Water out · 7 of 21
Viking Dishwasher Leaking at the Door
A thin wet line on the floor across the width of the door, and nothing at the sides.
| What you can see | What it usually is | Whose job |
|---|---|---|
| Water on the floor in a line the width of the door | The bottom run of the seal has flattened and no longer touches the frame once the tub is full | Ours |
| Drips at one lower corner and nowhere else | A short length of rubber has been crushed out of shape, often where something was leaned against the open door | Ours |
| Suds creeping out along the bottom edge | More foam than the tub can hold, lifting past a seal that would otherwise cope with it | Yours — change what goes in the dispenser |
| A wet strip that only turns up on the longer programmes | The seal holds while the water is cold and gives up once the wash warms and the load starts moving it about | Ours |
A door that leaks does it from one short section of its seal, and in a dry climate that section is usually the bottom corner where the rubber has taken a permanent set. Water finds the shortfall long before anybody notices the seal has gone flat. Viking Repair Denver reads the seal the way the machine loads it, on (303) 729-0972.
The seal round the door of this machine is one length of moulded rubber pressed into a channel, and it works by pushing back. Everything about a door leak comes down to whether it still can.
Why a seal gives up here before it wears out
Kitchens in this city sit in dry air for most of the year, and the air inside a machine that is not running is drier still. Rubber left like that stiffens, and it keeps whatever shape it was held in. So the strip along the bottom, where a closed door squeezes hardest, is the first to go flat and stay flat. Nothing has torn and nothing has perished. The seal has simply stopped reaching the frame by the small margin that mattered, and the first properly full tub finds the shortfall.
What gets changed, and what does not
The seal comes out and goes back as one piece. It does not get trimmed, packed out from behind or glued, because all three of those come back within a month. If the rubber still stands proud of its channel and springs back under a thumb, it stays where it is and the leak gets chased somewhere else: a door hanging low in its opening, a latch that pulls hard on one side and barely on the other, or foam riding up the inside of the door because the dispenser is being loaded with the wrong thing. Rubber is cheap and quick to fit, which is exactly why it keeps getting fitted to leaks it was never causing.
What to try before anyone drives over
- Trap a narrow strip of paper under the closed door at the bottom corner, then tug on it. Nothing holding it means the rubber has stopped gripping at that spot; note which corner, and say so when you ring.
- Run a fingertip right round the seal and feel for a stretch that is stiff, glossy or squashed flat compared with the rest of it.
- Wipe the seal and the frame it lands on, then run a short programme and watch the floor. Grease on the face of good rubber will leak all by itself.
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 corner of the door went wet first — 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