I have read prior questions/answers on this subject but I never saw anyone post results. My built-in dishwasher smells like "really nasty rotten eggs". The smell is only when in use,but is strong enough that you can smell it outside(windows open). I do not have a garbage disposal nor do I have smelly water. I have disassembled,cleaned,and sanitized everything.I also have pulled it out and checked the insulation for"critters". There is none. I have used baking soda,vinegar,magic dishwasher cleaner,koolaid,and even tried straight bleach(1 cup). To no avail. What am I missing? I did see a post about using 1/2 gallon of bleach,but wouldn't that degrade the plastic insides,rubber seals,hoses,and/or the PVC drain pipe? Won't the bleach smell be terribly strong(I have a little wiener dog that I need to worry about).

How did you run the drain hose? Possibly you are getting sewer gas back through it?

Like Smoothy ask how is the dishwasher line run?

If you don't have an air gap or a high loop in the dishwasher line contaminated drain water can flow back into the dishwasher.

My drain hose runs horizontially across the back of the dishwasher and then curves up and runs 18.5 inches up to connect into the sink drain pipes

That's your problem... it has to go up then down BEFORE it attaches to the drain, usually above and not below the sink P-Trap, you have to recreate the "U" shaped water trap that will block sewer gas.

Smoothy has it. You need a high loop all the way up to the underside of the counter and then down to thesink drain. Somelocales require an air gap instaed of a high loop, both work but both not legal everywhere. Your current drain has no water trap so gas can come back from the sewer

Hi all,

Because the kitchen sink trap keeps sewer gasses out of the sink it also keeps sewer gasses from entering the dishwasher. Most likely, food particles and dirty water are flowing back down the dishwasher drain line as mentioned by hkstroud and this is causing the odors.

Here's a picture detailing the high loop information provided by the others... ;) By installing the high loop, food and dirty water cannot flow by gravity into the dishwasher and water that gets pumped out of the dishwasher stays out of the dishwasher.

This should fix the issue, for sure!

Mark

Thank you, Thank you. With all the information and the picture everyone provided I was able to fix it. It took me a good amount of time, but I did it. You guys made it very easy to understand what to do and how to do it and because I'm more of a visual learner the picture made it so I knew exactly what it should look like when I was done. Thanks again.

:) Thanks for the update!