Water in · 9 of 21
Cycle Runs for Hours
A wash that used to finish in the evening and is still going at bedtime.
| What you can see | What it usually is | Whose job |
|---|---|---|
| Longer than it used to be, but only in the cold months | The supply is arriving cold and the machine is spending the extra time bringing it up | Nothing to fix; it comes back in spring |
| Long all year, and slowly getting longer | The heating side is furring over, so the same work takes a little more time every month | Ours |
| It never seems to end and the load comes out cool | The machine is waiting on heat that is not arriving at all, so the cycle will not move on | Ours |
| Long washes that began after the sink was replaced | The machine has been left on the cold feed, so every wash now starts from the bottom | Ours, with a plumber for the feed |
In midwinter the water reaching the machine has travelled through ground that is frozen at the top, and it arrives in the tub far colder than the same water does in summer. Everything the cycle does with heat then takes longer, and a wash that used to be done before bed no longer is. Viking Repair Denver on (303) 729-0972 will tell you which half of that is the house.
A dishwasher cycle is not a fixed length of time. It is a list of things that have to happen before the machine will move on, and one of those things is heat.
Why the calendar changes the answer
Water leaving the main in the cold months has spent longer in colder ground than the same water does in July, and a kitchen tap that used to run warm almost at once now runs cold for a good while first. The machine takes what it is given and then has to make up the difference before the wash amounts to anything. That work does not announce itself on the front of the appliance; it shows up on the clock in the kitchen. A wash that has grown by an hour since the first hard freeze and shrinks again in spring is a machine behaving itself in difficult conditions.
What is worth changing and what is not
The cycle that has been lengthening all year is the one to look at. Furring on the heating side is slow and cumulative, the same job taking a little more time each month until something gives up altogether, and that is a repair with a part in it. So is a machine that runs on and on and still turns out a cool load, because that is heat which is not arriving at all. What does not get changed is a machine whose only sin is the season. Running the hot tap at the sink before you press start costs nothing and hands most of that time straight back.
What to try before anyone drives over
- Run the hot tap at the kitchen sink until it is properly hot before you start a wash, then see whether the wash comes in shorter.
- Compare it against the same programme in summer if you can remember one. A machine that is only slow in the cold is coping, not failing.
- Pick the shortest setting on the panel and time it against the clock. If even that one runs away, the trouble is heat rather than the programme.
That is as far as it goes without tools. If it is still wrong, call Viking Repair Denver on (303) 729-0972 and say which programme you chose and roughly how long it took — it is usually enough to know which part is coming on the van.
Every symptom, grouped by what you can see Water in, water out, cleaning, power and the door — the whole library on one page.
Clifford Nakamura
- Written
- On the van
- Service technician — controls and intermittent faults
- Years at it
- 22 years in the trade