Is The Water Turned On?

The first, and most obvious thing to check is, are you even getting water out of your house plumbing? You can start by finding the water valve to your dishwasher fill line, and making sure it is turned on all the way. The most common water valve type to a dishwasher is the screw in and out, oval shaped handle valve. The other common valve type, is the 90 degree shut off valve, which will have a little knob, or a longer handle, that you twist 90 degrees, to turn the valve on or off.

Oval Handle

The oval handle valves, must be turn counter-clockwise, if you want to turn them on, and they must be turned clockwise if you want to turn them off. Be careful with these types of valves, as they are usually built cheaply. These valves tend to stick open, and many times, are very difficult to twist shut. You can easily break the handle trying to shut one of these valves off, as the handles are often made out of plastic, or thin metal. This type of water valve is also notorious for not shutting off all the way, even when it is screwed all the way shut. These “oval handled valves” may drip, or ooze water. . . . even when they are off all the way!

90 Degree Small Knob Handle

The 90 degree shut-off valves are built much better. They shut of quickly, and don’t bind. Their handles don’t break during normal use, and they don’t drip, or ooze water when they are shut off! We highly recommend installing these valves any time you need to replace a valve.

Is The Fill Hose Kinked Or Broken?

Follow the hose from the valve to the dishwasher, and make sure that it has not been kinked, or pinched buy a door or heavy object. Also make sure the hose is not broken and spraying water throughout your house. If the house is broken you will probably know, as your house will be severely flooded. Rubber fill hoses can crack and bulge with age. It is always a good idea to replace the rubber fill hose to your dishwasher every five years, to help prevent leaks or floods.

Frozen Water Line?

In the winter time, we always see frozen water lines to dishwashers. If you suddenly get no water during extreme, cold weather, make sure your fill line is not frozen. Houses have many constructions holes hidden behind the finished construction, and this can allow for cold air to flow between walls, floors, and cabinets. This cold air can find its way to a dishwasher fill line. Sometimes the freezing air will get to components inside the dishwasher, freezing the water that is always present in these parts. When the water inside these parts freezes, it expands, and cracks them. Then when the frozen water melts, it gives way to water pressure, and you have an expensive house flood, with extensive water damage.

While we see only a few cracked dishwasher components during normally cold years, we do see many more cracked parts during extremely cold weather. If you lose water during a cold spell, it is best to have a professional look over your dishwasher, so they can be sure that you will not have a flood on your hands when it all melts.

Time To Call The Pros?!!

Once you have verified that there are no kinks in your hose, the water is turned on, and your line is not frozen, the problem is most likely somewhere inside the dishwasher itself. At this point you should call a knowledgeable repair man, like the ones at Liberty Appliance Service. Liberty Appliance offers excellent repair services to the Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Provo, as well as most towns and cities, along the Wasatch Front, in Utah. We work on all makes and models of dishwashers, as well as all major appliance types. We also repair and maintain furnaces.

The outside glass is easily cleaned with any standard glass cleaner. To access the inner glass, you can just open the oven door. However, the inside glass is not easy to clean, and sometimes you will have a few small food specks bonded to the glass molecules themselves. (silicon dioxide molecules)

Don’t Use Scouring Pads On Glass

At first you may want to scrub the inner glass with a souring pad, but there is usually layer of tint the glass. Scouring pads scratch this tint, and once you scratch it, the scratches will reflect light from certain angles, making the oven window look very ugly.

Cleaning Baked Food Off The Glass

To get all that cooked food to come off the inner glass, you simply applying a thick paste of baking soda and water.

WARNING! Never apply a cold cleaning solution to a hot oven window!  This may crack the glass!

WARNING! Keep the liquid baking soda from seeping through the cracks and to the inside of your oven door! If it seeps through, it will get all over the inside glass panes. Once this happens, you will need to have an appliance tech come out and disassemble your door so you can clean all the layers of glass.

Follow these steps to clean the window:

1. Add water to baking soda until it is as thick as pancake batter.
2. Smear the baking soda paste all over the window.
3. Let the paste soak for 10-15 minutes.
4. Wipe the glass clean with a non abrasive rag or scrubber.
5. After you get most of it off, you can touch the window up with glass cleaner, or a vinegar solution.

To Clean Inner Glass, Call Appliance Service Company

As we already mentioned, the outer most glass is not the only glass that gets dirty. ALL the glass layers inside the door also get dirty, and on BOTH sides of each piece of glass! This means, if you want to get your oven window back to beautiful, you must clean six to eight glass surfaces. The only way to do this is to remove the door, and break it down into all it’s little pieces. We do not recommend you attempt to do this on your own. Often times, people break a piece of glass. The glass usually isn’t cheap.  Especially the outer glass, which is often part of the door frame itself.

At Liberty Appliance, we can remove your oven door, and tear it apart for you, clean it, and then reassemble it.  If you wish, we let you clean the glass yourself, with hot soapy water, or degreaser. This saves you a little money.  There is no reason for you to pay us to clean the glass, when you can easily do that yourself.

We have already warned you, that no matter how long you spend cleaning the inner glass, it might not come all the way clean. You will get most of the filth off, but sometimes minor spots will remain. The food bakes, and binds, to the molecules in the glass. This, however, is not a major concern. Once your oven window is clean, the only way you can get the minor imperfections to stand out, is to turn on the oven light, or shine a bright light directly through the window.

Sometimes articles of clothing can get stuck between the drive shaft and the inner tub’s bushing/bearing, but that is not the only thing that causes binding. We are just now starting to see rust build up in this area. Once rust has built up on these parts, you would normally replace the bushings and/or the drive shaft that the tub spins around.

Unfortunately, the center bushing is molded into the plastic bottom of the inner tub, and the drive shaft only comes with the purchase of the entire outer tub. The suggested retail on these parts starts at $225 for the inner tub, and $250 for the outer tub, plus tax and shipping. Add in the labor, diagnosis, and trip-fee, and you have a repair job that gets up over $700! (2011 prices)

Separating the inner tub from the outer tub, once something has bound them together, is extremely tricky, and should only be attempted by someone with the proper experience and tools. Attempting to break the tubs apart yourself could result in damage to one of the tubs, as well as the motor built into the bottom of the outer tub.

At Liberty Appliance, we have developed our own technique to separate the tubs without further damage to the machine. Once the tubs have been separated, we can figure out what is causing the “oL” error code, and remedy it. If there is a piece of cloth jammed between the tubs, we can simply remove it, and throw it away. If the tubs are rusted together, we can recondition the bushing, and shaft surfaces, extending the life of your machine while saving you money!

Liberty Appliance is the best appliance company you can turn to, for appliance repairs, on all complex high-tech appliances, and washers, such as the Whirlpool Cabrios Washer. We can fix all issues on the Cabrio Washer and Dryer, as well as all other high-efficiency machines. Give us a call, and set up an appointment with a friendly, knowledgeable appliance repairman today, and quickly get your Cabrio Washer back to working condition.

This film might only appear to be affecting your clear glassware, but the film is present on everything, from silverware, to plastic-ware. We have found that the Lemi Shine dishwasher soap additive is very effective, at removing both hard water build-up, and the cloudy white film, from your dishes.

Don’t expect Lemi Shine will to remove all of the build-up on the first load. You must run your dishes through 4 to 6 Lemi Shine cycles, before your dishes become completely clean. Fortunately Lemi Shine is relatively inexpensive, so it won’t empty your pocket book!

Dirty dishes can be caused by many things. Sometimes it is caused by food particles, other times it is caused by mineral deposit build up (i.e hard-water). There has even been some talk about the new phosphate free dish soaps causing this problem. However, the soap manufacturers say the new soap is not the problem. Some people have been buying and adding phosphates to their dishwasher soap, which only negates the entire idea of being environmentally friendly. The makers of Lemi Shine claim that their product is an environmentally safe alternative to phosphates, and is composed of “100% all natural fruit acids and oils.”

Personal experience has suggested that the absence of phosphates does not affect dishes as much as people would think. More often, the dishwasher malfunctions, doesn’t clean or rinse well enough, and then during the dry cycle, it bakes the soapy, hard water residue to the dishes. Regardless of what is causing the dishwasher to malfunction, once this residue is baked onto your dishes, it is almost impossible to get that residue off.

The first thing you must do, is figure out what is causing your dishwasher to bake on the scum, instead of rinsing it off.  This is one of the toughest problems to resolve in the appliance repair business.

If your dishes are coming out dirty,
Check these things first:

• Scrape food off of dishes
• Verify spray-arms are spinning freely
• Run and clear disposal before running dishwasher
• Is the water to dishwasher turned on?
• Remove any kinks form drain hose
• Remove any kinks form fill hose
• Water should be at least 120 degrees (130 recommended)

If you have tried the simple solutions listed above, and are still having trouble, we recommend you call in the experts.

If you live in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo, Utah areas, or anywhere else, along the Wasatch Front, we recommend you call us, Liberty Appliance Service. We are dishwasher repair experts, and can get to the heart of the problem quickly. If you live elsewhere, we still recommend having a professional appliance repair service figure out what is causing your dishwasher to act up.

For example, there are older Sub-Zero refrigerators that have the refrigerator evaporator fan, and the condenser fan, hard-wired to run constantly. This means the condenser and evaporator fans will never shut off, running even when they are not needed. You can turn off both the refrigerator, and the freezer portions of the refrigeration unit, and you will still hear the fans running.

Fortunately, on newer models, Sub-Zero has redesigned their refrigerators to turn fans off whenever they are not needed, but this does not help you if you have an older Sub Zero. Getting the fans to shut off, when they are not needed, is not a straight forward solution. At first you might want to wire the fans directly to the thermostats, but that would make the refrigerator run both compressors, and both fans, whenever either the refrigerator, or the freezer, kick on. Running this much current through a wire or component that is not designed to handle the load might cause a meltdown in the wire or component, which would lead to either a short, or an exposed, dangerous live wire, or component.

The good news is, we have created a fix for this at Liberty Appliance. One of the company owners/founders is an Electrical Engineer, and has come up with our own modification to the old Sub Zero circuitry.  This involves rewiring the components, as well as adding our own circuit to the design.  Once installed this kit will run the condenser and evaporator fans only when they needed. This saves you energy AND helps keep your kitchen quieter.

If you are tired of hearing the non-stop noise that your old Sub Zero makes, would like to save on electricity, and you live in the Salt Lake City area (Wasatch Front), give us a call. We would be more than happy to drive out and install our redesign kit in your Sub Zero refrigerator, so that it only runs the fans when they are needed.