Is Your Dishwasher Not Drying Dishes?

It may not be the primary function but drying your plates might in actual fact be harder for your dishwasher than cleaning them. Crockery and cutlery and cups have multiple nooks and crannies that could collect dishwater making it more difficult for it to evaporate, thus as your dishwasher cools down water condenses out of the steam.

Different machines also make use of a variety of different means to dry your plates. Certain models will have a heating element to heat up the air in the dishwasher and help the water to evaporate, some heat the water further near the final rinse, some have a fan, and some use a mix of all of these. There are consequently a variety of reasons why your machine could not be drying dishes optimally and a number of options to improve the situation.

Plastic is more difficult to dry than other materials as it doesn’t retain heat in the same way which helps with the drying process, so it’s worth seeing whether the drying issue is related to the material rather than the machine.

If dishes are coming out wet you can call a dishwasher repair service or first use this troubleshooting guide to help you identify and rectify the issue.

Top Reasons Your Dishwasher Isn’t Drying Crockery and Cutlery

Few things are more annoying than a home appliance that doesn’t work as it’s meant to, regardless of whether its a smartphone, washing machine or dishwasher we expect them to do the job they were designed for. If you open your dishwasher to discover wet plates here are a number of troubleshooting tips to help you figure out the issue.

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

Have a Look at the Placement of Your Plates

It might be that there is no fault with the appliance. Before assuming the dishwasher is not working you should first check that you haven’t overloaded it or accidentally stacked items one inside the other. Also be aware that plastic items don’t dry as well as metal, glass or ceramics.

Check The Rinse Aid Dispenser

Rinse aid plays a key role in drying your dishes thus, if you have run out of rinse aid or the rinse aid dispenser is broken this can result in wet crockery and cutlery at the end of the cycle.

Visually inspect the rinse aid dispenser for damage and ensure that there is rinse aid inside.

Inspect The Heating Element

Heat is essential for drying your crockery and cutlery so a broken heating coil might be the reason your appliance is not working as it should. If your dishes don’t feel hot when they come out of the machine this can mean that the heating coil is broken.

To check the heating element you will need to unplug the machine, locate the heating element, you could need the owners manual to do this, then use a multimeter to check it’s working.

Inspect the Thermostat

The thermostat prevents your machine getting too hot, determining the heat of the water and air during drying. Therefore, if it’s not working this can result in your dishwasher not heating up at all.

If the heating coil appears to be working as it should but there’s still no heat, then the thermostat might be at fault. Again you can test this with the help of a multimeter.

Inspect The Fan and Vent

Many dishwashers will use a drying fan and vent to remove the warm moist air from the dishwasher. If the fan isn’t operating as is should or the vent is blocked then the hot air will remain in the machine preventing the dishes from drying.

You can utilize your manual to find out if your appliance uses a fan and locate it. Don’t forget to make sure the appliance is unplugged before attempting to make repairs.

First visually inspect the fan and vent to check if anything is blocking it that would prevent it from functioning as it is supposed to. And again testing for continuity using a multimeter.

Ideas to Increase Drying Power

There are a variety of things you can do to increase your appliances effectiveness at drying and make sure you need to get the drying up cloth out as infrequently as possible.

Don’t overfill the machine. Overcrowding the machine limits the flow of both water and air making cleaning and drying your crockery and cutlery harder. It may be appealing to cram everything in but you will get better results if you leave enough space so that plates are not touching.
Make use of rinse aid. Some dishwasher tablets already have this but even so, adding a separate rinse aid to the machine will do no harm. 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 cycle. Some newer models do this automatically, but if yours doesn’t, opening the dishwasher when the cycle finishes can help allow the water to escape and prevent water droplets forming as the dishwasher cools down.
Have a look to see if your machine employs a heat feature and make sure it’s turned on. Setting a higher heat will result in improved drying times and you might be able to choose which points in the cycle you increase the temperature.
Think about how you unload your machine. 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 call in an engineer or perhaps replace your dishwasher.