Having recently moved to an extremely humid area I was not happy with how mildewy the dishwasher was getting between uses earlier this summer. I live alone, don’t go through the many dishes most of the time and they were sitting in that damp environment too long. Wash my dishes in a moldy, mildewy environment? It just wasn’t very appetizing so I decided to quit using the dishwasher and hand wash for the remainder of the summer.

Now it’s October and I’m getting ready to sell the house so I thought it was time to go back to using the dishwasher — make sure it clean and working properly. I opened it up and sure enough — mold and mildew despite the fact I had cleaned and dried it after I stopped using it. A little online research and I decided to throw in some bleach and run a heavy-duty cycle to sanitize it.

I was about to walk out the door to take the dogs to the park when I thought I hadn’t used the dishwasher in a while so maybe I should check it before leaving. OMG! There was water all over the kitchen floor. Talk about a panic. The kitchen is over a finished basement and I did NOT want to ruin the drywall down there.

While redoing the kitchen I had discovered there were 3 layers of flooring in. The bottom layer is a lovely orange indoor/outdoor carpet, the middle a rigid tile, the top the current vinyl flooring. I knew the carpet would be soaking up a ton of water so I had to hurry.

I turned if off, but the water kept pouring out. I got a bucket and started bailing the water out of it. It was still leaking while I did this.

Warning: Always assume someone before you has done something totally stupid to what you’re currently working on. 

I’m working on dragging the dishwasher out from the wall. I am well aware that water and electricity are not a safe mix so I wanted to get the thing out so I could unplug. As I pull it out there is electrical sparking under the dishwasher. What the heck?

I then make 10 trips back and forth to the electrical box until I finally figure out which breaker turns off the dishwasher. Note to self: thoroughly label the electrical box.

I finally get the dishwasher completely out from the cabinets and guess what I discover? Someone somewhere along the way had pulled the electrical connectors that I assume go to the heating element. Did they cap them off? No. Did they wrap them in electrical tape? No. They left them dangling with current running through them so they’d drag through the water and cause an electrical short sending sparks everywhere.

I repeat: Always assume someone before you has done something totally stupid to what you’re currently working on.  Find the circuit breaker first and then move the dishwasher if water is present.

Dishwasher float mechanism stuck

The dishwasher had been fine the last time I used it so I couldn’t image what happened to cause the leak. I got online to research what could have caused the leak after I set up a fan and space heater to start drying out the carpet. I found a stuck float mechanism in the right front corner tends to be a common ailment. Some have washers that fail, my Maytag didn’t have a washer since the tube the float sits in is molded into the bottom of the dishwasher.

My understanding is the float is what tells the dishwasher to stop filling. It rises with the water and releases the switch that turns off the fill. Either the switch or the float had failed on mine.

As suggested in some posts I removed the float and found a lot of solidified gunk in the very top of it. I used a Q-tip to dig it out and get it completely clean.

I removed the switch, cleaned all the years of accumulated gunk off of it and replaced it.

Test run

I had to do a test run to see if I’d solved the problem and I wanted it out on the vinyl floor so I could contain it. If you ever do this, be prepared for the noise. I about had a heat attack when I turned it on, thinking something was terribly wrong, but a dishwasher is just really loud when not encased in cabinets. And my dishwasher model is a “Quiet 300”. No leaking after a 9 minute rinse cycle.

Maybe the gunk inside the float hardened while not being used and froze the float. Who knows? Just glad it’s working properly once again.

Dishwashers are designed to not leak when level

So how do you level a dishwasher once it’s inside the cabinet? I could level it while it was out in the middle of the kitchen, but with all the flooring thicknesses in the cabinet I had no way of knowing if the front to back level would change. I had opted to put 2 strips of 1/4 MDF down to raise the floor in the cabinet to the same level as the rest of the kitchen floor — that way I wouldn’t have to worry where each of the 4 feet were sitting.

Once again — If your dishwasher leaks control the panic over water flowing everywhere long enough to kill the power first. Then start containing the flood. I’m lucky I didn’t zap myself.