James Conley answers:

Honestly, I wouldn’t be without a dishwasher. It saves me a ton of time and energy that I would spend washing dishes. However, they do have their limitations.

Don’t put anything in the dishwasher that you would have to scrub if you washed it by hand. It won’t get clean, despite all the commercials you see saying they remove baked on stuff and such. A dishwasher works well for glasses, coffee/tea cups, plates, dishes, bowls, plastic items, silverware, platters and such. Not so much for pots, pans, skillets, baking pans, cookie sheets, roasting pans. Not good for knives either; dulls them.

Load the unit properly. Read the owner’s manual for specifics on how to load your chosen unit. Use a quality powder detergent and a rinse agent for best results. The liquids have a clay like substance in them that over time will plug up your filters (service call time), the gels don’t dissolve well in water with a decent amount of minerals in and the plastic coated packs don’t either. Add 2 cups of white vinegar to a load once a month. This will keep the water deposits from building up (potential for another service call) and remove any detergent and food residues. Also will keep your drain line cleaned out. Don’t overload the unit either; stuff just won’t get clean.

You do need to scrape the dishes, removing large to medium chunks from them. Pre-washing is not necessary unless you’ve been baking or using something like flour. Hot water + flour = paste and it won’t come off.

You can get a decent unit for around $400, less if you watch sales. Whirlpool and Bosch are usually the top rated units, Kitchenaid is pretty good also. Don’t buy a brand that you don’t have a service center for in your area. You can buy all brands at a big box store but they aren’t the ones who will be servicing the unit should you have problems. This might require a few phone calls and some searching online for authorized repair centers but is time well spent. That is the biggest reason I buy from our local appliance store. He services what he sells. Yeah, it costs a little more to buy local but I know that if I have an issue, he will be right there to deal with it. I’ve used the same appliance guy for almost 25 years now. He’s never steered me wrong on a unit, has always been on the spot if I have an issue and has even come on weekends if it’s a true disaster! Our old fridge was letting us know that it wasn’t going to work much longer = freezer side was not freezing. 25 years old, not even worth a service call. We went out and picked out a new unit that day. He rearranged his entire delivery schedule for the next day to get us our new fridge before the weekend because he was convinced that if he didn’t the old one would quit over the weekend. 9am the next morning, my new fridge was delivered and installed. You won’t get that service at a big box store.

James Conley answers:

First make sure the plug socket is OK.Plug something else in to it to prove.
Common faults on older dishwashers of any make. Door interlock switch, wiring loom fractured at the bottom of the door, failure of the mains filter/interference suppressor capacitor, Failure of the programmer/timer.
If the loom or timer, repairs wont be cheap. Get a local appliance repairer to check.

James Conley answers:

Maybe a PCB died on it. Time to call someone out to it I think. Don’t let anybody tell you that because it says Bosch on on the front of it that they are totally reliable, because they ain’t. It took British Gas almost 2 days to repair my 3 year old boiler and like he said afterwards , it would have been simpler to have replaced the whole thing had he known it would have taken so long to sort it all out. He virtually had to replace everything on it. Fortunately I have their *** cover otherwise it would have cost me an arm and a leg for a new boiler+ fitting.
Edit : I do sincerely hope that changing that fuse That Dave suggested cures the problem but by coincidence that was the first thing that the man from British Gas did because it too had blown. But as soon as he replaced it blew it again.