Sevy's Profile

The base of my 16 year old Asko 1705 kept flooding (pumping out continuously), in fact it's been doing it for years, at first just once in a while then more frequently. We replaced the bottom door seal, to no avail. Got sick of disconnecting all the hoses and pulling the dishwasher out to dry the base, no front access on this model, so we drilled a hole in the base and put a tray underneath (yes I know, but it's easier to empty a tray).

Upon returning home from a 4 month overseas trip things took a turn for the worse. It would fill but the timer wouldn't progress to wash unless we manually turned the knob. At this point we were pricing a new dishwasher.

After a couple of washes with me being the timer it started going into a loop. At start-up it seemed to take a very long time to fill, then stop and immediately pump out again, it would fill and pump out repeatedly without progressing to a wash cycle. I eventually came to the conclusion it was overfilling and had been doing so to some extent for quite a few years.

Reading comments from people who are appliance repairers saying the pressure switch rarely needs replacing but the tubing to it sometimes clogs, I started looking for a blockage between the inside of the dishwasher and the pressure switch. I think ours actually has 2 pressure switches (round electrical component with lots of wires connected to it and a little black rubber hose that runs from it to the back of the plastic sump where the water sits inside the bottom of the dishwasher). I unplugged the 2 little back hoses from the back of the sump and inspected them, they looked clean and dry.

I removed the grate and filter from inside the dishwasher and sponged the water from the sump, then I looked for the path the water takes to the pressure switch. Turns out there is a blind cavity at the back of the sump, at the top of which the two little rubber hoses connect. The only access to this cavity is a hole in the bottom of the sump facing the rear (the other two holes are left:pump, right:drain).

When I poked my finger up into the opening I could feel slimy gunk inside. With no way of accessing to clean the inside of the cavity I dragged the garden hose into the house. After unplugging the little black hoses from the back so as not to blow dirt into the sensors I poked the trigger hose into the hole in the sump and let it have it. Lots of black gunk came out, I was intermittently mopping the water out of the sump and giving it bursts with the hose until no more dirt came out.

After replacing the hoses and the filters I ran it through 2 full cycles with no problems. That was 2 weeks ago and I've washed dishes with it 5 times. It makes me wonder if I had regularly used a dishwasher cleaner over the years would that have kept the cavity clean and the sensors working? Anyway I hope this helps someone else. We love our Asko, it's been a great machine, I'm glad we didn't give up on it.