An effective dishwasher can leave your dishes sparkling clean while freeing you from manual dish washing, but installing one requires careful consideration to all water, electrical and drain connections.
Before commencing, switch off both your electricity at the circuit breaker and your water source valve underneath your sink. Carefully tip over and unbolt your unit from its stand before opening its front access panel to make all connections more accessible.
Preparation
As part of installing a new dishwasher, the initial step should involve setting up your workspace. Make sure power is turned off at your kitchen’s breaker box, and place a bath towel or piece of cardboard under cabinet opening to protect flooring from potential water damage.
If your dishwasher is powered via power cord instead of direct wiring, take these steps: remove the terminal box cover and install a UL-listed metallic strain relief. Feed your power cord through it while threading through black wire through strain relief with wire nuts connected via black/white wiring to black/white terminal box wires; connect green grounding wires using wire nuts either directly to green screw in terminal box or green wire on power cord (for grounding purposes).
Switch off and drain the existing dishwasher’s water supply line, saving any parts from old copper water lines or the 90-degree elbow fitting attached to water valves for future reuse. If possible, keep any nuts and rings from old copper water lines that might still work as part of an installation, as well as 90-degree elbow fittings attached to water valves as reusable items.
Installation
Installing or replacing a dishwasher requires basic plumbing and electrical knowledge as well as some physical labor, so it is wise to leave this task to professionals in order to prevent water or electricity mishaps that could cause irreparable damage to counters, cabinets or flooring surfaces.
Start by turning off both power and water supplies to your dishwasher cabinet, before taking steps to disconnect its wiring and water connections by taking steps such as opening its access panel at the bottom. Finally, place a bowl underneath any connections where there might be leakage of fluid to catch any possible spillage of liquid.
As with most appliances, a braided stainless steel water-supply line connects directly to an elbow fitting on your dishwasher’s water inlet valve, while its drain hose typically connects directly to either your sink pipe or garbage disposal system. An air gap installation requires creating a properly-sized hole in your sink top — punch-out plugs may come included with your appliance — before you connect and secure all electrical wires using twist-on wire connectors before reconnecting water and drain hoses.
Testing
Installing a dishwasher can be an efficient and labour-saving appliance that conserves both energy and water resources. For optimal performance, install it according to its manufacturer’s instructions as well as local plumbing codes.
Before installing your dishwasher, turn off electricity at the circuit breaker and close off water supply valve beneath your sink. It is vital that this be done since even small leakages from a leaky dishwasher could do irreparable damage to both kitchens and floors.
Make sure the copper water line can easily slide into the threaded portion of an elbow. Otherwise, its compression nut won’t seal properly and your dishwasher could leak.
Feed the drain hose of your dishwasher through the hole in your cabinet and connect it to either your garbage disposal or sink tail pipe, depending on local plumbing codes. If desired, loop up and create an air gap so as to prevent dirty water from siphoning back into your machine.
Maintenance
Before installing your new dishwasher, switch off both electricity and water supply at the circuit breaker. Next, place a bowl or rag under any connections for any leaks to collect them, unhook its drain line that runs to an under-sink drain pipe, unhook its drain line connection to a garbage disposal system drain pipe and disconnect its power cord from its connectors.
If your dishwasher uses a direct-wire power cord instead of plug, take extra care when installing. Remove the terminal box cover and run your cable through a UL-listed metal strain relief. Connect each black, white and green wire to its terminal using twist-on wire connectors secured with wire nuts – this should ensure proper power to all parts.
First, connect a stainless steel braided water-supply hose from the shut-off valve to an elbow fitting on your dishwasher (Photo 1). Next, disconnect any existing drain hoses connected to sink drains or garbage disposal tail pieces and connect them directly to the drain outlet on your new dishwasher using hose clamps (Photos 2 and 3).