Dishwasher Smells Like Rotten Eggs? DIY Fix
After having seamlessly cleaned your dishes for a while, your dishwasher has finally begun to break down and has started emitting the foulest odor possible. No matter how many canisters of Febreze you spray, you can never get rid of the rotten egg smell that your dishwasher has been emitting.
However, you don’t need to fret about replacing your dishwasher – with a few simple processes; you can get your dishwasher to be as good as new. And most importantly, you can get rid of the smell that has plagued your entire household.
Here, you can find the most common reasons why your dishwasher has started to stink and what you can do to fix it – so if you’ve been wondering, “why does my dishwasher smell like rotten eggs?” you can get your answers here. While getting your dishwasher to not stink may require you to manually check and deep-clean all the components of your dishwasher, it is definitely worth it.
When Does A Dishwasher Smell Like Rotten Eggs?
1. Dirty Filter
It is common knowledge that stagnant water pooled anywhere can stink up the surrounding area, and that’s definitely true for your dishwasher as well. The filter for your dishwasher, if not cleaned regularly, can contribute to why your dishwasher smells like rotten eggs. This is one of the reason why your dishwasher smells like eggs.
Particles of food or other sources of grime can clog up the filter, making it impossible for the water to flow freely. This also results in the channel of your dishwasher filter being blocked, which then results in your dishwasher stinking over time – while also being unable to function properly.
2. Incorrectly Looped Drain Hose
There are a number of ways in which you can install your drain hose incorrectly with your dishwasher. While installing your dishwasher, all its components should be double-checked to ensure they’re installed and functioning properly – especially your drain hose.
If your drain hose is connected to the drainpipe of your kitchen before the P-trap, for instance, it would mean that your kitchen is not protected against sewer gases in any way. A way to fix this is to disconnect your hose from the sink’s tailpiece and then connect it appropriately once again.
It is also possible that your drain hose is not looped high – automatically allowing backwash to stagnate in the hose and give off that dishwasher rotten egg smell that you’ve been getting from your dishwasher. This can be fixed easily when you have a high hole where the drain hose can enter, automatically getting that high loop for your drain hose.
3. Hard water Limescale Deposits
Having limescale buildup in the crevices of your dishwasher can often be what is causing your dishwasher to stink up a storm in your kitchen. The general quality of what area you’re living in can affect the durability of your dishwasher.
And if most of the water you get is hard water, then it is easy for hard water minerals such as magnesium carbonates and calcium to form deposits on various components of your dishwasher. These deposits may form over the heating elements or even the water jets, which can then mean that bacteria is not kept at bay – ultimately damaging your dishwasher.
How to Fix the Dishwasher Rotten Egg Smell?
1. Ensure A Proper High Loop
As said before, ensuring a proper high loop for your drain hose can make a huge difference in terms of getting rid of that bad odor if your dishwasher smells like eggs. If you’re unable to manage a high loop for your drain hose, it is best to position it in a way that it does not resemble an upright U-shape for your drain hose since the dip of the drain hose may mean that dirty water and grime is collecting in the dip and giving off odors over time.
It is best to ensure that the drain hose does not have any part of it drooping down to allow for grime collection.
2. Clean the Drain Filter
In order to ensure that your dishwasher does not stink in the future, it is best to clean all components of it from time to time – especially the drain filter. As mentioned before, the drain filter may have particles of food or other forms of dirt stuck to it over time, making it harder for the water to be filtered out seamlessly and thus resulting in the odor from the combination of dirty water and grime.
To fix this, all you need to do is clean your drain filter frequently with the helping of a hard scrubbing brush, some cleaning agent, and water once you have removed the filter from the dishwasher. Along with the drain, you must also unclog garbage disposal and clean the air gap.
3. Clean the Drain Pipe
One of the most prevalent sources of odor from your dishwasher that can result from your drainpipe is a clogged or unclean pipe. The buildup of grime and dirty water can affect your drain pipe the most, and it may be tricky cleaning it up if the gunk stuck inside the drainpipe is brown or has been building up for a while.
However, this problem can be tackled by using a drain cleaner that can automatically clean up a drain pipe. With a drain cleaner, all you have to do is pour it down the cleaning agent compartment of the dishwasher and set it to its lowest frequency.
It is best to run the dishwasher for around 8 hours with this drain cleaning agent inside since it can seamlessly clean up your drainpipe and render it free of dirt.
It is possible to soak the drainpipe in a cleaning agent and then rinse it with hot water to get rid of grime further with every hot water rinse. You can choose to use the drainpipe cleaner as a preventative measure to ensure that your dishwasher does not stink in the near future.
4. Scrape Off Visible Calcium Deposits
Calcium or limestone deposits, as said before, are quite harmless – but can be fatal for the durability of your dishwasher. Suppose the quality of the water you receive is predominantly hard water. In that case, it is best to either use a water softener and make sure that it works efficiently or get rid of the calcium deposits whenever they form.
Suppose you see any visible calcium deposits when you’re scraping all the components of your dishwasher clean. In that case, you can rid of them by firmly scraping them away with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar.
Also Read:
Final Thoughts
While your dishwasher can make your daily chores exponentially easier, it is important that you must take care of them to ensure that they’re functioning efficiently. As you’ve seen above, neglecting your dishwasher can result in a horde of problems for you and your kitchen at large – especially when your dishwasher stinks like rotten eggs.
With the aforementioned reasons, you can troubleshoot which component of your dishwasher may be causing the odor to stink up your kitchen and get rid of the problem accordingly. You can also take preventative measures to avoid the dishwasher grime odor from ever stinking up your kitchen.
Dishwasher stinks like rotten eggs is just one of the many problems that you might face! We’ve broken down some of the most frequently observed anomalies in dishwashers and suggested suitable DIY solutions in Dishwasher FAQs write-up.
