Dishwasher door suddenly stiff?

peking97

Dishwasher is Zanussi ZDT41 from about 2012 vintage and just in the last few days the door has suddenly become stiff to open/close. I sprayed WD40 around the hinges as best I could but no real improvement. Any ideas please?

The Red Ace

You will need to remove the side panels and do an inspection, the hinges are connected to the springs either by cord or wire attachment and assisted by rollers etc. Generally a spray of grease will resolve the situation but you could also have a broken spring or other restricting movement.

colm_mcm

If it’s fully integrated you may have cams screwed onto the wooden door that the dishwasher door runs along. These may need lubrication.

peking97

On closer inspection it appears the hinges are OK but it is the cabinet door that is the source of the problem! It is fouling on the cabinet frame or body. (not sure of the correct names!). It's almost as if the door itself has swollen! Don't know how this could have happened??

The Red Ace

Integrated d/ws can be difficult to set up perfectly especially if the floor is not tiled in under them completely, you could try removing the kicker board and tweaking the adjustable feet, if you have a level check it to see if it is out of plum. Very unusual for the cabinet to swell at the sides but worktops do

colm_mcm

peking97 wrote: »

On closer inspection it appears the hinges are OK but it is the cabinet door that is the source of the problem! It is fouling on the cabinet frame or body. (not sure of the correct names!). It's almost as if the door itself has swollen! Don't know how this could have happened??

If it’s MDF it could easily have swollen.

peking97

Mystery solved!

Turns out the adjacent cupboard includes the outlet from the sink and had developed a leak which remained undetected for some time. This resulted in the bottom shelf swelling due to the increased moisture content in the MDF which in turn resulted in the side moving closer to the dishwasher cabinet which caused the problem! So a leak from the sink caused the stiff door operation!.....now to see how to sort it....??

colm_mcm

Is there any other door in the kitchen the same size you can swap onto the dishwasher?

peking97

Yes there is but the door itself hasn't swollen. It's the adjoining cabinet side-panel that has been pushed outwards by the shelf which has indeed swollen.
I suspect the only real solution is to replace the shelf if extended drying does not work.