Took me 4 hours to find a clogged drain hose on a Whirlpool dishwasher

The thing was drying fine but leaving water in the sump, and I chased a bad check valve for 3 hours before noticing the hose had a tiny kink right where it meets the disposal. Has anyone else had a hidden kink waste their whole afternoon?

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2 Comments

mason8472mo ago

Man, those tiny kinks are the worst. Had the exact same thing with a Bosch dishwasher that drove me nuts for an afternoon. I finally started running a shop vac through the hose before anything else now, it pulls out any hidden crud plus you can feel if the hose has a weird bend. Another trick is to run hot water down the disposal before pulling the hose, it softens up any grease that might be hiding a kink. Saves you from chasing ghosts for hours.

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blairj552mo ago

Your hot water trick is just gonna make things worse half the time. I've seen guys flush all that grease down and it just ends up solidifying deeper in the pipe later that same week. Shop vac through the hose is fine if you've got nothing better to do but most people don't keep one under the sink. The real issue is people overcomplicating dishwashers when they fail. A kink is a kink, you can feel it by just running your hand down the hose with the power off. If you can't find it there, it's probably not the hose at all. Too many folks blame the hose when it's actually a bad drain pump or a clog in the air gap. Spend an hour with a shop vac and you still might miss the real problem sitting right in front of you.

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