Dishwasher Deathmatch

Last week, I told you about lessons learned from my dishwasher. I missed a few things in that post. First, I really dislike handwashing dishes. Wait, I probably said that, didn’t I?  The real take away since then?  Replacing that fuse is a deathmatch in six rounds.

You see, I wrote that first post several days ago with the luxury of time to make me forget about the last time we changed the fuse. All weekend, I was drinking from a firehose at WANACon, and my husband was working on his truck. The fuse didn’t get fixed.

This is not a one-person job.

Oh, it is on, Dishwasher!
Oh, it is on, Dishwasher!

If you have a Samsung dishwasher, there is a good chance you’ll need to know how to do this if it stops working for no apparent reason (unless you’re willing to pay a handyman). Even if you pay a handyman, you’ll still have to do Deathmatch Rounds 2 and 6 and probably 5.

Deathmatch Round 1

Gather the tools:

  • Crescent wrenches (we had two–not sure if we used them both)
  • Screwdrivers (flathead and Phillips)
  • Pliers (I’m not sure what my husband used these for.)
  • The new fuse (pointless activity without it)
  • Old towels (Lots of them to mop up the water that will drain from the dishwasher)
  • At least 5 hands (two people can handle most of it, but we needed a third person.)

Deathmatch Round 2

Now that you have all the tools, empty all the cabinets in your kitchen. Kidding!  Just empty everything under the sink and the cabinets that the pipes run through.  Our dishwasher is two cabinets away from the sink. I couldn’t bear to take a picture of that mess, but I did take one of the hidden treat stash that we found:

I don't even want to know how old that stuff was...
I don’t even want to know how old that stuff was…

Deathmatch Round 3

Turn off the water under the sink.

Don't forget this step...
Don’t forget this step… This shows the water is on.

Decouple both the intake and drain pipes. This is what ours look like:

In the cabinet next to the cabinet next to the dishwasher
In the cabinet next to the cabinet next to the dishwasher

Some water will leak from the pipes, so have a towel ready. We also used a casserole dish to catch most of the water.

Pull the tubing through the holes into the cabinet next door.  Be prepared for more leakage in the next cabinet over–unless you have only one cabinet to worry about. You need enough slack in the tubing to be able to pull the dishwasher out.

In the cabinet next to the dishwasher
In the cabinet next to the dishwasher…

Deathmatch Round 4

Unscrew the dishwasher baseplate. Rock and pull the sides until the dishwasher is free of the cabinetry.  If it doesn’t want to come out, check the side for a clip that’s keeping it in place. (We remembered that one after much use of creative language.) Be careful of the padding around the top.

Deathmatch Round 5

Use towels to get as much water as possible out of the inside of the dishwasher. If that someone helping you says, “Oh, that’s not much water. Don’t worry about it,” then slap him on the back of the head (Gibbs style from NCIS), and dry out the inside of the dishwasher.  (Yes, I should have done both!)

Stand in front of the dishwasher and lean it forward at a 45-degree angle. If you missed the last step of drying out the standing dishwater, you now have wet socks and water running all over the floor. This when I yelled for The Mockingbird to bring more towels because I didn’t have enough.

She came in handy (there’s that fifth hand) when we realized that my husband was under the dishwasher (unscrewing the fusebox plate), I was holding it up (it was heavy after awhile), and the fuse was on the counter (not the place it needed to be).

How can something this small wreak so much havoc?
How can something this small wreak so much havoc?

After the new fuse goes in, reverse the process.

Deathmatch Round 6

Clean up a huge mess (all the while wondering how that much crap fit in the cabinets), mop the floor, and load the dishwasher with all the dishes you didn’t feel like handwashing earlier.

I’m not sure who won this deathmatch. This was a traumatic experience for me. All that fixing and cleaning at the same time… 😀

I didn’t get a picture of the dishwasher’s nether parts. I imagine if I’d asked my husband to snap a photo while he was down there with old dishwasher water pooling nearby, he might have smacked me on the back of the head when his hands were free. As I’m snapping the other shots, he said, “Let me take it all apart for you again so you can get that picture. NOT.”

Good luck!

No people or dishwashers were injured during the making of this blog.

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