Cleaning the Dishwasher

(Jan, 2009)

One would think that of all the things in one's house that need cleaning, surely one wouldn't need to clean a dishwasher. Because, you know, its job is to clean things, so surely it cleans itself as a side-effect.

And one would be wrong.

I did this a few years back, but neglected to document it. This time, I remembered the camera before I'd really gotten started.

Here's the inside of the dishwasher. At this point, all I'd done is remove the dishracks and the lower spray rotor thingie.

Notice the mildewy traces on that bottom drain assembly. Doesn't look all that great, but that's easily scrubbed off. No big deal. It's what's under the assembly that's really disgusting.

EWWW! What is that? EWWW!

Go on. Look closer! Get right in there!

That's some serious caked-on funk.

Don't look at me all disgusted like that. This is in YOUR dishwasher, too.

All the removable bits were pretty funked up, too. I scrubbed them in the sink, but I had to scrub the bottom of the pan in-place.

This is the inside after the initial scrubbing. I'd scrub it out, pour a bunch of water in to rinse, then suck the water out with my shop vac. Repeat a couple more times until clean.

Just to be thorough, I poured in some Oxy-Clean, boiling water, and bleach. It got all bubbly. Sucked that out with the shop vac, too.

And here's the final result, all put back together.

We've been having a problem with the dishwasher leaking when it was running. See that little round thing on the lower right? It's a float that controls the water level. It was all caked up with funk. I'm pretty sure that that had something to do with the leaking, because the caked-up float was letting too much water into the thing.