Dotcom Handyman

Last weekend was pretty good, very relaxing and laid back. The only exception was Saturday when I tried to repair the dishwasher. It is about 5 years old and was never even close to top of the line, but I think it is a little too soon to give up on it. Plus I have no intention of spending $400+ to replace it if I can I avoid it. The problem with it right now is that it is stuck in the rinse cycle, you can try to use the reset/cancel function but nothing happens. The dishwasher just keeps cycling the water and after a few minutes starts beeping at you.

The first thing I tried to do was hold the cancel button for a couple of minutes and see if that would do it. No luck. So then I thought maybe it’s clogged so I checked the screen, again not the problem. The next thought to come to my head was to try to empty the water – maybe that would trigger a sensor – to attempt to force it to the dry cycle. Nope. Well now I was much more determined to get something to happen. I went to the old standby… Take it apart and put it back together and cross you fingers. Nope that didn’t work either. Crap now what. I didn’t want to give up so I figured what the heck lets check online.

Armed with the model number and the symptoms of the problems I went to everyone’s internet friend Google. Actually I initially went to GE’s website and found out their support section simply tries to sell you extended warranties (I assure you this is the last GE product I will purchase if I can help it). After only 20-30 minutes of looking at online repair guides I found a really good handyman forum. Yep even handymen now leverage the internet to gain knowledge from one another. Within a few more minutes I found an entry from someone who had almost the same problem 2 years ago on a model that was only a digit off from my dishwasher. As it was from the same line and used the same parts I concluded that I must be having a similar issue. I was then linked over to a parts warehouse and able to order the part online!! The whole processes took less time than the troubleshooting I had already done.

Now I haven’t made the repair yet, the part should arrive by next Friday when I get home. Therefore the story will continue. What amazes me the most is that I didn’t get the information from a repair manual, a repair man, a service shop, a help line, a dealer, or at the local hardware store; no I found the answer to a pretty tricky repair at an online forum. It is still to be told whether or not the information was correct. I will update the blog with an answer next week.