Read this first
An Almison dishwasher that starts and then stops is usually failing its fill or its drain check rather than suffering a mechanical breakdown. A cycle that runs for hours without ending is a different fault: the machine is waiting for a temperature it cannot reach. Both are diagnosable from the outside before anybody removes a panel.
What owners describe
- Stops within the first few minutes — A fill condition. The machine expected water and did not get enough of it in time.
- Stops with water standing in the tub — A drain condition, and the most common single presentation of this fault.
- Runs far beyond its stated programme time — Waiting on heat. The timer on a dishwasher is a prediction, not a countdown, and it stretches when the water stays cold.
- Completes but leaves the load untouched — The cycle ran without circulating, which points at the wash pump rather than the programme.
- NEAR MISS: pauses silently for a minute mid-programme — Normal soak phases exist on longer programmes and are not a stall.
Causes, most likely first
- Drain restriction: filter, hose or air gap — First, because it is the most common and because everything downstream of a failed drain check gets abandoned by the control.
- Fill restriction: tap, inlet screen or hose kink — Second. A tap somebody closed after a plumbing job accounts for more of these than any part failure.
- Heating element or its sensor — Third. It presents as a cycle that never ends rather than one that stops, which is why the two symptoms are separated above.
- Door latch losing contact under vibration — Fourth. Intermittent, maddening, and identifiable because it stalls at different points rather than the same one.
- Wash pump not circulating — Last of the common causes, and the one where the load comes out untouched by water it never received.
Check them in this order
- Write down the phase it stops in — Everything else on this list is chosen by that answer, so collect it first.
- Check the tap and the inlet hose — Thirty seconds, no tools, and it settles the fill branch outright.
- Lift the filter and pour a jug of water into the sump — If it does not disappear, the drain is your answer.
- Feel the door for the tub temperature late in the cycle — A cold tub on a hot programme moves the heater up the list.
What an owner can safely do
- Confirm the supply tap is fully open — Partly closed taps fill slowly enough to fail a timed check while still filling visibly.
About 5 min
- Strip the filter and clear the sump — Do this before touching the hose. Most drain restrictions are inside the machine rather than beyond it.
Tools: brush, glovesAbout 20 min
- Check the drain hose for a kink or a sag behind the machine — A hose crushed by the machine being pushed back is the classic post-cleaning fault.
Tools: torchAbout 15 min
- Run a short programme and watch the fill — Listen at the start for water arriving. Stop here if the next step is a meter on live terminals.
About 30 min
What can hurt you here
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel — a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. If the machine has stalled with hot water in the tub, let it cool before you bail it out; a full tub late in a programme is hot enough to scald. Bail with a jug rather than tipping the machine forward, and keep the door under control while you do, because a loaded door on a stalled machine is heavier than it feels.
When to call a technician
Call when the fill is proven, the drain runs freely and the machine still abandons its programme, because the remaining candidates are the pressure switch, the pump and the control, and all three want measurement rather than inspection. Call promptly if water is standing in the tub for more than a day, since stagnant water in a warm cabinet becomes a hygiene problem on top of a repair. A machine that stalls in a different place every time usually has a supply or a latch problem rather than a component failure, and that is worth saying to the technician on the phone.
Same problem, other brands
Where this page stops
This page describes the Almison dishwasher class and deliberately stops short of family and model specifics. It lists no programme durations, no sensor resistances and no service sequences, because those differ across builds carrying this badge. Where a family- or model-specific page exists, that is where the programme table and the component layout live, and it is the better answer for a named model. The household drain connection and any air gap fitted to it belong to the plumbing rather than to the appliance.
Other faults on this machine
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
