Fisher & Paykel DishDrawer not draining in El Granada
Problem: One drawer worked, the other did not. The owners of a Fisher & Paykel double DishDrawer (model DD605I) in El Granada called us because the top drawer would not drain at the end of a cycle. The bottom drawer washed and pumped out exactly as it should.
Diagnostics: That split is the useful clue. A DishDrawer is not one dishwasher with two doors, it is two dishwashers stacked in one cabinet, and each drawer has its own motor, its own pump and its own wiring. A bottom drawer that behaves rules out the drain line, the disposal connection and the house plumbing in one go, because both drawers share them. So the fault had to be in the top drawer itself. Our technician pulled the drawer and opened the underside to get at the motor. The stator was intact and the windings looked fine, but the electrical side was not: green corrosion on the motor terminal where the yellow lead lands, more of it eating into the solder pads of the small control board beside the coil, and a connector further down the harness so crusted over that the plastic body was stained through. Copper turns that colour when moisture sits on it long enough. Under a dishwasher there is always some, and out here on the coast the salt air does the rest.
Solution: He cleaned the corroded terminals back to metal and remade the connection between the harness and the drain motor, so the motor gets full voltage again instead of whatever was making it through a mound of verdigris.
Result: The top drawer pumps out at the end of a cycle again, and both drawers are back on normal duty. Worth knowing if you run a DishDrawer: when one drawer misbehaves and the other is perfectly happy, the problem is almost never the drain you share with the sink. It is something inside that one drawer, and it is usually cheaper to chase than people expect.
If one drawer of your DishDrawer has stopped draining, or a drawer is leaving standing water behind, we service Fisher & Paykel dishwashers across the Coastside: Half Moon Bay, El Granada, Moss Beach and Montara.
