Is Your Dishwasher Not Drying Dishes?

It may not be the primary function but drying your dishes could in actual fact be more arduous for your dishwasher than cleaning them. Crockery and cutlery and cups have multiple nooks and crannies that could collect water preventing it from drying out, and as your machine loses heat water condenses from the steam.

Different machines also employ a variety of means to dry your crockery and cutlery. Certain models opt for a heating coil to heat up the inside of the machine and assist with evaporation, some warm the water further approaching the end of the cycle, others employ a fan, and others have a mix of all three. There are therefore a number of reasons why your dishwasher may not be drying crockery and cutlery fully and a variety of things you can do to rectify the situation.

Plastic items are less likely to dry fully than other materials as it cools down more quickly hindering the drying process, so it’s worth seeing whether the drying issue is related to the material rather than the machine.

If your dishwasher doesn’t seem to be drying properly you can hire a dishwasher repair service or first utilize this troubleshooting list to figure out what the issue is and with any luck fix it.

Top Reasons Your Dishwasher Isn’t Drying Plates

Few things are more annoying than an appliance that isn’t working properly, regardless of whether its a smartspeaker, tumble dryer or dishwasher we expect them to do the job they were made for. If you open your dishwasher to discover wet plates there are a number of troubleshooting tips to help you figure out why.

Not all makes and models are built to the same spec and some dishwashers do a better job of drying your crockery and cutlery than others. However, if if your dishwasher has always dried your crockery and cutlery in the past one of these faults might be the cause.

Have a Look at How Your Machine Has Been Loaded

Sometimes there is nothing actually wrong with the machine. Before assuming the appliance is faulty you should look at how it has been stacked, ensuring it isn’t overloaded. Also be aware that plastics are more difficult to dry than metal, glass or ceramics.

Inspect The Rinse Aid Dispenser

Your appliance needs rinse aid to properly dry your dishes and so if you have run out of rinse aid or your rinse aid dispenser is faulty this can stop your crockery and cutlery coming out properly dry.

Visually inspect the rinse aid dispenser for cracks and check that it’s full.

Have a Look at The Heating Element

Without enough heat your plates will not dry so a broken heating element may be the explanation your machine is not drying dishes. If your dishes aren’t hot to touch when they come out of the machine this can mean that the heating coil isn’t working as it should.

To check the heating element first unplug the appliance, then find the heating coil, you may need the instruction manual to do this, and use a multimeter to check it’s working.

Inspect the Thermostat

The thermostat prevents your machine overheating, adjusting the temperature of the water and the drying part of the cycle. However, if it’s broken this can mean your machine doesn’t heat up at all.

If you check the heating coil and do not uncover an fault but your machine isn’t getting hot, then the thermostat might be the issue. Once again you can check this with the help of a multimeter.

Check The Drying Fan and Vent

Many appliances will utilize a fan and vent to remove the warm moist air out of the dishwasher. If the fan isn’t operating as is should or the vent is blocked then the hot air will condense on the crockery and cutlery instead preventing them from drying.

You can make use of your instruction manual to find out if your machine has a fan and locate it. Again you need to ensure the appliance is disconnected before trying to access the fan.

You can visually inspect the fan and vent to ascertain if there is anything lodged that could stop it from functioning correctly. If there is nothing obvious you can then test for continuity using a multimeter.

Tips to Boost Drying Power

There are a number of things you can do to boost your machines drying ability and ensure you need to get the drying up cloth out as little as possible.

Allow sufficient space between dishes. Overloading the dishwasher inhibits the flow of both water and air decreasing the effectiveness of your dishwasher when it comes to both washing and drying your dishes. Although it’s appealing to try and cram everything in, you will get better results if you leave enough space so that water and air can circulate freely.
Use rinse aid. Some detergents include a rinse aid but even so, adding a separate rinse aid to the machine can only improve matters. Rinse aid works by breaking the bond between water molecules and your crockery and cutlery, helping water run off quickly, speeding up drying time and giving a spot and streak free finish.
Open the door at the end of the program. Some newer machines have this as an automatic function, but if yours doesn’t, opening the dishwasher at the end of the program allows warm air to evaporate and stop water condensing on the plates as the machine cools down.
Find out if your dishwasher uses a heat feature and make sure it’s turned on. Setting a higher heat will result in better drying times and it could be possible to add more heat at different points in the program.
Think about how you unload your dishwasher. This doesn’t affect how effective your machine is, but it prevent and water spilling that has collected in the concave bottoms of cups and glasses.

If you have checked all the above it might be a good idea to phone an engineer or perhaps buy a new dishwasher.