A dishwasher is a pump, a heater, a pair of valves and a lot of plumbing, and most of what goes wrong with one can be seen from the floor with the kick panel off. The run-through starts there — light in the pan, cycle running — before a single rack is lifted out.
$95 run-through · dishwasher repair labor from $217 · part on its own line · how the money works
Water left in the bottom is the drain path: filter, pump impeller, the check valve, the air gap or the high loop in the drain hose under the sink. A flood-sensor lockout is a leak into the pan, and the technician dries the pan and watches a cycle rather than resetting the alarm and leaving. No fill is the stop valve, the float or the inlet valve. Cloudy glass is water chemistry, not a machine fault — the dose against the water — and the card says so instead of a part that would not change the glasses at all.
The renovated kitchens west of the Wappoo and in Riverland Terrace run panel-front dishwashers — Bosch, Miele, Fisher & Paykel drawers — sunk flush into cabinetry that was fitted to the millimetre. Getting one out without scarring the millwork is careful work and it is planned on the call, not discovered at the door; the crew carries the brackets and the shims to put it back level and anchored, because a dishwasher that rocks on its feet cracks a door seal inside a year.
Water writes the card on this map as much as the machine does. Charleston Water is soft and forgiving; a dishwasher on it that leaves film has been over-dosed. Johns Island and Wadmalaw wells are the opposite — iron, minerals, a filter and a rinse-aid change fixing what a new pump could not. The technician asks which the house is on before the racks come out, and the street book keeps the answer for next time.
The rental and turnover trade on Folly and downtown puts three households’ worth of cycles through the same dishwasher, and a machine that quits in August is far likelier to have a filter clogged with what guests scraped in than a failed pump. Those get the run-through, a clean-out, and a card the manager can forward to the owner unedited. A pump-and-motor assembly on a ten-year-old builder-grade unit gets an honest keep-or-retire line rather than a quote nobody should accept.
The likely, inexpensive cause is measured before the unlikely, expensive one is named.
| What you notice | What gets read first |
|---|---|
| Water left in the bottom | Filter, impeller, check valve, drain hose high loop |
| Flood sensor locks the panel | Dry the pan, run a cycle, find the drip |
| Hums, never fills | Stop valve under the sink, float, inlet valve |
| Cloudy or gritty glasses | Dose against the water; filter; spray arms |
| Toe-kick damp at one corner | Door gasket, hose clamp, pump seal |
| Latch will not start the cycle | Latch switch, door alignment, control |
Because water keeps arriving in the pan. Resetting only silences the alarm; the technician dries the pan, runs a cycle with a light on it and finds the drip — door seal, a hose clamp, a pump seal — before a part is named.
On city water, too much detergent for soft water. On an island well, minerals and iron. Two different fixes, and neither is a new dishwasher; the card names which and the machine is checked while the technician is there anyway.
That is the whole point. The panels and toe-kick come away as a cabinetmaker would handle them, the unit rides out on a runner, and it goes back in level and anchored. The office plans it on the call so the hardware is on the van.
City water writes a dosing card; a well writes a scale card; a Terrace kitchen writes a panel-front card.
Panel-front units in millimetre-fitted cabinetry.
Kitchen-house drains; tenant units by the building.
Tell the office what it is doing; the run-through does the rest.
$95 run-through, any machine, any street on the map · labor from-rates published · parts on their own line