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davidrt28

Kenmore (possibly other brand) dishwasher cleaning advice

davidrt28 (zone 7)
10 years ago

Hello...this is definitely an informational post instead of a question. But I hope to keep anyone else from going through the struggle I did. I can't find anything else on the internet relating a similar problem, but it could explain some of the mysterious issues people have w/DWers not getting dishes clean, even after using dishwasher cleaner.

Inside of DW was looking a little rusty. Not really thinking, I said to myself, "ok, I'll run a bit of CLR it in, it's _very_ good at removing rust stains in the bathroom" Oops, didn't realize in addition to a mix of organic acids, CLR has a pretty strong surfactant. I had a bubble over incident. No big deal, on the old analog dishwashers its easy to force it to go into rinse cycle. No harm done. I thought.

For about 6-8 cycles since then, the dishes were just not getting clean. They would have a grayish slime left over everything. I (somewhat correctly) surmised the acids might have stirred up a lot of junk that wasn't draining and it was not somehow stuck down inside the unit. Mind you, this is one of the cheaper, mid range older Kenmore that doesn't have a grinder, just a pump with a couple guards. So I figure out how to tediously disassemble the base of it. This came in handy: http://forum.appliancepartspros.com/dishwasher-repair/11330-whirlpool-kenmore-dishwasher-impeller-replacement.html
Much to my surprise, it was clean as a whistle down there. I ran another load, and saw the same deposits.

Lucky break: was double checking the wash arms during a cycle, and noticed what looked like a thin margin of wet bread crumbs stuck to the lower margin of the door. This was in the middle of the main cycle so I didn't know how it could have not been washed away yet. I ran my fingers along this plastic lip, at the bottom of the door. More food. The I really started to feel around. Now the utter disgust started.

Apparently, most (all?) dishwashers have what I'd call an "overflow baffle" near the bottom of the door; but it really isn't noticeable unless you are looking for it and I'd never recognized it before. I don't know what it is really called, my made up name doesn't turn up in google The point is to let water spill into your kitchen if something causes it to begin overfilling/overflowing. Instead of filling the entire basin and backflowing into your plumbing, or busting the door from pressure, or hitting the electrical parts...whatever. The problem is the entrance to this baffle is
1) right above the normal level of water
2) not protected by much of a grate...the openings are about 1/3" by 1.25" and there must be at least 10 of them.
3) not designed in a way to make it self cleaning

I think what happened was when I caused the unit to overflow, all of the food stuck up in that baffle from years of splashing and drying was loosened up, and started dripping back into the DW during each cycle. That's why the initial overflow caused all subsquent cycles to be dirty. I realized there would be no easy way to get the stuff out w/o disassembling the door. Once I did what I found was completely gross. There must have been a good solid cup of smelly gross slop accumulated in there. I wondered why I didn't have dysentery. And quite idiotically, the cavity is open to the very front of the DW panel, including the cardboard sound insulation. There really should be an additional piece of plastic to act as a backsplash, but there isn't. It was all small unrecognizable particles...think ground up tuna fish or something. And it was very greasy. I vacuumed, scooped, used a garden pump sprayer filled with hot water & detergent. Finally got it all out. The next round of dishes was crystal clear again!

BTW I refused to pay for that expensive single use DW cleaning stuff. I had ordered a couple pounds of citric acid on ebay for another purpose, and I'd actually tried using some before to remove the iron stains, but I just didn't use enough...only a few tablespoons, which is why I then tried the CLR. I read up on how much acid the dedicated product actually contained. Letting it go through a light cycle, set to water heat, and using a little over 1/2 cup of citric acid got rid of all the stains. Thing looks brand new except for a few rusty spots on the racks.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Sun, Nov 9, 14 at 17:42

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