I knew it was going to be a tough job going in... It should have been a quite easy job, that is how I knew it was going to be a tough job. For a several months now @mrsbozz has been mentioning that the drain smelled every time the dishwasher ran. I don't have as sensitive of a nose as her so while I did smell it from time to time, it wasn't super high on my priority list.
After another mention of it smelling the other night, I finally decided to try and do something about it. As you can see, the drain hose runs up the back of the cabinet and then it connects into the garbage disposal on the right hand side of the screen. If you look really close, you can see that the hose is kind of a two tone color.
Fun fact: It isn't supposed to look like that. the part near the top where it is all black is "gunk" that is trapped in the hose. I decided that replacing the hose would be the best thing to try first to see if that fixed the smell.
The only problem was the fact that I couldn't see behind the dishwasher. It was snuggly embedded in the cabinets, so I was kind of going in blind as to how to replace the hose.
I ran to the store and bought a new six foot hose for $16 and headed home to get started.
After cleaning the stuff out from under the sink, I put a bucket under there and disconnected the hose to the garbage disposal. A small amount of water drained into the bucket and trust me when I say, it wasn't pleasant smelling at all!
With the hose disconnected, it was time to get the dishwasher pulled out. There were two small screws that held the dishwasher into the cabinet. With hose gone, I should have been able to easily pull the dishwasher out into the middle of the kitchen floor.
One problem though...
We have a line that runs around the outer edge of the cabinets over to our refrigerator. This provides cold water in the door and feeds the ice maker that is built into the fridge. With that in the way I wasn't able to pull the dishwasher out all the way.
I had to disconnect this line from the cold water line near the garbage disposal and then feed it through that small hole in the photo above.
Next problem: The nut on the water line doesn't fit through the small hole. I had to cut away at the cabinet to make the hole bigger without accidentally cutting the water line. After a good half hour and a bit of cursing, I finally had the water line out of the way.
I finally pulled the dishwasher out only to find that instead of the pump being located near the back of the appliance like I had assumed it was, instead it was located up underneath the dishwasher. This meant I needed to contort my body and my hands to disconnect the old hose and reconnect the new hose. Of course, I wasn't thinking that water would come spilling out of the pump when I disconnected the hose, so sure enough, I ended up with a kitchen floor puddle of nasty smelly water.
As you can see, the hose on this end didn't look much cleaner. It runs up along side the dishwasher to create a kind of air gap. This helps smells from coming back up through your drain. Clearly that wasn't our issue though since we still had smells. The white stuff in the background is an insulation shroud that covers the top and sides of the dishwasher. Since it gets so hot while running a cycle, that protects the cabinets.
When I pulled the old hose out, it quickly became clear that my six foot hose I had bought probably wasn't going to cut it. They had two hoses connected together. When I tried to use the hose I had bought, it was a tight stretch to get it connected back up.
Remember that high loop on the side of the dishwasher? You are supposed to have one under the cabinet as well. Again, this is to help gases from coming back up through the pipes. As you can see in the photo here, there zero if any loop. Yes, it runs high up the back of the cabinet, but then it is a pretty straight shot to the disposal.
I had to run to the hardware store for a second time, buy another $16 hose, and pull the dishwasher back out to get it connected.
I should mention that the dishwasher isn't light and it kept getting hung up on the new linoleum that the previous owners of the house put in. It was about this time that I started questioning why I didn't hire someone to do this.
I'm all for getting my hands dirty and doing something myself, but current @bozz isn't as flexible and durable as younger @bozz used to be. While I only came away with a couple of minor cuts and scratches, this really should have been a two person job for me.
It definitely would have made getting the appliance in and out and removing the old hose from the pump easier.
As you can see, Jovi was enjoying the fact that I wasn't spending my Saturday on the couch watching basketball and she was little to no help at all. Not even a bit of moral support from her.
This is a blurry picture of the second hose I bought. I also bought a "coupleer" to help connect it to the other new hose.
With an extra six feet of hose, I was able to create a significantly improved high loop along the back wall of the cabinet. In fact, I went a bit above and beyond creating a low loop after the high loop before finally running into the garbage disposal.
After moving the dishwasher back in place for a second time, I realize that the refrigerator water line from before was stuck behind the middle foot of the dishwasher. I had to pull it out one more time to get it back in place properly so it wasn't cutting across the middle of the cabinet.
Needless to say, what I hoped would be a quick 1 hour job ended up taking most of the day.
Here are some more shots of the old line so you can see just how gross it was:
Talk about nasty! It was so gross and I immediately threw it in the trash bin for pick up on Tuesday morning. It was almost like a biohazard. Is should have been wearing PPE I think!
With the new hose in place, we ran a cleaning cycle on the dishwasher. I left the stuff out of the cabinets and the front kick plate off the dishwasher so I could check for leaks. Much to my surprise there were none.
Only time will tell now if this took care of the smell. I think we still have another issue with the drain that might be contributing to our problem. If that is the case, I will likely just hire a plumber to take over from there! I'm getting too old for this!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
