My dishes have been coming out wet ever since flushing my water heater; my wife started a dishwasher load without telling me while I was in the middle of that project so I’m guessing it ran dry and fucked up the heating element.
I haven’t noticed any issues draining. The dishes are coming out clean but wet. I’ve already run a reset on the board in case there was a fault that wasn’t clearing or something. So now the most likely culprit is a dead element or maybe the switch for it?
I’ve acquired a new heating element and I’m planning on replacing it in hopes of getting dry dishes again today. Any tips beyond what a tutorial on YouTube would already bring up? Open the breaker, close the water valve, have a towel handy for any water that comes out of connections I’m breaking, etc. But maybe you know of some challenges in the process and a sort of life hack to make them easy?
There should be some basic protection for the element in case there is no water, because there’s a possibility that there would be no water , and there’s also a possibility that your dishwasher would catch fire if the element is turned on with no water.
So when you’re looking at the heater element, check that there isn’t a thermal fuse nearby and check that it hasn’t blown.
Possibly your new element will have it incorporated but maybe not.
Replacing the heat element didn’t solve my problem. Thanks to your comment, I did some digging and found that my dishwasher should have a sort of safety shutoff switch which would’ve likely been triggered by a call for heat while the box was empty. I took the dishwasher back out, flipped it on its side, and looked for it. I followed the wires to a switch with a little black button and pressed it. I heard a click.
I haven’t tested it yet, but I think that’s all I had to do lol. Thanks!
Edit: FIXED!
Awesome! You are lucky, some of those devices don’t have a reset - they are just like a fuse and once they are blown they need replacing.
Good to hear it’s all working again, and at least now you know for next time!