from removing it, but I poked it back on, and it seemed to turn in the way one would expect. It wasn’t clogged with anything. There were a few bits of floppy pasta lying around, but nothing I could see being a problem.
I checked that there was a connection from the waste-pipe to the pump, and that seems to be “fine”. There is some(?) resistance but I think there’s also a u-bend. Blowing down the pipe from the drain end, showed water leaking into the sump(and mopped up with sponge) so I reckon that’s ok?
So I put the pump on, and ran the dishwasher.
(the “try taking everything apart, and putting it back together again and see if that helped – school of troubleshooting”)
Almost immediately, I started to notice a leak from near the pump, filling up the sump. So I stopped the dishwasher, and started trying to get it off again. I assume I’ve either poorly refit it (crossthreaded?) or damaged the seal (let’s hope not).
Unfortunately, now I can’t get it off again – despite having written myself the note that says “there’s a bit on the top to depress” – I either can’t find it, or it won’t depress or something.
Sigh: https://xkcd.com/349/
https://custom-images.strikinglycdn.com/res/hrscywv4p/image/upload/c_limit,fl_lossy,h_9000,w_1200,f_auto,q_auto/2618268/280154_852909.jpgI may take a break and come back to it.
