A Maytag Dishwasher That Smells, and the Three Places It Comes From

Why does my maytag dishwasher smell is on the safety list rather than the maintenance list, and the reason is that the conditions producing the smell are the same conditions that grow things in a kitchen nobody can see into.

Why does my Maytag dishwasher smell? What a smell actually needs

Three things: standing water, warmth, and something organic to feed on.

A dishwasher in a South Florida kitchen supplies all three without anybody trying. There is a small amount of water left in the sump by design, so the seals do not dry out. The kitchen is warm. And the machine's entire job is to collect food residue.

That is not a defect and it does not mean the appliance is dirty. It means the appliance is an enclosed damp box, and enclosed damp boxes need attention on a schedule rather than when something goes wrong.

The filter, which is first because it holds the food

It twists out by hand — a quarter turn counter-clockwise, then straight up — and there is usually a flat plate underneath it that lifts out as well.

Rinse both under a hot tap with a soft brush. Then look into the empty sump with a light, because glass chips, produce stickers and small bones collect there below where the filter can catch them.

This is the single most productive thing on the page, because it removes the food that everything else depends on. It is also the item people are most surprised to learn exists.

The door seal fold, which no cycle can reach

The rubber seal around the door has a fold in it, and that fold sits above the water line during the wash. Nothing the machine does ever touches it.

It holds a little water after every load, along with hair, lint and residue. On a machine that has been running for years without anybody wiping it, that fold is where a smell lives permanently, and it is why people can run six cleaning cycles and change nothing.

A cloth, a couple of minutes, and getting into the fold at the bottom edge where the water collects. It is not a pleasant job the first time and it does more than any product.

The drain, which is outside the machine

Under the sink, the dishwasher's drain hose should rise into a high loop before it drops to the waste.

A hose that has slipped and now lies flat lets water from the sink flow back into the machine. That is a permanent source of exactly what this page is about, and no amount of cleaning inside the dishwasher will touch it.

While you are there, run the disposal for thirty seconds before the next cycle. A shared waste with a loaded disposal pushes water back toward the dishwasher rather than away from it.

If the smell is more like a drain than like food, start here rather than at the filter.

When the smell is telling you about a repair

This is the part worth acting on.

A machine that will not stay fresh after all three places have been dealt with is usually a machine that is not emptying properly. Water sitting in the pump, the filter housing or the hose between cycles is a standing reservoir, and cleaning the parts you can see does nothing about it.

The tell is a smell that returns within a day or two of a thorough clean, often with a load that comes out slightly wetter than it should, or standing water above the filter when the door is opened.

At that point it has stopped being a maintenance question. The drain is worth looking at, and it is one of the more straightforward repairs on this appliance.

Why this is on the safety list

It is a fair question, because a smell is not dangerous the way a gas leak is.

It is here because the three conditions that produce it — standing water, warmth and food residue in an enclosed space — are the same conditions that grow mold in the parts of a kitchen nobody can see into. A dishwasher that has been sitting damp for years with a blocked drain is not just unpleasant; it is a small permanently wet environment inside a cabinet run.

The machine itself runs hot enough to handle what its water reaches. The concern is the fold, the hose and the sump, which the water does not reach, and the answer to all three is mechanical rather than chemical.

That is why this page ends with a habit rather than a product.

The habit that prevents most of it

Leave the door ajar between cycles.

A closed dishwasher in a warm kitchen stays damp indefinitely. An open one dries in a few hours, and most of what this page describes never gets established.

It costs nothing, it is the only item here that requires no effort at all, and in this climate it is worth more than everything else on the list put together.