Minimal Stress With Maximum Vigilance - Signs Your Dishwasher Needs Repair

Your home's appliances can save you a great deal of grief by making unpleasant tasks much easier, but in order for that to be possible, you need to stay on top of your maintenance responsibilities. Very few people enjoy washing the dishes by hand, so keeping an eye on your dishwasher can allow you to avoid expensive breakdowns and untimely manual labor.

Below, you'll find a guide to some signs you should keep an eye out for which may indicate your dishwasher needs maintenance. Rather than resigning yourself to soapy hands and a sore back, these problems should reliably give you enough warning to take important corrective actions:

Long Cycles

Very few modern dishwashers used timed cycles, but each of the individual settings should take a reliable amount of time. When you first install your dishwasher or first move into your home, try to pay attention to how long each cycle takes to establish a reliable baseline for later reference.

When that time begins to extend and your dishwasher starts to drag out what may previously have been a short process, it can be a sign that it's not operating at full efficiency. This can cause both your water and energy costs to jump up, so it's important you intervene as quickly as possible.

Leaks

Any time you find water in a place in your home where it's not supposed to be, it's natural to be concerned. A correctly operating dishwasher will drain quickly and efficiently, and should never leave any evidence that a large amount of water was recently swirling around its interior.

If you find water on the floor near your dishwasher or even leaking into the cabinets and drawers surrounding it, you should schedule a repair appointment. Leaks that you can see may be a precursor to leaks that you can't see, and those can risk serious structural issues for your home.

Unpleasant Odors

Food that's left to decompose for a long time can create some incredibly unpleasant odors. Your dishwasher should drain well enough to carry any scraps safely into the sewer, so a funky smell is a sign of a potential problem. If your dishwasher drain becomes clogged, you could have organic material clinging to spots you can't find, which will create an extremely unpleasant environment. Call an appliance repair service like American Appliance INC to address the problem and get your dishwasher clean, clear, and back to functioning like normal.