How to Clean a Dishwasher

Start with the food you can reach

Food caught below the rack can smell and recirculate during a wash. Grease clings to the interior, while hard-water minerals leave a different, chalky deposit. We'd remove the food first because no cleaning tablet can lift a scrap trapped in the filter.

Let spraying stop and steam subside before reaching inside a machine that has just run. Empty it, including the racks. A Normal cycle commonly takes about 2 to 3 hours; look at the display for the time left on the hot cleaning cycle you select.

1. Lift food, grit, and wet paper labels from the tub floor. The floor should have no loose scraps before you use a cleaner.
2. Wipe the tub edges, inner door lip, seal folds, and detergent-cup edges with a soft cloth and warm water with a little mild dish soap. Wipe the seal dry; visible grime should be gone.
3. If the machine has a removable filter beneath the lower rack, take it out, wash it, and lock it back in place. The mesh should be clear and the filter should sit flush.
4. Look through the upper and lower spray-arm holes. Clear visible blockages and turn each arm to confirm it moves freely. It should move without hitting a rack.
5. With every part reinstalled and the machine empty, put a dishwasher cleaner where its package directs and start the cycle printed there. Use a dishwasher descaler instead if chalky white scale is the remaining problem.
6. When the cycle ends and the steam subsides, look for loose debris or greasy film and notice whether the odor has eased. Run a normal load with detergent to confirm that dishes wash and the tub drains normally.

Wash the filter and the grime around the door

1. For a removable filter, turn its locking piece counterclockwise to release it and lift it out. Separate coarse and fine pieces if they come apart without force. You should be able to see the food caught on each piece.
2. Rinse the pieces under warm running water. Use a little mild dish soap and check your filter's instructions before choosing a cleaning tool: use a sponge for GE's Ultra Fine Filter and a soft brush only when the filter's instructions allow it, then rinse until the openings are clear. Skip wire brushes and scouring pads because they can damage the mesh.

3. Look into the exposed filter opening. Lift out visible scraps rather than brushing them deeper into the sump. The accessible opening should be clear when you finish.
4. Put each filter piece back in its seat and turn the locking piece clockwise until it locks or clicks. Press lightly around the edge: it should sit flush, stay down, and no longer turn freely.

Never run a dishwasher that requires a removable filter with that filter out or loose. Food can reach the parts it protects. If the mesh is torn or the lock is broken, replace the filter with one matched to the machine before running it. For a closer look at the pieces and their seating, use our dishwasher filter cleaning steps.

Lift grime from the folds without pulling the seal out of its channel, then wipe it dry. Wipe residue from the detergent cup with a damp cloth, without prying at its hinge. After the next wash, the cup should be open and its edges free of old detergent.

Make sure the spray arms can turn

Blocked holes interrupt the water spray and can leave a section of dishes dirty. Inspect the lower and upper arms, including the underside of an arm attached to a rack.

1. After the interior cools, turn each arm by hand and look through its holes. Food in a hole or an arm that catches on a rack gives you a place to start.
2. Remove an arm only when the machine's removal instructions show its fitting. A lift-off arm pulls from its seat; a threaded retainer releases by turning its nut counterclockwise. If removal is not described, leave the arm attached and clean the holes you can reach.
3. Run warm water through a removed arm and shake loose debris out. Gently loosen material in blocked holes with a toothpick, then flush again. Keep the toothpick from enlarging the openings. For an attached arm, loosen visible material and rinse it away with water.
4. Refit a lift-off arm until it seats or clicks, or tighten a threaded retainer in the reverse direction. Turn each arm by hand through a full rotation. It should move smoothly without wobbling or striking the rack.

Before the test load, turn the arms again with dishes and utensils in place. Move any pan or long utensil that strikes one. If an arm remains blocked inside, is cracked, repeatedly comes off, wobbles after refitting, or still cannot turn freely, cleaning has reached its limit. If the filter and arms are clear but the upper rack alone still washes poorly, follow the upper-rack cleaning checks.

Match the treatment to what remains

White deposit that wipes off with a little vinegar or lemon juice points to hard-water minerals, which call for descaler rather than more scrubbing. We recommend choosing by the residue you can see, then running one treatment at a time.

Dishwasher cleaner tablets commonly go in the detergent cup, while some powders go on the tub floor. Read the placement printed on your product, then choose Machine Clean or a full hot wash in the empty machine.

1. For grease or odor-causing film, put dishwasher cleaner in the empty machine at the spot printed on its package. Keep bleach out of this cycle, as the CDC's chlorine safety guidance (opens in a new tab) directs. Run its hot full-wash or machine-clean setting. When the cycle finishes, the tub should have less film and smell fresher.
2. For chalky scale, empty the machine and use a dishwasher descaler without detergent. Follow its printed amount and timing: some go in before the cycle and others after it starts. Run the hot wash it calls for and look for reduced white deposits.
3. If the descaler calls for another wash or rinse, run that empty cycle before loading dishes. If white scale remains in the tub, repeat the mineral treatment as directed. Grease that remains instead calls for physical wiping and dishwasher cleaner.

If the smell or water is still there

After the cleaning cycle, look across the tub floor and around the filter. A stale smell should ease. A little water down in the filter well can be normal; water spread across the tub floor after a finished cycle needs a drain check.

If water remains across the floor, first look at the display and confirm that the wash finished. A pause or loss of power can leave water behind. Restart or reset an interrupted cycle and let it finish; if the water clears, the cycle was the issue. If it remains, clean the removable filter and carefully lift visible scraps from its opening.

1. With the dishwasher off, look under the sink for a drain hose pinched or kinked in the visible run. Straighten a kink and confirm that the sink itself drains. These observations separate a dishwasher obstruction from a sink-drain problem.
2. If there is an air gap on the sink, lift off its cover and plastic cap. Remove visible debris with a soft brush or toothpick, rinse the cap, and refit both pieces. A clear opening lets the dishwasher's drain water pass.

3. If the dishwasher drains through a disposer, look for food waste obstructing it. After a recent disposer installation, confirm that its dishwasher-inlet knockout plug was removed. Run the disposer to clear waste without reaching inside.
4. Run a complete cycle and look at the tub again. Only the usual small amount in the filter well should remain. If water still pools across the floor, the owner drain checks are finished.

Don't pour chemical drain opener into a dishwasher. Stop using it and arrange service if water still pools after those checks, a sewage-like odor persists, a leak appears, an arm cannot turn after refitting, or a normal test load remains poorly cleaned. For a drainage problem that needs more detail, use the dishwasher-not-draining checks; for an odor that returns between loads, use the dishwasher odor checks.

For the $240 to $770 wash-pump repair, a factory assembly costs $160 to $520 and labor runs $75 to $125 an hour for 1 to 2 hours. One typical build is a $340 assembly plus 1.5 hours at $100 an hour, or about $490. Shops mark parts up over retail, so the parts line on a quote can run above these part prices. Replacement assumes existing water, drain, electrical, and cabinet connections.

Contact the maker or an authorized appliance servicer if warranty coverage may apply; otherwise call a qualified appliance repair service. If the sink drain is the confirmed problem, call a plumber. Give them the brand, model, approximate age, any error code, whether the smell is stale food or sewage-like, where water remains, and which filter, arm, hose, air-gap, and disposer checks you completed. Name the cleaner or descaler used and tell them how the test load washed and drained; warranty coverage can change your bill.

Keep the clean result between loads