My Whirlpool dishwasher’s manual says the incoming water should be at 120 F. But, from what I understand, dishwashers connect to a cold water line. What’s the story here? (My main concern is that the dishwasher is no longer getting hot enough to clean the dishes. I do have hard water, and I wonder if the heating element is reduced in effectiveness or damaged. We have tried running the dishwasher empty with two cups of vinegar placed in the bottom rack, as the manual suggests. Also, we are trying to run the dishwasher empty with some citric acid in it - a recommended home remedy.) The dishwasher is four years old now. This issue of not cleaning [and not drying (even with Jet Dry)] has started in the last week or two. We believe the dishwashing soap (detergent) is opening at the right time.
In the United States at least, dishwashers are hooked to the hot water only. There is no cold water connection. I understand this is different elsewhere.
Not crazy, just not done the same way as in the States.
There’s a heater in the dishwasher.
I’m not sure about our dishwasher, but the clothes washer in our place is hooked to the cold water line. This is in Australia. When I want hotter wash water than tap temperature, which isn’t often, there’s a heater in the washer for that. That way, it heats no more than it needs to.
Sorry for the double post, but I just hunted up the installation manual for our dishwasher.
It recommends connection to a cold water line, and says that hot water connection is optional, but only under certain conditions (max temp, pressure, etc).
I believe, but could be wrong, that hard water causes issues with heating elements when the element is so covered in deposits from the water that it’s effectively insulated. You’d be able to see that. If you ever drain a water heater, often times you’ll find chunks of stuff coming out with the water. When all that sediment fills up the bottom foot or so of the heater it can making it harder for the gas burner to get heat into the tank or cover the lower heater in the case of an electric water heater.
Running vinegar may help clean the inside of the dishwasher and/or the pump, but I don’t think it’s going to help with your heating issue.
If you think your heater isn’t working, you could try opening the dishwasher 20 or 30 minutes after it’s started and see if expected cloud of steam comes billowing out or if the water is cold/colder than expected. If the water is cold, it may be an issue with the heating element, the wiring, the circuitry or relays that control it or something else.
However, the easiest fix is likely going to be to simply move the connecting to the hot water side.
What’s the model of the washer? Does it have a filter that may need to be cleaned? Have you checked the manual for troubleshooting tips?
If it worked find for 4 years and then stopped working fine, I’m inclined to believe something changed (as opposed to getting gradually worse). Maybe the heater did break. Is someone different loading it? If it’s being loaded differently (or incorrectly) because of who’s doing it, that could cause issues. I’ve seen at least 2 cases where one person always loaded it, then one day a different member of the household did it and didn’t realize, for example, that having a big bowl on the bottom rack in just the wrong place prevented the top rack from getting sprayed. The other person, knowingly or not, never put anything there.
TL;DR
What’s the model?
Any change in who or how it’s loaded?
Check the manual.
Read the owner’s manual, it could be either hot or cold. I believe many in the US connects to hot. The reason seems to be time savings, and perhaps our 110V standard, while Europe is more energy consciences and have 220V to play with as their standard - so they can heat that water faster, plus from what I’ve seen many of their appliances take longer then we are used to in the US.
Other people have commented on the hot/cold thing (I’m in the UK, my dishwasher connects to cold and heats it up), but if I hear about a dishwasher that suddenly loses cleaning efficacy, I think the spray arms aren’t going around, either at all or not as fast as the should. They could be blocked - it’s worth seeing if you can get them off (in mine it’s a simple unscrew of a knurled nut) and then rinsing them through.
My Kitchenaid dishwasher manual says that it requires a connection to a hot water supply line at 120F at the dishwasher.
Mine is connected to a hot water line, but there is no way the water gets anywhere near that temp, as the kitchen sink takes about a minute before the hot water begins to feel lukewarm. Actually, let me just check to see what temp the water is when I run the dishwasher.
tip toes off
Looks like after filling, the water in my dishwasher is 70F. My water out of my cold tap in the kitchen is 64F. The dishwasher still ends up cleaning properly. I know I could let the hot water run until it does finally get hot, but I’ve never bothered. I suppose I could possibly/probably be eating into the lifetime of the heating element; I’ve only had this dishwasher for two and a half years now, but no problems with the heating element yet.
Why would that be crazy? There’s a heating element in the dishwasher, there’s a thermostat, and apparently it’s more efficient to heat the water in the dishwasher, anyway, so why would it matter if the incoming water is hot or cold if the unit is designed to accomodate cold water. It sounds like it would be better to use cold water, though perhaps slightly slower.
I always run the hot water at the sink until I can feel hot (or at least) warm water coming from the tap before turning on the dishwasher for just that reason. I’d be willing to bet the manual for your dishwasher suggests you do that as well, especially if it wants 120 degree water.
Well, I’ll push my luck and be the guinea pig to let y’all know when the dishwasher heating element finally gives up the ghost. Keep this page bookmarked! (I also don’t like running the water needlessly, as I have a water efficient model, so doing that kind of kills that efficiency. Like I seriously would have to run the water on my kitchen tap for over a minute to get it to 120F, unless the hot water had been run recently there before. When I need hot water for a pot, I go to the bathroom tub which almost instantly produces hot water.)
Mine’s a 5 year old Maytag, and it says in the manual that it likes the incoming water temp at 120 for optimum operation.
That said, our water heater recently went out, and it ran just fine getting tap cold water (probably 55 or so) because it also has an inbuilt heater that heated the incoming water up to the requisite temperature anyway.
I’d be surprised if the element broke before something else happened that makes you replace the entire unit. Like a broken or loud motor that costs $300 to replace.
When our now 10 y.o Kitchenaid stopped cleaning effectively I broke out the manual and pulled apart the spray arms and the filter/chopper assembly which was full of goo and other bits including chunks of glass.:eek: Cleaned all that out , ran some vinegar on a sterilization cycle and she cleaned as good as new.
On my last dishwasher I did that regularly, whenever I noticed a problem and it always helped as well.
But as the unit got older, and louder, I eventually replaced it. I was amazed at how much cleaner everything was. Glasses that I thought were just getting etched after a decade of use came out spotless. Over the next few weeks I ran a lot of ‘clean’ stuff through it that I don’t use often, just to get back to being spotless.
American dishwashers use household hot water. European dishwashers have integral heaters.
Now there may be the odd euro one made for the us market without a heater but I haven’t seen one.
(I also don’t like running the water needlessly, as I have a water efficient model, so doing that kind of kills that efficiency. Like I seriously would have to run the water on my kitchen tap for over a minute to get it to 120F, unless the hot water had been run recently there before. When I need hot water for a pot, I go to the bathroom tub which almost instantly produces hot water.)