Our dishwasher, which is only about 5 years old, has been finishing its cycle with quite a bit of water in the bottom that doesn't drain. The water stays that way for several days or more. Is there a Drain-o like product that's safe for use in dishwashers? Or should I take it apart and clean out some filter or something myself? How would I go about doing this?
I should mention that we're pretty bad about carefully rinsing our dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, so I'm pretty sure the problem is with the filter or whatever takes the solid matter out of the drained water. We've been using Cascade Complete, which claims to allow you to skip the rinsing phase, but apparently it doesn't work quite as well as advertised.
Best Answer
At the botton of the dishwasher, there's probably a basket-like cover over the drain. You should be able to pop that off, and under there you'll find a nice collection of disgusting bits.
I used a turkey baster to blast a lot of it loose, then scooped the resulting soup into a bucket, but next time I'll just use a wet-dry shop vac.