The short answer
On an ADB dishwasher, water that will not drain is most often the installation rather than the appliance, which is why a machine that has never drained properly since the day it was fitted is a different problem from one that stopped last week. The causes below are in likelihood order, cheapest first; working down that order costs less than starting with the part that sounds most alarming.
What you actually observe
- Dirty water is left in the bottom and the dishes are gritty too — Soil is being recirculated because the filter and sump are loaded.
- A hum or buzz at the point in the cycle where it should drain — The pump is being asked to run and cannot move water.
- Water backs up into the sink when the machine drains — A shared drain restriction rather than an appliance fault.
- The machine fills but nothing washes — NEAR MISS: that is a wash-pressure problem and belongs on the cleaning page.
- Body: The ADB listings carry a masked suffix in the spine, so the trailing characters on your rating plate will differ from the table without changing the diagnosis.
Ranked causes on these ADB models
- 1. A loaded filter and sump — It is first because it is the commonest single answer, it needs no tools, and it is also the cause that makes every other symptom worse while it is left alone. It leads across the ADB revisions because the drain path is one of the things the revision numbers left alone.
- 2. A drain connection that was never opened — A food-waste disposer arrives with the dishwasher inlet blanked off. Second on ADB because an installation fault shows from the first cycle, so a machine that once worked properly points above this line first.
- 3. Something jamming the drain pump — It is owner-reachable on some machines and not on others, and it is where the risk of cut fingers is highest, so treat the sump as full of broken glass every time.
- 4. The waste line beyond the machine — If the sink backs up when the machine drains, the restriction is in the shared waste rather than in the appliance, and nothing done inside the machine will help.
Check in this order on the ADB platform
- 1. Lift out the filter and look at what is under it — The commonest answer, and it costs nothing but a minute.
- 2. Ask whether a disposer was fitted at the same time — If the machine has never drained, this one question is usually the whole diagnosis.
- 3. Listen at the drain step for a hum with no flow — A hum without water is a jam; silence is a different fault.
Before you open anything
Safety
Isolate first: unplug the machine or switch off its breaker before a hand goes into the sump, and treat a capacitor as charged after the power is off. Broken glass collects exactly where the water sits, so work with a cloth, and keep the machine off while there is standing water inside it. Where a step below depends on which ADB listing you own, the table above is the reference; nothing here is written from a model outside it.
Models in the ADB family — The listings this family covers; it is a family page, not a model page.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| ADB1100AW**-02 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF** | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-05 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-06 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-07 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-08 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-09 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-10 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-11 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-12 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-13 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1300AF**-14 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1400AG** | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1400AM** | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1400AM**-01 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1400AM**-02 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1400AM**-03 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1500AD** | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1500AD**-01 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1500AD**-02 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1500AD**-03 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1500AD**-04 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1500AD**-05 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1500AD**-06 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1500AM** | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1700AD** | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1700AD**-02 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
| ADB1700AD**-03 | amana:dishwasher:adb |
When to call a technician
Call when the filter, the hose, the disposer connection and the household drain are all clean and the sump still holds water, or as soon as the drain step is silent rather than straining. Both leave only the pump and its control.
The other symptoms covered for this family
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
