We bought a fixer-upper last year equipped with a fetching green Kitchenaid/Hobart KDS-16. It works, if not particularly well, especially drying. I've not taken close look at it until now due to other more pressing problems with the house. However I recently noticed the linoleum at the foot of the machine starting to bubble up. I removed the toe kick plate to find the floorboards underneath soaked. I also found water trickling from a port half-way up the left-hand side into the tub, flooding to the level of the heating coil (presumably why it hadn't been drying well?) It took a couple of cancel/drain cycles to fully remove all water from the inside.
I'm wondering about my next move. I've left floorboards exposed and them seem to be drying out. I can probably find and fix the lea just by inspectionk. However I don't know where to start with the drainage problem?
Can anyone recommend a repair company in Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley? I coincidently had an appliance repairman out last week for our vintage caloric-ray oven and he wouldn't even take a look at the dishwasher and said it should just be thrown out on the first problem. I just rang the local hobart service center and they don't look at residential appliances and couldn't think of anyone to recommend.
I'd hate to junk something without attempting a repair but the wife wants a working dishwasher stat...
Thanks!
Post# 735739 , Reply# 1 2/16/2014 at 22:01 (3,714 days old) by stevet(West Melbourne, FL)
Sounds like you may have 1 or 2 problems to deal with.
The only port on the left side, half way up would be the air gap where the water enters the tank to fill the machine.These will often clog up with lime scale if the water is particularly hard but even moderately hard water will do the same thing and cause a leak to form because the water cannot flow into the tank due to a restricted opening in the air gap. It overflows the air gap top and runs down the side of the machine.
You did not show any pictures of the inside of the machine as some of the really early 16 series machines continued using the 15 series rubber air gap which was prope to leaking and cracking. Later machines went over to a plastic one. So you may want to check there.
The other problem was that you said you saw water trickling into the machine and that the water level was high?
If the water keeps running into the machine when it is off, then the fill solenoid is bad and will need to be replaced. It had a dual chambered valver where if one portion of the valve failed, the other would stop the leak. But that wasn't 100% reliable either. My own KDS15 had its valve fail and the water leaked down thru the floor into the boiler room, but it did not leak for long as the water came flooding right out from the front of the door.
You can get a replacement valve under part number 4170000 and it is a simple repair.
See if this helps you determine what is wrong and maybe you can investigate further and let us know.
Thanks for the reply. In the end I ran out of time and just replaced the dishwasher. If anyone near Sherman Oaks wants a non-functional KDS-16 for their collection or parts let me know in the next few days before I leave it out for recycling.
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