Dishwasher heating element acting up

[soupcxan]

My 3 year old Kenmore Elite dishwasher stopped drying the dishes a few months ago. It would run the drying cycle (indicated by a red status light) but never got hot. I had a tech come out, he checked the heating element, the thermostat, and the fuse but said all were fine. He unplugged it, plugged it back in, and ran it through a self-diagnostic cycle and the heating element came on. For the next month the heater worked fine. A month ago, it stopped again.

I cycled the power but that didn't do anything. Then I ran it through the diagnostic cycle. The heater came on at the end of the diagnostic cycle. I did a regular cycle later that day and heater worked fine.

This morning the heater stopped working again. I'll run it through the diagnostic cycle again, but is the next step to replace the control board? Or something else?

 

[samclem]

Sorry, no idea. These types of intermittent problems are the hardest to troubleshoot. Does the heating element turn on when the machine is in the wash cycle (you can tell because the water in the DW tub will be hotter than it ever is coming out of the tap). When it fails to heat, is there a (safe) way to check to see if the element is receiving power? That would at least tell you if the element was bad (or, since the problem is intermittent, not getting a good connection), or if it was something else. I can think of a "not entirely" safe way to do this.

I never run the "dry" cycle on our dishwasher. If I get a chance, I open the door of the dishwasher when it is done, but even if I don't do that, they seem to be dry by the next morning. Drying uses a lot of energy (esp in the summer, when it also heats up the house and I have to pay to remove that heat), and I don't mind waiting.

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[Senator]

Call Kenmore/Sears. See if they can give you some technical advice.

 

[RunningBum]

Google the symptoms. I did for my Bosch dishwasher and found comments and pictures about a bad solder joint that could easily be fixed. Pulled the circuit board out and saw that I had exactly what was described. Rather than replace the circuit board I did a quick and easy re-solder and it's working great again. Actually I had a knowledgeable friend do it for me, and I should mention there were people here who mentioned that it was risky, that (IIRC) a bad solder job could arc and cause a fire. That's why I didn't try it myself, having never done it before.

 

[frank]

shut off the electricity to the machine and do an ohms test on the element. then you will know if it is or is not the element. sometimes the elements crack and don't fully break for a while.